pie.' 'Daisy pie! who ever heard of daisy pies?' My authority is Shakespeare; he expressly mentions daisies pied.'

999

It was in the number of the London Magazine for July, 1825, that Lamb's signed verses to the editor of the Every-Day Book appeared, beginning

I like you, and your book, ingenuous Hone,

(still too often printed "ingenious "); a testimonial which must have meant much to Hone at that time. Hone copied them into the Every-Day Book for July 9, 1825, with a rhymed reply.

Hone had for Lamb's genius and character an intense enthusiasm. The Every-Day Book is enriched by many quotations from Lamb's writings, with occasional bursts of eulogy. For example, on December 31, of Vol. I., when quoting from "New Year's Eve," he remarks:

among the other delightful essays of his volume entitled "ELIA"a little book, whereof to say that it is of more gracious feeling and truer beauty than any of our century is poor praise

And on September 23, of Vol. II., when quoting "My First Play" :

After the robbery of "ELIA," my conscience forces me to declare that I wish every reader would save me from the shame of further temptation to transgress, by ordering "ELIA" into his collection. There is no volume in our language so full of beauty, truth and feeling, as the volume of "ELIA." I am convinced that every person who has not seen it, and may take the hint, will thank me for acquainting him with a work which we cannot look into without pleasure, nor lay down without regret. It is a delicious book.

The Every-Day Book appeared periodically through 1825 and 1826. The first volume was published as a book in May, 1826, with the following dedication :

Your letter to me, within the first two months from the commencement of the present work, approving my notice of St. Chad's Well, and your afterwards daring to publish me your friend," with your proper name" annexed, I shall never forget. Nor can I forget your and Miss Lamb's sympathy and kindness when glooms outmastered me; and that your pen spontaneously sparkled in the book, when my mind was in clouds and darkness. These "trifles," as each of you would call them, are benefits scored upon my heart; and

I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME,

TO YOU AND MISS LAMB,
WITH AFFECTIONATE RESPECT,

May 5, 1826.

W. HONE.

Her

It has been held that the inference that Mary Lamb also contributed to Vol. I. of the Every-Day Book is a fair one to draw from these words. But beyond her recollections in the paper on "Starkey" nothing from her pen has been identified. brother's certain contributions to Vol. I. are, the "Remarkable Correspondent," Captain Starkey," the "Twelfth of August," "The Ass," and "Squirrels." To Vol. II. he sent "An Appearance of the Season," "The Months," and " Reminiscences of Jeffery Dunstan."

My impression is that Lamb's hand is to be seen far oftener than this but we have no definite proof. I feel convinced that many of Hone's quotations from old plays and old books were supplied to him by his more leisured friend.

In column 857 of The Table Book, 1827, Vol. II., for example, is the following letter to Hone, which is very likely to be from Lamb's pen. Waltham Abbey was a favourite objective of his in his long Essex and Hertfordshire rambles :

:

WALTHAM, ESSEX

To the Editor

SIR,-The following epitaph is upon a plain gravestone in the churchyard of Waltham Abbey. Having some point, it may perhaps be acceptable for the Table Book. I was told that the memory of the worthy curate is still held in great esteem by the inhabitants of that place.

REV. ISAAC COLNETT,

Fifteen years curate of this Parish,
Died March 1, 1801-Aged 43 years.

Shall pride a heap of sculptured marble raise,
Some worthless, unmourn'd, titled fool to praise,
And shall we not by one poor gravestone show
Where pious, worthy Colnett sleeps below?

Surely common decency, if they are deficient in antiquarian feeling, should induce the inhabitants of Waltham Cross to take some measures, if not to restore, at least to preserve from further decay and dilapidation the remains of that beautiful monument of conjugal affection, the cross erected by Edward I. It is now in a sad disgraceful state.

I am, &c.,

Z.

Lamb's first contribution to the Table Book, always excepting his regular supply of Garrick Play extracts was "A Death-Bed," an account of the last moments of his friend, Randal Norris, which he included in the Last Essays of Elia. His other original prose was the letter about Mrs. Gilpin at Edmonton, and "The Defeat of Time." A few pages after "A Death-Bed," there is an extract

from an article from Blackwood's Magazine for April, 1827, entitled "Le Revenant "--the story of a man who survived hanging. Lamb suggested to Hone that he should print this." There is in Blackwood this month [he wrote in a private letter] an article MOST AFFECTING indeed, called Le Revenant, and would do more towards abolishing capital punishment, than 40,000 Romillies or Montagues. I beg you to read it and see if you can extract any of it-the trial scene in particular." This is another instance of the fascination that resuscitation after hanging exerted upon Lamb.

We know also, as is stated in the note to "The Good Clerk (page 455), that Lamb supplied Hone with the extracts from Defoe and Mandeville in columns 567-569 and 626-628 of the Table Book, Vol. I. He probably sent many others.

66

In columns 773-774 of the Table Book, Vol. I., are Lamb's verses 'Going or Gone."

In column 55 of the Table Book, Vol. II., is Lamb's sonnet to Miss Kelly, and in column 68 his explanation that Moxon probably sent it.

To Hone's Year Book, 1831, Lamb contributed no original prose that is identifiable. On April 30, however, was printed Sir T. Overbury's character of a "Free and Happy Milkmaid," of which we know Lamb to have been fond-he copied it into one of his Extract Books-together with two passages from Jeremy Taylor, all probably sent to Hone by Lamb. It was on this day that FitzGerald's "Meadows in Spring" was printed in the Year Book, and afterwards copied in The Athenæum, where it was attributed by suggestion to Lamb.

Page 349. I.-Remarkable Correspondent.

Hone's Every-Day Book, Vol. I., May 1, 1825. Not reprinted by Lamb.

Hone's Every-Day Book, which purported to take account of every day in the year, had passed without a word from February 28 to March 1. Hence this protest.

Page 350, line 13. An antique scroll. On February 28 Hone printed these lines:

FOR THE MEMORY

Old Memorandum of the Months

Thirty days hath September,

April, June, and November,

All the rest have thirty and one,

Except February, which hath twenty-eight alone.

The omitted couplet runs :

Except in Leap Year, at which time

February's days are twenty-nine.

To Lamb's protests Hone replied as follows, on May 1:—

To this correspondent it may be demurred and given in proof, that neither in February, nor at any other time in the year 1825, had he, or could he, have had existence; and that whenever he is seen, he is only an impertinence and an interpolation upon his betters. To his "floral honours" he is welcome; in the year 992, he slew St. Oswald, archbishop of York, in the midst of his monks, to whom the greater periwinkle, Vinca Major, is dedicated. For this honour our correspondent should have waited till his turn arrived for distinction. His ignorant impatience of notoriety is a mark of weakness, and indeed it is only in compassion to his infirmity that he has been condescended to; his brothers have seen more of the world, and he should have been satisfied by having been allowed to be in their company at stated times, and like all little ones, he ought to have kept respectful silence. Besides, he forgets his origin; he is illegitimate; and as a burthen to "the family," and an upstart, it has been long in contemplation to disown him, and then what will become of him? If he has done any good in the world he may have some claim upon it, but whenever he appears, he seems to throw things into confusion. His desire to alter the title of this work excites a smilehowever, when he calls upon the editor he shall have justice, and be compelled to own that it is calumny to call this the Every-Day-but-oneBook.

In Vol. II. of the Every-Day Book February 29 was again omitted. He did not come to his own until the Year Book in 1831.

Page 351. II.-CAPTAIN STARKEY.

Hone's Every-Day Book, Vol. I., July 21, 1825. Signed "C. L." Not reprinted by Lamb.

On July 9 Hone gave extracts from a small pamphlet entitled Memoirs of the Life of Benj. Starkey, late of London, but now an inmate of the Freemen's Hospital, in Newcastle. Written by himself. With a portrait of the Author and a Facsimile of his handwriting. William Hall, Newcastle, 1818. This pamphlet is not interesting, except in calling forth Lamb's reminiscences.

Page 351, line 9. My sister. Mary Lamb, who was born in 1764, would probably have been at Bird's school at the time of her brother's birth. Her period there may have been 1774-1778.

Page 351, line 25. Fetter Lane. In a directory for 1773 I find William Bird, Academy, 3 Bond Stables, Fetter Lane. Bond Stables have now disappeared, although there is still the passage joining Fetter Lane and Bartlett's Buildings.

Page 354. III. TWELFTH OF AUGUST.

Hone's Every-Day Book, Vol. I., August 12, 1825. Not reprinted by Lamb.

While George IV., who was born on August 12, 1762, was Prince of Wales, a very long period, his birthday was kept on its true date. But after his accession to the throne in 1820 his birthday was kept on April 23, St. George's Day. Hence Lamb's protest.

This is probably the only kind reference to George IV. in all Lamb's writings.

Lamb already (Morning Post, 1802, see page 44, and London Magazine, 1823) had rehearsed the theme both of this letter and of that on the "Twenty-ninth of February." In his "Rejoicings upon the New Year's Coming of Age" the forlorn condition of February 29 is more than once mentioned, while the grievance of August 12 against April 23 is thus described:

"The King's health being called for after this, a notable dispute arose between the Twelfth of August (a jealous old Whig gentlewoman) and the Twenty-Third of April (a new-fangled lady of the Tory stamp) as to which of them should have the honour to propose it. August grew hot upon the matter, affirming time out of mind the prescriptive right to have lain with her, till her rival had basely supplanted her; whom she represented as little better than a kept mistress, who went about in fine clothes, while she (the legitimate BIRTHDAY) had scarcely a rag, &c."

Page 354, line 4 of letter. Poor relative of ours. (see page 349).

February 29

Page 355, line 11. George of Cappadocia, etc. George of Cappadocia was a Bishop of Alexandria in the fourth century, murdered by the populace. There was once a tendency to confuse him with St. George of England. George of Leyden was probably a slip of the pen for John of Leyden, the Anabaptist of Münster. George-aGreen, the hero of the History of George-a-Green, the Pindar of Wakefield, the stoutest opponent that Robin Hood ever met. The story was dramatised in a play attributed to Robert Green. George Dyer was Lamb's friend.

Page 355, line 15. Dismission of a set of men. Referring to the King's overthrow of the Whigs in the Caroline of Brunswick ferment.

To Lamb's letter Hone printed a clever reply.

Page 356. IV. THE ASS.

Hone's Every-Day Book, Vol. I., October 5, 1825. Signed "C. L." Not reprinted by Lamb.

The germ of this paper is found in a letter from Lamb to John Payne Collier in 1821 thanking him for the gift of his Poetical Decameron. After quoting the three lines also quoted in this essay, Lamb remarks, in the letter, "Cervantes, Sterne, and Coleridge, have said positively nothing for asses compared with this."

The immediate cause of the communication to the Every-Day Book was a previous article in praise of asses. Hone prefixed to Lamb's paper the following remarks: "The cantering of TIM TIMS [who had written of asses on September 19] startles him who told of his 'youthful days,' at the school wherein poor' Starkey' cyphered part of his little life. C. L., ' getting well, but weak' from painful and severe indisposition, is 'off and away' for a short discursion. Better health to him, and good be to him all his life. Here he is."