Why does Lamb use the reference of Sir Robert Howard in "The Superannuated Man"?

    In the notable Romantic essay, "The Superannuated Man", extracted from " The Last Essays of Elia"(1833) by Charles Lamb, 'Prince of English essayists', the author uses the reference of Sir Robert Howard, a 17th century English poet, dramatist and historian. Lamb here quotes the line from his Tragedy, "The Vestal Virgin", which he wrote down in the lamentation of his friend's death. These lines are-
  ".....'Twas but just now he went away
  I have not since had time to shed a tear;
  And if he had been a thousand years from me
  Time takes no measure in Eternity."

    Actually Sir Robert Howard wrote this poem after a day of his friend's death and he had yet got no time to shed tears for the dear friend and strangely it appeared to him that his friend died a long span of years before. And after the death of his friend, the concept of time ceased altogether. Eternity was bound in no clock of time.

    Lamb here uses this reference to vivify his feelings after his sudden retirement with 'a pension for life to the amount of two-thirds' of his 'accustomed salary'. He felt 'stunned-overwhelmed' for 'the first day or two'. But he 'could not conceive of it as an affair of yesterday'. He was in a confusing condition. In his mind, 'strange fantacies' were coming at the 'commencement' of his freedom. Actually he was adjusted with the hard drudgery of the counting office, but suddenly when freedom and time came to him, he was astonished and thought that he would not meet with his partners and clerks for 'a vast track of time'. And he also thought that his friends and colleagues with whom he had " for so many years, and for so many hours in each day of the year, been closely associated - being suddenly removed from them - they seemed as dead" to him.

    Lamb uses this passage to justify his contention about the strange sensation of the superannuated clerk after his retirement from his office all on a sudden. Here the author expresses his psychological condition after the superannuation.