Page 111, line 11. My godfather F. Lamb’s godfather was Francis Fielde. The British Directory for 1793 gives him as Francis Field, oilman, 62 High Holborn.  Whether or no he played the part in Sheridan’s matrimonial comedy that is attributed to him, I do not know (Moore makes the friend a Mr. Ewart); but it does not sound like an invented story.  Richard Brinsley Sheridan carried Miss Linley, the oratorio singer, from Bath and the persecutions of Major Mathews, in March, 1772, and placed her in France.  They were married near Calais, and married again in England in April, 1773.  Sheridan became manager of Drury Lane, in succession to Garrick, in 1776, the first performance under his control being on September 21.  Lamb is supposed to have had some personal acquaintance with Sheridan.  Mary Lamb speaks of him as helping the Sheridans, father and son, with a pantomime; but of the work we know nothing definite.  I do not consider the play printed in part in the late Charles Kent’s edition of Lamb, on the authority of P.G.  Patmore, either to be by Lamb or to correspond to Mary Lamb’s description.

Page 118, line 8. His testamentary beneficence.  Lamb was not joking.  Writing to The Athenaeum, January 5, 1901, Mr. Thomas Greg says:—­

Three-quarters of a century after it passed out of Lamb’s possession I am happy to tell the world—­or that small portion of it to whom any fact about his life is precious—­exactly where and what this landed property is.  By indentures of lease and release dated March 23 and 24, 1779, George Merchant and Thomas Wyman, two yeomen of Braughing in the county of Hertford, conveyed to Francis Fielde, of the parish of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, in the county of Middlesex, oilman, for the consideration of L20., all that messuage or tenement, with the orchard, gardens, yards, barns, edifices, and buildings, and all and singular the appurtenances therewithal used or occupied, situate, lying, and being at West Mill Green in the parish of Buntingford West Mill in the said county of Hertford, etc.  On March 5, 1804, Francis Fielde, of New Cavendish Street, Esq., made his will, and, with the exception of two, annuities to female relatives, left all his residuary estate, real and personal, to his wife Sarah Fielde.

This will was proved on November 5, 1809.  By indentures of lease and release dated August 20 and 21, 1812, Sarah Fielde conveyed the said property to Charles Lamb, of Inner Temple Lane, gentleman.  By an indenture of feoffment dated February 15, 1815, made between the said Charles Lamb of the first part, the said Sarah Fielde of the second part, and Thomas Greg the younger, of Broad Street Buildings, London, Esq., the said property was conveyed to the said Thomas Greg the younger for L50.

The said Thomas Greg the younger died in 1839, and left the said property to his nephew, Robert Philips Greg, now of Coles Park, West Mill, in the same county; and the said Robert Philips Greg in 1884 conveyed it to his nephew, Thomas Tylston Greg, of 15 Clifford’s Inn, London, in whose possession it now is in substantially the same condition as it was in 1815.