own times: she, full of
kindness to all, and of soothings to Elia especially;--he, no less
kind and consoling to Bridget, in all simplicity holding converse
with the world, and, ever and anon, giving us scenes that Metzu
and De Foe would admire, and portraits that Deuner and Hogarth
would rise from their graves to paint.

* * * * *

Page 43. A CHAPTER ON EARS.

_London Magazine_, March, 1821.

Lamb was not so utterly without ear as he states. Crabb Robinson in
his diary records more than once that Lamb hummed tunes, and Barron
Field, in the memoir of Lamb contributed by him to the _Annual
Biography and Obituary_ for 1836, mentions his love for certain
beautiful airs, among them Kent's "O that I had wings like a dove"
(mentioned in this essay), and Handel's "From mighty kings." Lamb says
that it was Braham who awakened a love of music in him. Compare Lamb's
lines to Clara Novello, Vol. IV., page 101, and also Mary Lamb's
postscript to his "Free Thoughts on Eminent Composers," same volume.

Page 43, foot. _I was never ... in the pillory_. This sentence led
to an amusing article in the _London Magazine_ for the next month,
April, 1821, entitled "The Confessions of H.F.V.H. Delamore, Esq.,"
unmistakably, I think, by Lamb, which will be found in Vol. I. of this
edition, wherein Lamb confesses to a brief sojourn in the stocks at
Barnet for brawling on Sunday, an incident for the broad truth of
which we have the testimony of his friend Brook Pulham.

Page 44, lines 6 and 7. "_Water parted from the sea_," "_In Infancy_."
Songs by Arne in "Artaxerxes," Lamb's "First Play" (see page 113).

Page 44, line 11. _Mrs. S----_. The Key gives "Mrs. Spinkes." We meet
a Will Weatherall in "Distant Correspondents," page 120; but I have
not been able to discover more concerning either.

Page 44, line 17. _Alice W----n_. See note to "Dream Children."

Page 44, line 26. _My friend A._ Probably William Ayrton (1777-1818),
the musical critic, one of the Burneys' whist-playing set, and a
friend and correspondent of Lamb's. See the musical rhyming letter to
him from Lamb, May 17, 1817.

Page 47, line 5. _My friend, Nov----_. Vincent Novello (1781-1861),
the organist, the father of Mrs. Cowden Clarke, and a great friend of
Lamb.

Page 47, footnote. Another friend of Vincent Novello's uses the same
couplet (from Watt's _Divine Songs for Children_, Song XXVIII.,
"For the Lord's Day, Ev