Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/68

 60

NOTES 'AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vm. JULY 20, 1901.

The following gives the total amount of grants under their respective heads :

Literature 4,885

Science 3,575

Fine Arts 2,144

Drama 90

Music 340

Education 620

Biblical Scholars 630

Scholars 3,081

Explorers 480

Naval 300

Military 2,420

Governors 875

British Resident 225

Ambassador 500

Consuls 650

Civil 2,885

Police 90

50

Total 23,840

I regret to find that, owing to a similarity in the initials, I have given particulars (ante, p. 38) in reference to Sir R. N. C. Hamilton instead of Sir R. G. 0. Hamilton, who was born 1830, died 1895. He succeeded Mr. Burke in Ireland as Under-Secretary.

JOHN C. FRANCIS.

[The amount granted to Mrs. Frances E. Trollope? ante, p. 5, should have been stated to be 50A]

CHARLES LAMB AS A JOURNALIST. MORE light on Lamb's connexion with the Albion and, indeed, upon his journalistic career in 1800-3 generally- is badly needed. The Albion presents peculiar difficulties, since there is no copy of the paper, in Fen- wick's and Lamb's time, in the British Museum.

Lamb's own references to the Albion and his share therein are contained in his Elia essay 'Newspapers Thirty-five Years Ago,' and in his letters to Manning dated, in Canon Amger's edition, August, 1801, and 31 August l R 1 -', In the f( >rmer letter he tells of the Albion s death: "The poor Albion died last Saturday of the world's neglect, and with it the fountain of my puns choked up for ever." He then auotes his epigram on Mackintosh- one of the last I did for the Albion ": Though thou 'rt like Judas, an apostate black, In the resemblance one thing thou dost lack : When he had gotten his ill-purchased pelf He went away and wisely hang'd himself!

If thm h U may \ d ^ laat ; Y et much r doub t. thou hast any bowels to gush out !

Mackintosh, as Lamb says in his essay on

'Newspapers Thirty -five Years Ago,' was "on the eve of departing to India to reap the fruits of his apostasy." If we then take the date of this letter to be accurate, the Albion died in 1801. But in the essay on News- papers Thirty -five Years Ago' we find a different story as to date. There Lamb says that when the Morning Post was sold he left it for the Albion. In this case it must have been 1803, for it certainly was in 1803 that Daniel Stuart sold the Morning Post. Another argument in favour of 1803 is that it was in that year that Mackintosh was offered and accepted the Recordership of Bombay by Addington, although the charge of apostasy, I take it, had reference to his renunciation of the views expressed in his * Vindicise Gallicse.' In this case the letters both of August, 1801, and 31 August, 1801, in Canon Ainger's edition, are two yearg out of their true date.

In the absence of the file of the Albion a reference to the life of John Fenwick, its owner and editor, might put things right; but unfortunately of Fenwick we know very little. He is not in the 'Diet. Nat. Biog.' Daniel Lovell, from whom he bought the paper, is there, but without reference to his connexion with the Albion or to the libel on the Prince of Wales for which, Lamb says, he stood in the pillory. Fenwick, who is the Bigod of Lamb's essay 'The Two Races of Men,' was always in difficulties. In the letter to Manning dated in Canon Ainger's edition 24 September, 1802, he is described as a ruined man hiding from his creditors. This date there is no questioning. It must have been a very little while after that, if my surmise as to the date of Lamb's epigram is correct, that he came into possession of the Albion. It would be interesting to know more of this anticipatory Micawber.

The chronology of Lamb's connexion with the Morning Post is also complicated. On 17 March, 1800 (I give Canon Ainger's revised dates throughout), he is "on the brink of engaging to a newspaper "the Morning Post and is preparing an imitation of Burton. On 6 August, 1800, he has written something in verse to follow the prose imitation of Bur- ton, but Stuart declines it. On 5 October, 1800, Stuart has two imitations of Burton, with an introductory letter, but gives no reply, and Lamb is asking "to-day" for a final answer. (Then come the two letters to Manning mentioned above August, 1801, and 31 August, 1801 wherein the Albion's death is recorded, and Lamb is meditating trying Mr. Perry of the Morning Chronicle.) On 15 February, 1802, Lamb transcribes for Manning his essay 'The Londoner, which,