Lamb, one day, encountered a small urchin loaded with a too heavy package of grocery.  It caused him to tremble and stop.  Charles inquired where he was going, took (although weak) the load upon his own shoulder, and managed to carry it to Islington, the place of destination.  Finding that the purchaser of the grocery was a female, he went with the urchin before her, and expressed a hope that she would intercede with the poor boy’s master, in order to prevent his being over-weighted in future.  “Sir,” said the dame, after the manner of Tisiphone, frowning upon him, “I buy my sugar and have nothing to do with the man’s manner of sending it.”  Lamb at once perceived the character of the purchaser, and taking off his hat, said, humbly, “Then I hope, ma’am, you’ll give me a drink of small beer.”  This was of course refused.  He afterwards called upon the grocer, on the boy’s behalf.  With what effect I do not know.

Page 90, line 2 of essay. Upon the point of gallantry.  Here, in the London Magazine, came the words:—­

    “as upon a thing altogether unknown to the old classic ages. 
    This has been defined to consist in a certain obsequiousness, or
    deferential respect, paid to females, as females.”

Page 92, line 3. Joseph Paice.  Joseph Paice was, as Lamb pointed out to Barton in a letter in January, 1830, a real person, and all that Lamb records.  According to Miss Anne Manning’s Family Pictures, 1860, Joseph Paice, who was a friend of Thomas Coventry, took Lamb into his office at 27 Bread Street Hill somewhere in 1789 or 1790 to learn book-keeping and business habits.  He passed thence to the South-Sea House and thence to the East India House.  Miss Manning (who was the author of Flemish Interiors) helps to fill out Lamb’s sketch into a full-length portrait.  She tells us that Mr. Paice’s life was one long series of gentle altruisms and the truest Christianities.

Charles Lamb speaks of his holding an umbrella over a market-woman’s fruit-basket, lest her store should be spoilt by a sudden shower; and his uncovering his head to a servant-girl who was requesting him to direct her on her way.  These traits are quite in keeping with many that can still be authenticated:—­his carrying presents of game himself, for instance, to humble friends, who might ill have spared a shilling to a servant; and his offering a seat in his hackney-coach to some poor, forlorn, draggled beings, who were picking their way along on a rainy day.  Sometimes these chance guests have proved such uncongenial companions, that the kind old man has himself faced the bad weather rather than prolong the acquaintance, paying the hackney-coachman for setting down the stranger at the end of his fare.  At lottery times, he used to be troubled with begging visits from certain improvident hangers-on, who had risked their all in buying shares of an unlucky number.  About the time the numbers were being