From Charles Cotton's "The New Year," quoted in "New Year's Eve," page 31, with a hint of Pope's line Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest also quoted in the same essay. Page 252, line 16. The great Jew R. This would be Nathan Meyer Rothschild (1777-1836), the founder of the English branch of the family and the greatest financier of modern times. Page 252. POPULAR FALLACIES. This series of little essays was printed in the New Monthly Magazine in 1826, beginning in January. The order of publication there was not the same as that in the Last Essays of Elia; one of the papers, "That a Deformed Person is a Lord," was not reprinted by Lamb at all (it will be found on page 290 of Vol. I. of this edition); and two others were converted into separate essays (see "The Sanity of True Genius" (page 187 of the present volume) and "The Genteel Style in Writing" (page 199)). After Lamb's death a new series of Popular Fallacies was contributed to the New Monthly Magazine by L. B. (probably Laman Blanchard) in 1835, preceded by an invocation to the spirit of Charles Lamb. Page 252. I. THAT A BULLY IS ALWAYS A COWARD. New Monthly Magazine, January, 1826. Page 253, line 2. Hickman. This would be, I think, Tom Hickman, the pugilist. In Hazlitt's fine account of "The Fight," Hickman, or the Gas-Man, "vapoured and swaggered too much, as if he wanted to grin and bully his adversary out of the fight." And again, "This is the grave digger' (would Tom Hickman exclaim in the moments of intoxication from gin and success, showing his tremendous right hand); 'this will send many of them to their long homes; I haven't done with them yet."" But he went under to Neale, of Bristol, on the great day that Hazlitt describes. Page 253, line 3. son's novel Clarissa, Page 253, line 6. Gath. Him of Clarissa. Mr. Hickman, in Richard the lover of Miss Bayes. Harapha. In Samson Agonistes. The Giant of Page 253, line 8. Almanzor. In Dryden's Conquest of Granada. Page 253, line 10. Tom Brown. Tom Brown, of Shifnal (16631704), author of a number of satirical and broadly-comic writings. Among his Letters from the Dead to the Living is one from Bully Dawson to his successor in the taverns. In The Spectator, No. 1, Bully Dawson is mentioned. A footnote describes him as a sharper and debauchee well-known in London in that day (1710). Page 253. II. THAT ILL-GOTTEN GAIN NEVER PROSPERS. III. THAT A MAN MUST NOT LAUGH AT HIS OWN JEST. New Monthly Magazine, January, 1826. Page 253. Page 253, third line of essay. Esurient. Hungry. Page 254, line 7. In Mandeville. In Bernard Mandeville's Fable of the Bees, a favourite book of Lamb's. See Vol. I., p. 423. Page 254. IV. THAT SUCH A ONE SHOWS HIS BREEDING, ETC. New Monthly Magazine, January, 1826. In that version the phrase "his sister, &c.," ran, "his sister made a Page 254. V. THAT THE POOR COPY THE VICES OF THE RICH. Page 256. VI. THAT ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST. New Monthly Magazine, January, 1826. Page 256. VII.-OF TWO DISPUTANTS, THE WARMEST IS GENERALLY IN THE WRONG. New Monthly Magazine, January, 1826. Little Titubus. I do not know who this was, if any more than an abstraction; but it should be remembered that Lamb himself stammered. Page 257. VIII.—THAT VERBAL ALLUSIONS ARE not Wit, etc. Page 257, fourteenth line of essay. "Hudibras." By Samuel Butler (1612-1680). The couplet admired by Dennis runs : And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic, John Dennis, the critic (1657-1734) and literary swashbuckler, oppugned puns in Letters upon several occasions written by and between Mr. Dryden, Mr. Wycherly, Mr. Mr. Congreve and Mr. Dennis. In reply to a panegyric upon puns from Mr. Wycherley he abused the habit thoroughly: "If punning be a diversion, it is a very strange one. . . . The first approach to wit is a contempt of quibbling; and so forth. " Page 257. IX. THAT THE WORST PUNS ARE THE BEST. New Monthly Magazine, January, 1826. Compare the reflections on puns in the essay on "Distant Correspondents" (page 107). Compare also the review of Hood's Odes and Addresses (Vol. I., page 285). Cary's account of a punning contest after Lamb's own heart makes the company vie with each in puns on the names of herbs. After 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 258, line 25. One of Swift's Miscellanies. This joke, often attributed to Lamb himself, will be found in Ars Pun-ica, sive flos |