Page 65, line 15 from foot.  E.B.  Lamb’s Key gives “Edward Burney, half brother of Miss Burney.”  This was Edward Francis Burney (1760-1848), who illustrated many old authors, among them Richardson.

* * * * *

Page 66.  IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES.

London Magazine, August, 1821, where the title ran:  “Jews, Quakers, Scotchmen, and other Imperfect Sympathies.”

Page 69, line 18 from foot. A print ... after Leonardo. The Virgin of the Rocks.  See Vol.  IV. for Lamb’s and his sister’s verses on this picture.  Crabb Robinson’s MS. diary tells us that the Scotchman was one Smith, a friend of Godwin.  His exact reply to Lamb’s remark about “my beauty” was:  “Why, sir, from all I have heard of you, as well as from what I have myself seen, I certainly entertain a very high opinion of your abilities, but I confess that I have not formed any opinion concerning your personal pretensions.”

Page 70, line 10. The poetry of Burns. “Burns was the god of my idolatry,” Lamb wrote to Coleridge in 1796.  Coleridge’s lines on Burns, “To a Friend who had declared his intention of writing no more poetry,” were addressed to Lamb.  Barry Cornwall records seeing Lamb kiss his copy of the poet.

Page 70, line 17. You can admire him.  In the London Magazine Lamb added:—­

    “I have a great mind to give up Burns.  There is certainly
    a bragging spirit of generosity, a swaggering assertion of
    independence, and all that, in his writings.”

Page 70, line 18. Smollett.  Tobias George Smollett (1721-1771), the novelist, came of a Dumbartonshire family.  Rory was Roderick Random’s schoolboy name.  His companion was Strap.  See Roderick Random, Chapter XIII., for the passage in question.  Smollett continued the History of England of David Hume (1711-1776), also a Scotchman, and one of the authors whom Lamb could not read (see “Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading,” page 196).

Lamb’s criticism of Scotchmen did not pass without comment.  The pleasantest remark made upon it was that of Christopher North (John Wilson) some dozen years later (after he had met Lamb), in a Blackwood paper entitled “Twaddle on Tweedside” (May, 1833), wherein he wrote:—­

Charles Lamb ought really not to abuse Scotland in the pleasant way he so often does in the sylvan shades of Enfield; for Scotland loves Charles Lamb; but he is wayward and wilful in his wisdom, and conceits that many a Cockney is a better man even than Christopher North.  But what will not Christopher forgive to Genius and Goodness?  Even Lamb bleating libels on his native land.  Nay, he learns lessons of humanity, even from the mild malice of Elia, and breathes a blessing on him and his household in their Bower of Rest.

Coleridge was much pleased by this little reference to his friend.  He described it as “very sweet indeed” (see his Table Talk, May 14, 1833).