The Letter of Charles Lamb, Newly Arranged (Volume 2); With Additions Ed., with Introduction and Notes (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904. Excerpt: ... NOTES. CHAPTER IV. 1817-1823. Letter CXCVI (p. 1).--William Ayrton (1777-1858), Director of the Music at the King's Theatre in 1816. Famous as an impresario and as a musical critic. He edited Charles Knight's Musical Library, which did so much to popularise the best composers in this country. He was the first to produce Don Giovanni in England, in April of this year. The late Mr. Melliah, Mr. Mellish, of Enfield, for many years M.P. for Middlesex. He made a large fortune as an army contractor. Whether he ever committed himself to opinions on poetical matters I do not know. Letter CXCVII (p. 4).--Mr. Barron Field; born 23rd October 1786; practised at the Bar for some years, going the Oxford Circuit. In 1816 he married and went out to New South Wales as Judge of the Supreme Court at Sydney. He returned to England in 1824, having resigned his post, and was afterwards appointed Chief-Justice of Gibraltar. See the Elia Essay, "Distant Correspondents." "Botany Bay " is now so much a matter of history that Lamb's allusions to the criminal population, among whom he pictures his old friend as living, almost require explanation. "So thievish 'tis, that the eighth commandment itself Scarce seemeth there to be" is of course a parody of Coleridge's lines in the "Ancient Mariner "--"So lonely 'twas that God Himself Scarce seemed there to be." The reader will not have much difficulty in separating the ' lies," to which Lamb pleads guilty in the various pieces of VOL. TI. Y intelligence here transmitted, from the truths. If the Mitchell mentioned was Thomas Mitchell, the translator of Aristophanes, he did not die till many years later, and Mr. Thomas Barnes became the famous editor of the Times instead of going to Demerara or Essequibo. George Dyer, on the other hand, wa...