The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 · Chapter 66Grace After Meat
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Blessed Lord, we yield thee hearty praise and thanksgiving for our Founders and Benefactors, by whose Charitable Benevolence thou hast refreshed our Bodies at this time. So season and refresh our Souls with thy Heavenly Spirit, that we may live to thy Honour and Glory. Protect thy Church, the King, and all the Royal Family. And preserve us in peace and truth through Christ our Saviour. Amen.
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Page 110. MY FIRST PLAY.
London Magazine, December, 1821.
Lamb had already sketched out this essay in the "Table Talk" in Leigh Hunt's Examiner, December 9, 1813, under the title "Playhouse Memoranda" (see Vol. I.). Leigh Hunt reprinted it in The Indicator, December 13, 1820.
Page 111, line 1. Garrick's Drury. Garrick's Drury Lane was condemned in 1791, and superseded in 1794 by the new theatre, the burning of which in 1809 led to the Rejected Addresses. It has recently come to light that Lamb was among the competitors who sent in to the management the real addresses. The present Drury Lane Theatre dates from 1812.
Page 111, line 11. My godfather F. Lamb's godfather was Francis Fielde. The British Directory for 1793 gives him as Francis Field, oilman, 62 High Holborn. Whether or no he played the part in Sheridan's matrimonial comedy that is attributed to him, I do not know (Moore makes the friend a Mr. Ewart); but it does not sound like an invented story. Richard Brinsley Sheridan carried Miss Linley, the oratorio singer, from Bath and the persecutions of Major Mathews, in March, 1772, and placed her in France. They were married near Calais, and married again in England in April, 1773. Sheridan became manager of Drury Lane, in succession to Garrick, in 1776, the first performance under his control being on September 21. Lamb is supposed to have had some personal acquaintance with Sheridan. Mary Lamb speaks of him as helping the Sheridans, father and son, with a pantomime; but of the work we know nothing definite. I do not consider the play printed in part in the late Charles Kent's edition of Lamb, on the authority of P.G. Patmore, either to be by Lamb or to correspond to Mary Lamb's description.
Page 118, line 8. His testamentary beneficence. Lamb was not joking. Writing to The Athenæum, January 5, 1901, Mr. Thomas Greg says:—
Three-quarters of a century after it passed out of Lamb's possession I am happy to tell the world—or that small portion of it to whom any fact about his life is precious—exactly where and what this landed property is. By indentures of lease and release dated March 23 and 24, 1779, George Merchant and Thomas Wyman, two yeomen of Braughing in the county of Hertford, conveyed to Francis Fielde, of the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, in the county of Middlesex, oilman, for the consideration of £20., all that messuage or tenement, with the orchard, gardens, yards, barns, edifices, and buildings, and all and singular the appurtenances therewithal used or occupied, situate, lying, and being at West Mill Green in the parish of Buntingford West Mill in the said county of Hertford, etc. On March 5, 1804, Francis Fielde, of New Cavendish Street, Esq., made his will, and, with the exception of two, annuities to female relatives, left all his residuary estate, real and personal, to his wife Sarah Fielde.
This will was proved on November 5, 1809. By indentures of lease and release dated August 20 and 21, 1812, Sarah Fielde conveyed the said property to Charles Lamb, of Inner Temple Lane, gentleman. By an indenture of feoffment dated February 15, 1815, made between the said Charles Lamb of the first part, the said Sarah Fielde of the second part, and Thomas Greg the younger, of Broad Street Buildings, London, Esq., the said property was conveyed to the said Thomas Greg the younger for £50.
The said Thomas Greg the younger died in 1839, and left the said property to his nephew, Robert Philips Greg, now of Coles Park, West Mill, in the same county; and the said Robert Philips Greg in 1884 conveyed it to his nephew, Thomas Tylston Greg, of 15 Clifford's Inn, London, in whose possession it now is in substantially the same condition as it was in 1815.
The evidence that the Charles Lamb who conveyed the property in 1815 is Elia himself is overwhelming.
1. The essay itself gives the locality correctly: it is about two and a half miles from Puckeridge.
2. The plot of land contains as near as possible three-quarters of an acre, with an old thatched cottage and small barn standing upon it. The barn, specially mentioned in all the deeds, is a most unusual adjunct of so small a cottage. The property, the deeds of which go back to 1708, appears to have been isolated and held by small men, and consists of a long narrow tongue of land jutting into the property now of the Savile family (Earls of Mexborough), but formerly of the Earls of Hardwicke.
3. The witness to Charles Lamb's signature on the deed of 1815 is William Hazlitt, of 19, York Street, Westminster.
4. Lamb was living in Inner Temple Lane in 1815, and did not leave the Temple till 1817.
5. The essay was printed in the London Magazine for December, 1821, six years after "the estate has passed into more prudent hands."
6. And lastly, the following letter in Charles Lamb's own handwriting, found with the deeds which are in my possession, clinches the matter:—
"MR. SARGUS,—This is to give you notice that I have parted with the Cottage to Mr. Grig Junr. to whom you will pay rent from Michaelmas last. The rent that was due at Michaelmas I do not wish you to pay me. I forgive it you as you may have been at some expences in repairs.
"Yours