THE POETICAL CASK

      With change of climate manners alter not: 
      Transport a drunkard—­he’ll return a sot. 
      So lordly Juan, d——­d to endless fame,
      Went out a pickle—­and comes back the same.

Lord Byron’s body had been brought home from Greece, for burial at Hucknall Torkard, in 1824, and the cause of the epigram was a paragraph in The New Times of October 19, 1825, stating that the tub in which Byron’s remains came home was exhibited by the captain of the Rodney for 2s. 6d. a head; afterwards sold to a cooper in Whitechapel; resold to a museum; and finally sold again to a cooper in Middle New Street, who was at that time using it as an advertisement.

The third line recalls Pope’s line—­

      See Cromwell damn’d to everlasting fame.

Essay on Man, IV., 284.

Page 121. Lines Suggested by a Sight of Waltham Cross.

First printed in the Englishman’s Magazine, September, 1831.  Lamb sent the epigram to Barton in a letter in November, 1827.  The body of Caroline of Brunswick, the rejected wife of George IV., was conveyed through London only by force—­involving a fatal affray between the people and the Life Guards at Hyde Park corner—­on its way to burial at Brunswick.

Page 122. For the “Table Book."

This epigram accompanies a note to William Hone.  It was marked “For the Table Book,” but does not seem to have been printed there.

Page 122. The Royal Wonders.

The Times, August 10, 1830.  Signed Charles Lamb.  The epigram refers to the Paris insurrection of July 26, 1830, which cost Charles X. his throne; and, at home, to William IV.’s extreme fraternal friendliness to his subjects.

Page 122. Brevis Esse Laboro. “One Dip.”

* * * * *

Page 123. Suum Cuique.

These epigrams were written for the sons of James Augustus Hessey, the publisher, two Merchant Taylor boys.  In The Taylorian for March, 1884, the magazine of the Merchant Taylors’ School, the late Archdeacon Hessey, one of the boys in question, told the story of their authorship.  It was a custom many years ago for Election Day at Merchant Taylors’ School to be marked by the recitation of original epigrams in Greek, Latin and English, which, although the boys themselves were usually the authors, might also be the work of other hands.  Archdeacon Hessey and his brother, as the following passage explains, resorted to Charles Lamb for assistance:—­