er anise, mint and other words had been ingeniously
perverted Lamb's own turn, the last, was reached, and it seemed
impossible that anything was left for him. He hesitated. "Now then,
let us have it," cried the others, all expectant. "Patience," he
replied; "it's c-c-cumin."

Page 293, line 18. _One of Swift's Miscellanies_. This joke, often
attributed to Lamb himself, will be found in _Ars Punica, sine flos
Linguarum, The Art of Punning; or, The Flower of Languages_, by Dr.
Sheridan and Swift, which will be found in Vol. XIII. of Scott's
edition of Swift. Among the directions to the punster is this:--

Rule 3. The Brazen Rule. He must have better assurance, like Brigadier
C----, who said, "That, as he was passing through a street, he made to
a country fellow who had a hare swinging on a stick over his shoulder,
and, giving it a shake, asked him whether it was his own _hair_ or a
periwig!" Whereas it is a notorious Oxford jest.

Page 294, line 8. _Virgil ... broken Cremona_. Swift (as Lamb
explained in the original essay in the _New Monthly Magazine_), seeing
a lady's mantua overturning a violin (possibly a Cremona), quoted
Virgil's line: "Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremonae!" (_Eclogues_,
IX., 28), "Mantua, alas! too near unhappy Cremona."

Page 294. X.--THAT HANDSOME IS THAT HANDSOME DOES.

_New Monthly Magazine_, March, 1826.

Whether a Mrs. Conrady existed, or was invented or adapted by Lamb to
prove his point, I have not been able to discover. But the evidence of
Lamb's "reverence for the sex," to use Procter's phrase, is against
her existence. _The Athenaeum_ reviewer on February 16, 1833, says,
however, quoting the fallacy: "Here is a portrait of Mrs. Conrady. We
agree with the writer that 'no one that has looked on her can pretend
to forget the lady.'" The point ought to be cleared up.

Page 296. XI.--THAT WE MUST NOT LOOK A GIFT-HORSE IN THE MOUTH.

_New Monthly Magazine_, April, 1826.

Page 297, line 13. _Our friend Mitis_. I do not identify Mitis among
Lamb's many friends.

Page 297, line 11 from foot. _Presentation copies_. The late Mr.
Thomas Westwood, the son of the Westwoods with whom the Lambs lived
at Edmonton, writing to Notes and Queries some thirty-five years ago,
gave an amusing account of Lamb pitching presentation copies out of
the window into the garden--a Barry Cornwall, a Bernard Barton, a
Leigh Hunt, and so forth. Page 298, line 6. _Odd presents of game_.
Compare the little e