Page 78.  NEW POEMS IN LAMB’S POETICAL WORKS, 1836.

In 1836 Moxon issued a new edition of Lamb’s poems, consisting of those in the Works, 1818, and those in Album Verses—­with a few exceptions and several additions—­under the embracive title The Poetical Works of Charles Lamb.  Whether Moxon himself made up this volume, or whether Mary Lamb or Talfourd assisted, I do not know.  The dedication to Coleridge stood at the beginning, and that to Moxon half way through.

Page 78. In the Album of Edith S——­.

First printed in The Athenaeum, March 9, 1833, under the title “Christian Names of Women.”  Edith S——­ was Edith May Southey, the poet’s daughter, who married the Rev. John Wood Warter.

Page 78. To Dora W——­.

Dora, i.e., Dorothy Wordsworth, the poet’s daughter, who married Edward Quillinan, and thus became stepmother of Rotha Q——­ of the next sonnet.

* * * * *

Page 79. In the Album of Rotha Q——­.

Rotha Quillinan, younger daughter of Edward Quillinan (1791-1851), Wordsworth’s friend and, afterwards, son-in-law.  His first wife, a daughter of Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges, was burned to death in 1822 under the most distressing circumstances.  Rotha Quillinan, who was Wordsworth’s god-daughter, was so called from the Rotha which flows through Rydal, close to Quillinan’s house.

* * * * *

Page 80. To T. Stothard, Esq.

First printed in The Athenaeum, December 21, 1833.  In a letter to Rogers in December, 1833, Lamb alludes to his sonnet to the poet (see page 100), adding that for fear it might not altogether please Stothard he has “ventured at an antagonist copy of verses, in The Athenaeum, to him, in which he is as every thing, and you [Rogers] as nothing.”  Thomas Stothard (1755-1834) was at that time seventy-eight.  He had long been the friend of Rogers, having helped in the decoration of his house in 1803 and illustrated the Pleasures of Memory as far back as 1793.  Lamb’s sonnet refers particularly to the edition of Rogers’ Poems that is dated 1834, which Stothard and Turner embellished.  Stothard illustrated very many of the standard novels for Harrison’s Novelists’ Magazine towards the end of the eighteenth century, among these being Richardson’s, Fielding’s, Smollett’s and Sterne’s.  In Robert Paltock’s Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, 1751, a flying people are described, among whom the males were “Glums” and the females “Gawries.”—­Titian lived to be ninety-nine.

Page 80. To a Friend on His Marriage.

First printed in The Athenaeum, December 7, 1833.  The friend was Edward Moxon, whose marriage to Emma Isola, Lamb’s adopted daughter, was solemnised on July 30, 1833.  Lamb mentions more than once the absence of any dowry with Miss Isola.  His own wedding present to them was the portrait of Milton which his brother, John Lamb, had left to him.