Page 123, line 11. Bleach.  Illegitimacy, according to some old authors, wears out in the third generation, enabling a natural son’s descendant to resume the ancient coat-of-arms.  Lamb refers to this sanction.

Page 123, line 20. Hare-court.  The Lambs lived at 4 Inner Temple Lane (now rebuilt as Johnson’s Buildings) from 1809 to 1817.  Writing to Coleridge in June, 1809, Lamb says:—­“The rooms are delicious, and the best look backwards into Hare Court, where there is a pump always going.  Hare Court trees come in at the window, so that it’s like living in a garden.”

Barron Field was entered on the books of the Inner Temple in 1809 and was called to the Bar in 1814.

Page 123, last paragraph. Sally W——­r.  Lamb’s Key gives “Sally Winter;” but as to who she was we have no knowledge.

Page 123, end. J.W. James White.  See next essay.

* * * * *

Page 124.  THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS.

London Magazine, May, 1822, where it has a sub-title, “A May-Day Effusion.”

This was not Lamb’s only literary association with chimney-sweepers.  In Vol.  I. of this edition will be found the description of a sweep in the country which there is good reason to believe is Lamb’s work.  Again, in 1824, James Montgomery, the poet, edited a book—­The Chimney-Sweepers’ Friend and Climbing Boys’ Album—­with the benevolent purpose of interesting people in the hardships of the climbing boys’ life and producing legislation to alleviate it.  The first half of the book is practical:  reports of committees, and so forth; the second is sentimental; verses by Bernard Barton, William Lisle Bowles, and many others; short stories of kidnapped children forced to the horrid business; and kindred themes.  Among the “favourite poets of the day” to whom Montgomery applied were Scott, Wordsworth, Rogers, Moore, Joanna Baillie and Lamb.  Lamb replied by copying out (with the alteration of Toddy for Dacre) “The Chimney-Sweeper” from Blake’s Songs of Innocence, described by Montgomery as “a very rare and curious little work.”  In that poem it will be remembered the little sweep cries “weep, weep, weep.”  Lamb compares the cry more prettily to the “peep, peep” of the sparrow.

Page 125, line 6. Shop ... Mr. Thomas Read’s Saloop Coffee House was at No. 102 Fleet Street.  The following lines were painted on a board in Read’s establishment:—­

  Come, all degrees now passing by,
  My charming liquor taste and try;
  To Lockyer come, and drink your fill;
  Mount Pleasant has no kind of ill. 
  The fumes of wine, punch, drams and beer,
  It will expell; your spirits cheer;
  From drowsiness your spirits free. 
  Sweet as a rose your breath will be,
  Come taste and try, and speak your mind;
  Such rare ingredients here are joined,
  Mount Pleasant pleases all mankind.