Errors of my own and typographical blunders in the previous volumes must be left for correction in a new edition, if that should be called for; but a few omissions may be supplied here and one or two of the major mistakes set right.
I am also able to include some authentic new writings by Lamb and two or three interesting conjectural pieces.
It was wrong to include in this volume the little article on “Samuel Johnson the Whig,” on page 350, first associated with Lamb by J. E. Babson in Eliana. The criticism, although in Lamb’s hand, was merely copied by him from Coleridge. It will be found in Coleridge’s Table Talk.
The little article on “London Fogs,” on page 351, although attributed to Lamb by William Ayrton, is in reality a passage from an essay on the Months by Leigh Hunt in the New Monthly Magazine.
The article on “Shakspeare’s Characters,” on page 367, thought to be Lamb’s by Alexander Ireland, is part of Hazlitt’s essay on “Henry VI.” in the volume called Shakspeare’s Characters, 1817, which (to make my error worse) was dedicated to Lamb.
I am inclined now to doubt if Lamb were the author of the critical note on Gray’s Latin Ode on page 381. Mr. Dobell’s suggestion that Sir Charles Abraham Elton was the author seems to me very reasonable.
The little sketch “A True Story,” on page 329, attributed to Lamb by the editor of The Talisman, 1831, is thought by Mr. Swinburne and others to be Leigh Hunt’s. Leigh Hunt, however, does not seem to have reprinted it; and absolute proof of his authorship not being offered, I should like, I think, to retain it in its present place.
| NEXT ≫ |
