a week, till the foolish beast, not able to fare well but he must cry roast meat?
happier than Caligula's minion,8 could he have kept his own counsel?but
foolisher, alas! than any of his species in the fables?waxing fat, and kicking,
in the fullness of bread, one unlucky minute would needs proclaim his good
fortune to the world below; and, laying out his simple throat, blew such a
ram's-horn blast, as (toppling down the walls of his own Jericho)9 set con
cealment any longer at defiance. The client was dismissed, with certain
attentions, to Smithfield; but I never understood that the patron underwent
any censure on the occasion. This was in the stewardship of L.'s admired
Perry.' Under the same facile administration, can L. have forgotten the cool impu
nity with which the nurses used to carry away openly, in open platters, for
their own tables, one out of two of every hot joint, which the careful matron
had been seeing scrupulously weighed out for our dinners? These things were
3. The Bluecoat Boys had the right of free admis-6. Islands in the West Indies. sion to the royal menagerie, then housed in the 7. A flat roof.
Tower of London. 'Levee': a formal morning 8. The favorite horse of the Roman emperor Calig
reception. ula, who was fed gilded oats and appointed to the
4. I.e., who vouched for a candidate for entrance post of chief consul. to Christ's Hospital. Lamb's patron was Samuel 9. Joshua toppled the walls of Jericho by trumpet
Salt, a lawyer and member of Parliament for whom blasts (Joshua 6.16-20).
Lamb's father served as clerk. 1. John Perry, steward of the school, described in
5. Prison ship. (In Lamb's time the plural 'hulks' Lamb's earlier essay. 'Smithfield': a market for had come to be used for the singular.) horses and cattle.
.
CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE-AND-THIRTY YEARS AGO / 49 9
daily practiced in that magnificent apartment which L. (grown connoisseur
since, we presume) praises so highly for the grand paintings 'by Verrio,2 and
others,' with which it is 'hung round and adorned.' But the sight of sleek,
well-fed bluecoat boys in pictures was, at that time, I believe, little consolatory
to him, or us, the living ones, who saw the better part of our provisions carried
away before our faces by harpies; and ourselves reduced (with the Trojan in
the hall of Dido) To feed our mind with idle portraiture.3
L. has recorded the repugnance of the school to gags, or the fat of fresh beef boiled; and sets it down to some superstition. But these unctuous morsels are never grateful4 to young palates (children are universally fat- haters), and in strong, coarse, boiled meats, unsalted, are detestable. A gag-eater in our time was equivalent to a ghoul, and held in equal detestation. suffered under the imputation. . . . 'Twas said
He ate strange flesh.5 He was observed, after dinner, carefully to gather up the remnants left at
his table (not many nor very choice fragments, you may credit me)?and, in
an especial manner, these disreputable morsels, which he would convey away
and secretly stow in the settle that stood at his bedside. None saw when he
ate them. It was rumored that he privately devoured them in the night. He
was watched, but no traces of such midnight practices were discoverable.
Some reported that on leave-days he had been seen to carry out of the bounds
a large blue check handkerchief, full of something. This then must be the
accursed thing. Conjecture next was at work to imagine how he could dispose
of it. Some said he sold it to the beggars. This belief generally prevailed. He
went about moping. None spake to him. No one would play with him. He was
excommunicated; put out of the pale of the school. He was too powerful a boy
to be beaten, but he underwent every mode of that negative punishment which
is more grievous than many stripes. Still he persevered. At length he was
observed by two of his schoolfellows, who were determined to get at the secret,
and had traced him one leave-day for the purpose, to enter a large worn-out
building, such as there exist specimens of in Chancery Lane, which are let
