1823 (see Lamb’s letters to Bernard Barton, July 10, 1823, to Hood, August 10, 1824, and to Dibdin, June, 1826).  The only evidence that we have of Lamb knowing Worthing is his “Mr. H.”.  That play turns upon the name Hogsflesh, afterwards changed to Bacon.  The two chief innkeepers at Worthing at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of its prosperity were named Hogsflesh and Bacon, and there was a rhyme concerning them which was well known (see notes to “Mr. H.” in Vol.  IV.).

Page 201, line 11 of essay. Many years ago.  A little later Lamb says he was then fifteen.  This would make the year 1790.  It was probably on this visit to Margate that Lamb conceived the idea of his sonnet, “O, I could laugh,” which Coleridge admired so much (see Vol.  IV.).

Page 201, line 17 of essay. Thou old Margate Hoy.  This old sailing-boat gave way to a steam-boat, the Thames, some time after 1815.  The Thames, launched in 1815, was the first true steam-boat the river had seen.  The old hoy, or lighter, was probably sloop rigged.

Page 202, foot. Our enemies.  Lamb refers here to the attacks of Blackwood’s Magazine on the Cockneys, among whom he himself had been included.  In the London Magazine he had written “unfledged” for “unseasoned.”

Page 206, line 14. Gebir. Gebir, by Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), who was a fortnight older than Lamb, and who afterwards came to know him personally, was published in 1798.

Page 206, line 16. This detestable Cinque Port.  A letter from Mary Lamb to Randal Norris, concerning this, or another, visit to Hastings, says:  “We eat turbot, and we drink smuggled Hollands, and we walk up hill and down hill all day long.”  Lamb, in a letter to Barton, admitted a benefit:  “I abused Hastings, but learned its value.”

Page 208, line 5. Lothbury.  Probably in recollection of Wordsworth’s “Reverie of Poor Susan,” which Lamb greatly liked.

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Page 208.  THE CONVALESCENT.

London Magazine, July, 1825.

We learn from the Letters that Lamb had a severe nervous breakdown in the early summer of 1825 after liberation from the India House.  Indeed, his health was never sound for long together after he became a free man.

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Page 212.  SANITY OF TRUE GENIUS.

New Monthly Magazine, May, 1826, where it appeared as one of the Popular Fallacies under the title, “That great Wit is allied to Madness;” beginning:  “So far from this being true, the greatest wits will ever be found to be the sanest writers...” and so forth.  Compare the essay “On the Tragedies of Shakespeare,” Vol.  I. Lamb’s thesis is borrowed from Dryden’s couplet (in Absalom and Achitophel, Part I., lines 163, 164):—­

  Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
  And thin partitions do their bounds divide.