on of Mr. Charles Lamb, of the Accountant
General's office, on account of certified ill health, be accepted, and
it appearing that he has served the Company faithfully for 33 years,
and is now in receipt of an income of L730 per annum, he be allowed
a pension of L450 ... to commence from this day." Lamb's letters to
Wordsworth, April 6, 1825, to Barton, the same date, and to Miss
Hutchinson, a little later, all tell the story. This is how Lamb put
it to Barton:--

"DEAR B.B.--My spirits are so tumultuary with the novelty of my
recent emancipation, that I have scarce steadiness of hand, much
more mind, to compose a letter.

"I am free, B.B.--free as air.

"The little bird that wings the sky
Knows no such Liberty!

"I was set free on Tuesday in last week at 4 o'clock.

"I came home for ever!...

"I went and sat among 'em all at my old 33 years desk yester
morning; and deuce take me if I had not yearnings at leaving all
my old pen-and-ink fellows, merry sociable lads, at leaving them
in the Lurch, fag, fag, fag.

"I would not serve another 7 years for seven hundred thousand
pound."

To Miss Hutchinson Lamb said; "I would not go back to my prison for
seven years longer for L10000 a year."

In the _London Magazine_ the essay was divided into two parts, with
the two quotations now at the head apportioned each to one part.
Part II. began at "A fortnight has passed," on page 224. The essay
was signed "J.D.," whose address was given as "Beaufort-terrace,
Regent-street; late of Ironmonger-court, Fenchurch-street."

Page 220, line 3. _Recreation_. At "recreation," in the _London
Magazine_, came the footnote:--

"Our ancestors, the noble old Puritans of Cromwell's day,
could distinguish between a day of religious rest and a day of
recreation; and while they exacted a rigorous abstinence from all
amusements (even to the walking out of nursery maids with their
little charges in the fields) upon the Sabbath; in the lieu of the
superstitious observance of the Saints days, which they abrogated,
they humanely gave to the apprentices, and poorer sort of people,
every alternate Thursday for a day of entire sport and recreation.
A strain of piety and policy to be commended above the profane
mockery of the Stuarts and their Book of Sports."

Lamb had said the same thing to Barton in a letter in the spring,
1824, referring ther