Page 259, line 1. Of a modern artist. In The Athenaeum this had been printed “of M——­,” meaning John Martin (1789-1854).  His “Belshazzar’s Feast,” which Lamb analyses below, was painted in 1821, and made him famous.  It was awarded a L200 premium, and was copied on glass and exhibited with great success as an illuminated transparency in the Strand.  Lord Lytton said of Martin that “he was more original, more self-dependent, than Raphael or Michael Angelo.”  Lamb had previously expressed his opinion of Martin, in a letter to Bernard Barton, dated June 11, 1827, in a passage which contains the germ of this essay:—­“Martin’s Belshazzar (the picture) I have seen.  Its architectural effect is stupendous; but the human figures, the squalling, contorted little antics that are playing at being frightened, like children at a sham ghost who half know it to be a mask, are detestable.  Then the letters are nothing more than a transparency lighted up, such as a Lord might order to be lit up on a sudden at a Christmas Gambol, to scare the ladies.  The type is as plain as Baskervil—­they should have been dim, full of mystery, letters to the mind rather than the eye.”

Page 259, line 13. The late King.  George IV., who built, when Prince of Wales, the Brighton Pavilion.  As I cannot find this incident in any memoirs of the Regency, I assume Lamb to have invented it, after his wont, when in need of a good parallel.  “Mrs. Fitz-what’s-her-name” stands of course for Mrs. Fitzherbert.

Page 259, line 33. The ingenious Mr. Farley.  Charles Farley (1771-1859), who controlled the pantomimes at Covent Garden from 1806 to 1834, and invented a number of mechanical devices for them.  He also acted, and had been the instructor of the great Grimaldi.  Lamb alludes to him in the essay on “The Acting of Munden.”

Page 262, line 10. “Sun, stand thou still ...” See Joshua x. 12.  Martin’s picture of “Joshua commanding the Sun to stand still” was painted in 1816.  Writing to Barton, in the letter quoted from above, Lamb says:  “Just such a confus’d piece is his Joshua, fritter’d into 1000 fragments, little armies here, little armies there—­you should see only the Sun and Joshua ... for Joshua, I was ten minutes finding him out.”

Page 262, line 29. The great picture at Angerstein’s.  This picture is “The Resurrection of Lazarus,” by Fra Sebastiano del Piombo, with the assistance, it is conjectured, of Michael Angelo.  The picture is now No. 1 in the National Gallery, the nucleus of which collection was once the property of John Julius Angerstein (1735-1823).  Angerstein’s art treasures were to be seen until his death in his house in Pall Mall, where the Reform Club now stands.

Page 263, line 35. The Frenchmen, of whom Coleridge’s friend.  See the Biographia Literaria, 1847 ed., Vol.  II., pp. 126-127.

Page 265, line 5. “Truly, fairest Lady ...” The passage quoted by Lamb is from Skeltoa’s translation of Don Quixote, Part II., Chapter LVIII.  The first sentence runs:  “Truly, fairest Lady, Actaeon was not more astonished or in suspense when on the sodaine he saw Diana,” and so forth.