comprising six hundred and twenty books, and embrace almost all branches of knowledge.

181 22-23. the only landed property, etc.: a piece of humorous fabrication.

182 11-12. Rowe's Shakespeare: this edition was brought out in 1709 by Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718) and Jacob Tonson (1656?-1736). Rowe was poet laureate and author of Jane Shore, Ulysses, The Fair Penitent, and other tragedies. Tonson was a well-known London bookseller and publisher.

182 25. Artaxerxes (1762): an opera by Thomas Augustine Arne (1710-1778), a London composer and author of the operas "Britannia," "Eliza," and the oratorios "Abel" and "Judith."

183 3. Harlequin: originally a conventional clown, the servant of Pantaloon, in the improvised Italian comedy. He was noted for his agility and gluttony, and carried a sword of lath. In English pantomime he was dignified and made popular by the acting of Rich, O'Brien, Grimaldi, and Woodward. He hardly exists now save in Christmas pantomimes and puppet shows.

1837. the legend of St. Denys: Saint Denys was the apostle to the Gauls, and was beheaded, it is said, at Paris, 272 A.D. He is the patron saint of France, and is represented in paintings as bearing his own head in his hands.

183 11. Lun: so John Rich (1692-1761), who introduced pantomime, called himself when he performed Harlequin.

183 20-21. the Way of the World (1700): a comedy by William Congreve (1670-1729).

183 22-23. Lady Wishfort: an irritable, decayed beauty, who painted and enameled her face to make herself look blooming, and was afraid to frown lest the enamel might crack. At the age of threescore she assumed all the coy airs of a girl of sixteen. See The Way of the World.

184 26-27. to crop some unreasonable expectations: Mr. Fitzgerald points out that in John Forster's copy this is altered in Lamb's own handwriting to drop.

184 29. Mrs. Siddons (1755–1831): Sarah Siddons, the most celebrated English tragic actress. She took a prominent part in the revival of Shakespeare, playing the parts of the tragic heroines with extraordinary success. Sir Joshua Reynolds painted her as "The Tragic Muse" in Lady Macbeth, her greatest rôle. See Hazlitt's beautiful essay on this most remarkable woman; also Lamb's sonnet, inspired by her and originally published in the Morning Chronicle in 1794.

184 29. Isabella: a nun in Southern's The Fatal Marriage (1692). It was a part considered "scarcely inferior in pathos to Belvidera" in Otway's Venice Preserved (Chambers). Hamilton painted Mrs. Siddons as Isabella. Campbell says that Mrs. Barry also was unrivaled in that part.

Review Questions. 1. What do you infer from the above paper of Lamb's fondness for the theater, and of his familiarity with plays, actors, etc.? 2. What light does the author here throw on contemporary customs? 3. Study the characterization of the grandfather. 4. The student would do well at this point to familiarize himself with the character of Sheridan, and to read his masterpiece, The Rivals, which became so popular in America through the acting of our own beloved Joseph Jefferson. 5. Examine the sentence structure in the sixth paragraph. 6. What is the explanation of "harlequin" and "motley"?

XXVI. MODERN GALLANTRY

London Magazine, November, 1822

185 18. Dorimant: a genteel, witty libertine in Etherege's The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter (1676). The original of this character was the Earl of Rochester.

186 26. Edwards, Thomas: author of Canons of Criticism, a very acute commentary upon Warburton's emendations of Shakespeare. He was a mediocre poet, but his sonnets are carefully constructed on the Miltonic scheme, which perhaps accounts for Lamb's exaggerated epithet (Ainger). His sonnet To Mr. J. Paice is quoted by Mr. Ainger in his edition of the Essays of Elia, p. 394.

187 18. Sir Calidore: the knight of courtesy and the hero of the sixth book of Spenser's Faerie Queene. The model of this character was Sir Philip Sidney. In his quest of the Blatant Beast (the modern Mrs. Grundy) he falls in love with Pastorella, a shepherdess (Lady Frances Walsingham) with whom he has various adventures.

187 18. Sir Tristan, or Tristram: one of the bravest and best of the Knights of the Round Table. He loved unlawfully his aunt, the beautiful Isolde, in consequence of which he was slain by her husband, King Mark. The story has been told in English prose by Sir Thomas Malory in part second of the History of Prince Arthur, and in poetry by Alfred Tennyson in The Last Tournament, and Matthew Arnold in Tristram and Isolde. Richard Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" has told the story in grand opera.

Review Questions. 1. Is the satire in this essay keener than is usual with Lamb? 2. Observe the paragraph structure. 3. Analyze the character of Paice from the hints given. 4. How does Lamb avoid the repetition of "old maid"? 5. This essay well illustrates the author's refined taste, kindliness of heart, and soundness of judgment.

XXVII. DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS

London Magazine, March, 1822

189 (sub-title). B. F.: Barron Field (1786-1846), an Oxford lawyer, whose brother, Francis John Field, was a fellow-clerk of Lamb's at the India House. From 1816 to 1824 he was judge of the supreme court at Sydney, and a few years afterwards was appointed chief justice of Gibraltar. He was the author of Geographical Memoirs and First Fruits of Australian Poetry.

190 1. Mrs. Rowe, Elizabeth (1674-1737): an exemplary person, and now forgotten moralist in verse and prose. Among other works she wrote Friendship in Death—in Twenty Letters from the Dead to the Living (Ainger).

190 2. Alcander: a character in Mademoiselle de Scudéry's romance Clélie. It is a flattering portrait of Louis XIV as a youth of eighteen. 190 2. Strephon: a shepherd in Sidney's Arcadia, often used as a conventional name of a lover.

190 2. Cowley, Abraham (1618-1667): a royalist poet, who enjoyed a great reputation during his lifetime, but who is now remembered quite as well for the excellent style of his essays.

190 13. Plato (427?-347 B.C.): a famous Greek philosopher who founded the Academic school. He was a disciple of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle. His philosophy is still the greatest exposition of idealism. His chief works are the Dialogues, which include The Symposium, The Republic, Phædrus, Critias, The Apology, Crito, etc. Lamb here refers perhaps to the familiar definition of man, "a biped without feathers."

190 30. Munden. See note on p. 270.

192 20-21. the late Lord C.: the second Lord Camelford, who was killed in a duel with Best in 1804, and who did leave instructions for his burial in "a country far distant."

193 11. Saint Gothard: bishop of Hildesheim about 1038.

194 17. Peter Wilkins's island.

See note on p. 238.

194 18. Diogenes (412 ?–323 B.C.): a Greek Cynic philosopher famous for his eccentricities. He emigrated to Athens in his youth, became a pupil of Antisthenes, and lived, according to Seneca, in a tub.

195 6. ten Delphic voyages: i.e. to consult the world-renowned oracle of the Pythian Apollo at Delphi.

195 22. "Ay me! while thee the seas," etc.: an incorrect quotation from Milton's Lycidas.

195 25. Bridget: Mary Lamb.

195 28. Sally W- -r: according to Lamb's Key, Sally Winter, a charming and teasing name, that might have belonged to her who was "sometimes forward, sometimes coy" (Macdonald).

195 32. J. W.: James White (d. 1820), a schoolfellow of Lamb's at Christ's Hospital, and in later years a friend toward whom he had a great general liking-in spite of some causes of imperfect sympathy. The good fellowship and mirthfulness which was the note of White's character interposed no ease; nor gave any allowance, seemingly, to the more serious feelings of others. So there were times when Lamb avoided the company of White as he would have turned from the promptings of levity in himself. Nevertheless he always championed him loyally, and was urgent to get others to confess what an immense fellow and a fine wit "a wit of the first magnitude" - Jem White

was (Macdonald).

Review Questions. 1. What is the peculiar form of this essay? Name its advantages. 2. What is Lamb's division of epistolary matter? its humor? 3. Note the exuberant spirits and rollicking fun of this essay. 4. Study carefully what Lamb says about puns, in the making of which he was himself extraordinarily clever. 5. What is the quality of the humor in the closing paragraph? 6. Note the humor of his reference to thieves and thieving. 7. Examine the author's diction, explaining such words as visnomy, parasangs, theosophist, flam, corpuscula, etc.

XXVIII. A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS

London Magazine, June, 1822

1962. Alcides: Hercules, who performed twelve celebrated labors, in the course of which he delivered the country from various monsters, tables of Augeas, etc.

196 24. Dionysius, surnamed "The Younger." He succeeded his father, the elder Dionysius, as tyrant of Syracuse, was expelled in 356, restored in 346, and finally expelled in 343. He fled to Corinth, where, to support himself, he kept a school, as Cicero observes, that he might still continue to be tyrant.

196 25. Vandyke, Sir Anthony (1599-1641). See note on p. 246.

196 28. Belisarius (505?-565): the greatest general of the Byzantine Empire, who conquered the Vandals, the Goths, Sicily, southern Italy, Ravenna, and the Persians, and rescued Constantinople from the Bulgarian invaders. The tale that in old age he was blind and obliged to beg his bread from door to door is now regarded as fictitious.

1971. The Blind Beggar in the legend: Henry, the son of Sir Simon de Montfort. At the battle of Evesham the barons were routed, Montfort was slain, and his son Henry left on the field for dead. A baron's daughter discovered the young man, nursed him back to health, and married him. Their daughter was the "pretty Bessy" mentioned in this essay. Henry assumed the garb and semblance of a blind beggar to escape the vigilance of King Henry's spies. Bessy was wooed by a merchant, an innkeeper, and a gentleman, but was finally won by a knight.

A popular ballad called The Blind Beggar's Daughter of Bethnal Green was the earliest form of this story, and upon it was based a play by Chettle and Day entitled The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, with the Merry Humours of Tom Stroud (written before May, 1600, but not printed till 1659). In the History of Sign-Boards is the statement that there was formerly in White Chapel Road a public-house sign called "The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green."

197 13-14. Margaret Newcastle. See note on p. 242.

197 20. Lear: the octogenarian hero of Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear (1605), who, being refused hospitality by his ungrateful daughters, Regan and Goneril, spends a night raving in the storm. See III, iv, 111. 197 21. Cresseid: the mythical daughter of a Trojan priest, Calchas. She is a character in Chaucer's poem Troilus and Cressida (about 1369), also in plays by Dekker and Chettle (acted in 1590), by Shakespeare (acted about 1601), and by Dryden (printed in 1678).

197 25. Lucian (120?-200?): a celebrated Greek satirist and humorist. "His Dialogues of the Gods, almost Homeric in their freshness and almost Aristophanic in their fun, bring out the ludicrous side of the popular Greek faith; the Dialogues of the Dead are brilliant satires on the living" (Jebb).

197 27. Alexander, the Great. See note on p. 276.