Stanza 3. _Carter ... Lily_. The late Mrs. Tween, a daughter of Randal Norris, Lamb's friend, and a resident in Widford, told Canon Ainger that Carter and Lily were servants at Blakesware. Lily had noticeably red cheeks. Lamb would have seen them often when he stayed there as a boy. In Cussan's _Hertfordshire_ is an entertaining account of William Plumer's widow's adhesion to the old custom of taking the air. She rode out always--from Gilston, only a few miles from Widford and Blakesware--in the family chariot, with outriders and postilion (a successor to Lily), and so vast was the equipage that "turn outs" had to be cut in the hedges (visible to this day), like sidings on a single-line railway, to permit others to pass. The Widford register gives John Lilley, died October 18, 1812, aged 85, and Johanna Lilley, died January 1, 1823, aged 90. It also gives Benjamin Carter's marriage, in 1781, but not his death. Stanza 4. _Clemitson's widow_. Mrs. Tween told Canon Ainger that Clemitson was the farmer of Blakesware farm. I do not find the name in the Widford register. An Elizabeth Clemenson is there. Stanza 4. _Good Master Clapton_. There are several Claptons in Widford churchyard. Thirty years from 1827, the date of the poem, takes us to 1797: the Clapton whose death occurred nearest that time is John Game Clapton, May 5, 1802. Stanza 5. _Tom Dockwra_. I cannot find definite information either concerning this Dockwra or the William Dockwray, of Ware, of whom Lamb wrote in his "Table Talk" in _The Athenaeum_, 1834 (see Vol. I.). There was, however, a Joseph Docwray, of Ware, a Quaker maltster; and the late Mrs. Coe, _née_ Hunt, the daughter of the tenant of the water-mill at Widford in Lamb's day, where Lamb often spent a night, told me that a poor family named Docwray lived in the neighbourhood. Stanza 6. _Worral ... Dorrell_. I find neither Worral nor Dorrell in the Widford archives, but Morrils and Morrells in plenty, and one Horrel. Lamb alludes to old Dorrell again in the _Elia_ essay "New Year's Eve," where he is accused of swindling the family out of money. Particulars of his fraud have perished with him, but I have no doubt it is the same William Dorrell who witnessed John Lamb's will in 1761. In the _Table Book_ this stanza ended thus:-- With cuckoldy Worral, And wicked old Dorrel, 'Gainst whom I've a quarrel-- His end might affright us. Stanzas 8 and 9. _Fanny Hutton ... Betsy Chambers ... Miss Wither ... Miss Waller_. Fanny Hutton, Betsy Chambers, Miss Wither and Miss Waller elude one altogether. Lamb's schoolmistress, Mrs. Reynolds, was a Miss Chambers. * * * * * Page 78. NEW POEMS IN LAMB'S _POETICAL WORKS_, 1836.