Elia," "The South-Sea House."

_the chimes at midnight_. 2 "Henry IV," iii, 2, 228.

P. 224. _cheese and pippins_. Ibid., v, 3.

_inns and courts of law_. "The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple," in
"Essays of Elia."

_a certain writer_. Hazlitt himself. It is known to everybody that the
friendship of Lamb for Hazlitt suffered certain strains, and various
attempts have been made to guess at the provocations. Mutual
recriminations in regard to literary borrowings have been thought to be
responsible for more than one breach. So Mr. Bertram Dobell, in his
"Sidelights on Lamb," 212-14, imagines that the mystery is solved in a
letter of Hazlitt's to the editor of the London Magazine (April 12, 1820)
charging Lamb with appropriating his ideas: "Do you keep the Past and
Future? You see Lamb argues the same view of the subject. That 'young
master' will anticipate all my discoveries if I don't mind." The
similarity of idea between Hazlitt's "Past and Future" and Lamb's "New
Year's Eve," and the appearance in Lamb's essay of the phrase "young
masters" makes it clear enough what Hazlitt is referring to, but that
either man should have taken the matter very seriously is hard to believe.
It is easier to look upon Hazlitt's expression as banter of the same kind
that Lamb allowed himself in connection with the essay on "Guy Faux"
alluded to in the present sketch. This subject had been proposed by Lamb,
as we are informed in "Of Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen," and had
been written up by Hazlitt in the Examiner in 1821 (Works, XI, 317-334).
Two years later Lamb contributed a paper on the same subject to the London
Magazine, founded partly on an essay in the Reflector (1811), entitled "On
the Probable Effects of the Gunpowder Treason." The essay in the London
Magazine (Lamb's Works, ed. Lucas, I, 236 ff.) opens with a facetious
thrust at Hazlitt: "A very ingenious and subtle writer, whom there is good
reason for suspecting to be an ex-Jesuit, not unknown at Douay some
five-and-twenty years since (he will not obtrude himself at M--th again in
a hurry), about a twelvemonth back, set himself to prove the character of
the Powder Plot conspirators to have been that of heroic self-devotedness
and true Christian martyrdom. Under the mask of Protestant candour, he
actually gained admission for his treatise into a London weekly paper, not
particularly distinguished for its zeal towards either religion. But,
admitting Catholic principles,