Page 213, line 14. Kent ...  Flavius.  Lamb was always greatly impressed by the character of Kent (see his essay on “Hogarth,” Vol.  I.; his “Table Talk,” Vol.  I.; and his versions, in the Tales from Shakespear, of “King Lear” and “Timon,” Vol.  III.).

* * * * *

Page 215.  CAPTAIN JACKSON.

London Magazine, November, 1824.

No one has yet been able to identify Captain Jackson.  The suggestion has been made that Randal Norris sat for the picture; but the circumstance that Lamb, in the first edition of the Last Essays, included “A Death-Bed,” with a differing portrait of Randal Norris therein, is, I think, good evidence against this theory.  Perhaps the captain was one of the imaginary characters which Lamb sent out every now and then, as he told Bernard Barton (in the letter of March 20, 1826), “to exercise the ingenuity of his friends;” although his reality seems overpowering.

Apart from his own interest, the captain is noteworthy in constituting, with Ralph Bigod (see page 27), a sketch (possibly unknown to Dickens) for Wilkins Micawber.

Page 217, line 22. Glover ...  Leonidas.  Richard Glover (1712-1785), the poet, author of Leonidas, 1737.  I cannot find that he ever lived at Westbourne Green.

Page 218, foot. The old ballad.  The old ballad “Waly, Waly.”  This was among the poems copied by Lamb into Miss Isola’s Extract Book.

Page 219, line 8. Tibbs, and Bobadil.  Beau Tibbs in Goldsmith’s “Citizen of the World,” and Bobadil in Ben Jonson’s “Every Man in His Humour.”

* * * * *

Page 219.  THE SUPERANNUATED MAN.

London Magazine, May, 1825.

Except that Lamb has disguised his real employment, this essay is practically a record of fact.  After thirty-three years of service at the East India House he went home “for ever” on Tuesday, March 29, 1825, with a pension of L441, or two-thirds of his regular salary, less a small annual deduction as a provision for his sister.  At a Court of Directors held on that day this minute was drawn up:  “Resolved that the resignation of Mr. Charles Lamb, of the Accountant General’s office, on account of certified ill health, be accepted, and it appearing that he has served the Company faithfully for 33 years, and is now in receipt of an income of L730 per annum, he be allowed a pension of L450 ... to commence from this day.”  Lamb’s letters to Wordsworth, April 6, 1825, to Barton, the same date, and to Miss Hutchinson, a little later, all tell the story.  This is how Lamb put it to Barton:—­

    “DEAR B.B.—­My spirits are so tumultuary with the novelty of my
    recent emancipation, that I have scarce steadiness of hand, much
    more mind, to compose a letter.

    “I am free, B.B.—­free as air.

      “The little bird that wings the sky
      Knows no such Liberty!