14. the Children in the Wood: a 'pathetic afterpiece" by Thomas Morton (1764-1838). In another play he invented Mrs. Grundy.

15. Rosalind in As You Like It; Viola: in Twelfth Night. PAGE 262.

16. "lusty brimmers Mr. Cotton: in Lamb's essay on "New Year's Eve" he used the phrase "hearty, cheerful Mr. Cotton," and quoted a poem by him, The New Year, which contains the lines:

Then let us welcome the New Guest

With lusty brimmers of the best.

Charles Cotton (1630–1687) is known as a poet, the translator of Montaigne's Essais, and the continuator of Walton's Compleat Angler.

PAGE 263.

17. Crœsus: the fabulously wealthy King of Lydia in the sixth century B.C. 18. great Jew R—: probably Nathan Meyer Rothschild (1777-1836), the founder of the English branch of the famous banking family.

POOR RELATIONS

Note the conformity of the first two paragraphs of this essay to the pattern of the seventeenth-century "characters."

PAGE 264.

I. Agathocles' pot: Agathocles, who became Tyrant of Syracuse, was the son of a humble potter.

2. a Mordecai in your gate: Esther iii, 2.
3. a Lazarus at your door: Luke xvi, 20.
4. a lion in your path: 1 Kings xiii, 24.
5. a frog in your chamber: Exodus viii, 3.
6. a fly in your ointment: Ecclesiastes x, I.
7. a mote in your eye: Matthew vii, 3.

8. the one thing not needful: Luke x, 42.

9. the hail in harvest: Proverbs xxvi, 1; the phrase there, however, is "rain in harvest."

PAGE 265.

10. tide waiter: customs inspector.

PAGE 266.

II. aliquando sufflaminandus erat: the Latin equivalent of the preceding phrase," He may require to be repressed sometimes."

12. Richard Amlet: a character in the comedy The Confederacy, by Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726).

13. Poor W78 to page 220.

PAGE 267.

: the F (Favel) of "Christ's Hospital"; see note

14. servitor's gown: a servitor is at Oxford a student partly supported by the college; the corresponding term at Cambridge is "sizar." It was formerly the duty of such students to wait at table.

15. Nessian venom: Hercules was killed by wearing a shirt that had been dipped in the poisonous blood of the centaur Nessus.

16. Latimer . . . Hooker: Hugh Latimer (1485-1555), Bishop of Worcester and powerful in the English Reformation, had been a sizar at Cambridge, and Richard Hooker (cir. 1553-1600), the famous theologian, a servitor at Oxford.

PAGE 268.

17. Artist Evangelist: St. Luke, according to tradition, was a painter as well as a physician.

18. like Satan, "knew his mounted sign- and fled": see Paradise Lost, iv, 1013-1015.

PAGE 269.

19. at Lincoln: the Lambs came from Lincolnshire.

20. young Grotiuses: Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), the famous Dutch jurist, wrote De Jure Belli et Pacis.

THE SUPERANNUATED MAN

The account of himself that Lamb gives in this essay is substantially true to fact, except that he had actually been employed in the East India House instead of by a private firm. On March 29, 1825, after thirty-three years of service, he was retired on an annual pension of £441.

PAGE 271.

I. Motto: "Freedom has at last looked upon me": somewhat adapted from Virgil's Eclogues i, 28.

2. O'Keefe: John O'Keefe (1747–1833), a prolific writer of light stage pieces.

3. Mincing Lane: a London street, the center of the colonial trade.

PAGE 272.

4. native fields of Hertfordshire: Lamb was a Londoner born and bred, but his mother was from Hertfordshire and he had frequently visited his grandmother in that county. See "Mackery End."

5. the wood had entered into my soul: "The iron entered into his soul." - Psalm cv, 18 (Prayer-book version).

PAGE 273.

6. L: the Lacy, as B——— is the Boldero of "the house of Boldero, Merryweather, Bosanquet, and Lacy." Under the disguise of a private firm of merchants are represented the directors of the India House.

PAGE 274.

7. Esto perpetua: Be thou perpetual.

8. Old Bastile: the infamous state prison in Paris, stormed by the Revolutionary mob on July 14, 1789.

I know no more the way to temporal rule,

Than he that's born and has his years come to him

In a rough desert.

The lines are from The Mayor of Quinborough, I, i, 102-103, a comedy by Thomas Middleton (1570–1627).

PAGE 275.

...

10. passage in a Tragedy by Sir Robert Howard: from The Vestal Virgin, V, i. Sir Robert Howard (1626–1698) was Dryden's brother-inlaw, and his collaborator in the Indian Queen.

PAGE 276.

II. Ch

Do

Pl- : Chambers, probably Dodwell (possibly Dowley), and Plumley, three of Lamb's colleagues at the India House.

12. a Gresham or a Whittington: Sir Thomas Gresham (d. 1579) founded the Royal Exchange. Sir Richard Whittington (d. 1423), the hero of popular tales, was thrice Lord Mayor of London.

13. Aquinas St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), an Italian theologian and scholastic philosopher, the first printed edition of whose works filled seventeen folio volumes.

14. Carthusian: the Carthusians are a very strict monastic order, whose principal monastery was until recently at Chartreux, France.

PAGE 277.

15. Elgin marbles: the finest existing collection of ancient Greek sculptures. They were brought by Lord Elgin from Athens to England about 1800 and placed in the British Museum.

16. cantle piece, slice.

17. Lucretian pleasure: Lucretius (d. 55 B.C.) was a Roman philosophical poet. The reference here is to the opening lines of Book II of De Rerum Natura:

Suave, mari magno turbantibus æquora ventis,
E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem.

Bacon, in his essay "Of Truth," roughly translates:

'It is a pleasure to

stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea." 18. carking: being concerned, anxious.

PAGE 278.

19. "As low as to the fiends": see Hamlet, II, ii, 519.

20. Retired Leisure: see Milton's Il Penseroso, 49–50.

21. cum dignitate: dignified—from the phrase otium cum dignitate, dignified leisure.

22. Opus operatum est: My work is finished. The phrase is probably employed here for the sake of the pun on opera."

PAGE 279.

JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT

AUTUMNAL COMMENCEMENT OF FIRES

I. "the web of our life," etc.: see All's Well that Ends Well, IV, iii, 83-84.

2. Theocritus: (third century B.C.), the famous Greek idyllic and pastoral poet.

3. Petrarch: Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), the first great poet of the Renaissance in Italy.

4. Ariosto Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533), a great Italian poet of the Renaissance; his chief work is the Orlando Furioso.

5. Montaigne: see Introduction, pages xi-xvi.

6. Marcus Aurelius: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180), a celebrated Roman emperor and the author of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. 7. Molière: the stage name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin (1622–1673), the greatest French writer of comedies.

8. Poussin Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), a famous French landscape and historical painter.

9. Raphael: Raphael Sanzio (1483–1520), a great Italian painter, especially of religious subjects.

PAGE 280.

10. great bed at Ware: a bed about twelve feet square, in an inn at Ware in Hertfordshire; it is referred to in Twelfth Night, III, ii, 51.

II. Hounslow Heath: formerly a waste tract on the great Western Road from London, haunted by highwaymen.

*

12. Archbishop of Toledo

Marquis Marialva: probably the Archbishop of Granada and the Marquis de Marialva are meant; Gil Blas served both of these as secretary; see Gil Blas, Bk. VII, chaps. ii-xi.

PAGE 281.

13. Duodenarian: apparently coined by Hunt, as an epithet denoting small means, from duo denarii, twopence.

14. Montaigne "of that ilk": Montaigne, lord of the estate of Montaigne.

15. And let my lamp at midnight hour," etc.: Il Penseroso, 85–92.

PAGE 282.

GETTING UP ON COLD MORNINGS

I. Giulio Cordara: Giulio Cesare Cordara (1704-1785), an Italian poet and historiographer of the Jesuits.

PAGE 283.

2. decumbency: lying down, as " incumbency" is etymologically lying in ; see "incumbent," p. 284.

3. "haled "out of their "beds," etc.: see Paradise Lost, ii, 596.

PAGE 284.

4. the Queen of France. . . that degenerate King: Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122?-1204), wife of Louis VII of France and later of Henry II of England. Louis VII, "The Pious" (cir. 1120-1180), had shaved his beard in obedience to an archiepiscopal edict.

5. Emperor Julian: Julian the Apostate, Roman emperor, 361–363. 6. Cardinal Bembo: Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), a celebrated Italian man of letters.

7. Michael Angelo: Michelagnolo Buonarroti (1475-1564), the most famous Italian artist — sculptor, painter, architect, and poet.

8. Titian: Tiziano Vecelli (1477?-1576), the great Venetian painter. 9. Fletcher: John Fletcher, Beaumont's collaborator; see note 23 to page 249.

10. Haroun al Raschid: Caliph of Bagdad (786–809); a great Eastern sovereign, known in the West, however, chiefly through the Arabian Nights. II. Bed-ridden Hassan: Bedreddin Hassan, the son of Noureddin Ali, in the Arabian Nights tale of that name.

12. Wortley Montague: Edward Wortley Montagu (1713–1776), English writer and traveler, son of the more famous Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762), the traveler, letter-writer, and poetess of "the Town."

13. "Sweetly recommends itself," etc.: Macbeth, I, vi, 2–3.