I have a vivid recollection of Wordsworth, who was a very grave man, with strong features and a deep voice. I met him first at the chambers (they were in the Temple) of Mr. Henry Crabb Robinson, one of the most amiable of men. I was a young versifier, and Wordsworth was just emerging out of a cloud of ignorant contumely into the sunrise of his fame. He was fond (perhaps too fond) of reciting his own poetry before friends and strangers. I was not attracted by his manner, which was almost too solemn, but I was deeply impressed by some of the weighty notes in his voice, when he was delivering out his oracles. I forget whether it was "Dion" or the beautiful poem of "Laodamia" that he read; but I remembered the reading long afterwards, as one recollects the roll of the spent thunder.

I met Wordsworth occasionally, afterwards, at Charles Lamb's, at Mr. Rogers's, and elsewhere, and once he did me the honor to call upon me. I remember that he had a very gentle aspect when he looked at my children. He took the hand of my dear daughter (who died lately) in his hand, and spoke some words to her, the recollection of which, perhaps, helped, with other things, to incline her to poetry. Hazlitt says that Wordsworth's face, notwithstanding his constitutional gravity, sometimes revealed indications of dry humor. And once, at a morning visit, I heard him give an account of his having breakfasted in company with Coleridge, and allowed him to expatiate to the extent of his lungs. "How could you permit him to go on and weary himself?" said Rogers; "why, you are to meet him at dinner this evening." "Yes," replied Wordsworth; "I know that very well; but we like to take the sting out of him beforehand."

About a year after Lamb's first knowledge of Manning, his small stock of friends was enlarged by the acquisition of Mr. John Rickman, one of the clerks of the House of Commons. "He is a most pleasant hand" (writes Lamb), "a fine rattling fellow, who has gone through life laughing at solemn apes; himself hugely literate, from matter of fact, to Xenophon and Plato: he can talk Greek with Porson, and nonsense with me." "He understands you" (he adds) "the first time. You never need speak twice to him. Fullest of matter, with least verbosity." A year or two afterwards, when Rickman went to Ireland, Lamb wrote to Manning, "I have lost by his going what seems to me I never can recover—a finished man. I almost dare pronounce you never saw his equal. His memory will come to me as the brazen serpent to the Israelites." Robert Southey also, when writing to his brother (in 1804), says, "Coleridge and Rickman, with William Taylor, make my Trinity of living greatness." A voluminous correspondence took place between Southey and Rickman, ranging from 1800 to 1839, in the course of which a variety of important subjects—namely, History, Antiquities, Political Economy, Poor Law, and general Politics were deliberately argued between them. From this it appears that Southey, whose reading was very extensive, must have had great trust in the knowledge and judgment of Rickman.

Lamb's acquaintance with Godwin, Holcroft, and Clarkson was formed about this time. Godwin had been introduced to Lamb, by Coleridge, in 1800. The first interview is made memorable by Godwin's opening question: "And pray, Mr. Lamb, are you toad or frog?" This inquiry, having reference to Gilray's offensive caricature, did not afford promise of a very cheerful intimacy. Lamb, however, who accorded great respect to Godwin's intellect, did not resent it, but received his approaches favorably, and indeed entertained him at breakfast the next morning. The acquaintance afterwards expanded into familiarity; but I never observed the appearance of any warm friendship between them. Godwin's precision and extreme coldness of manner (perhaps of disposition) prevented this; and Lamb was able, through all his admiration of the other's power, to discern those points in his character which were obnoxious to his own. Some years previously, Charles had entertained much dislike to the philosopher's opinions, and referred to him as "that Godwin;" and afterwards, when eulogizing the quick and fine intellect of Rickman, he says, "He does not want explanation, translations, limitations, as Godwin does, when you make an assertion."

When Godwin published his "Essay on Sepulchres," wherein he professed to erect a wooden slab and a white cross, to be perpetually renewed to the end of time ("to survive the fall of empires," as Miss Lamb says), in order to distinguish the site of every great man's grave, Lamb speaks of the project in these terms: "Godwin has written a pretty absurd book about Sepulchres. He was affronted because I told him that it was better than Hervey, but not so good as Sir Thomas Browne." Sufficient intimacy, however, had arisen between them to induce Lamb to write a facetious epilogue to Godwin's tragedy of "Antonio; or, the Soldier's Return." This came out in 1800, and was very speedily damned; although Lamb said that "it had one fine line;" which indeed he repeated occasionally. Godwin bore this failure, it must be admitted, without being depressed by it, although he was a very poor man, and although he was "five hundred pounds ideal money out of pocket by the failure."

In 1802 Lamb visited Coleridge, who was then living near Keswick, in Cumberland. For the first time in his life he beheld lakes and mountains; and the effect upon him was startling and unexpected. It was much like the impression made by the first sight of the Alps upon Leigh Hunt, who had theretofore always maintained that those merely great heaps of earth ought to have no effect upon a properly constituted mind; but he freely confessed afterwards, that he had been mistaken. Lamb had been more than once invited to visit the romantic Lake country. He had no desire to inspect the Ural chain, where the malachite is hidden, nor the silver regions of Potosi; but he was all at once affected by a desire of "visiting remote regions." It was a sudden irritability, which could only be quieted by travel.

Charles and his sister therefore went, without giving any notice to Coleridge, who, however, received them very kindly, and gave up all his time in order to show them the wonders of the neighborhood. The visitors arrived there in a "gorgeous sunset" (the only one that Lamb saw during his stay in the country), and thought that they had got "into fairy-land." "We entered Coleridge's study" (he writes to Manning, shortly afterwards) "just in the dusk, when the mountains were all dark. Such an impression I never received from objects of sight, nor do I suppose I ever can again. Glorious creatures, Skiddaw, &c. I shall never forget how ye lay about that night, like an intrenchment; gone to bed, as it seemed, for the night."

They went to Coleridge's house, in which "he had a large, antique, ill- shaped room, with an old organ, never played upon, an Aeolian harp, and shelves of scattered folios," and remained there three weeks, visiting Wordsworth's cottage, he himself being absent, and meeting the Clarksons ("good, hospitable people"). They tarried there one night, and met Lloyd. They clambered up to the top of Skiddaw, "and went to Grassmere, Ambleside, Ullswater, and over the middle of Helvellyn." Coleridge then dwelt upon a small hill by the side of Keswick, quite "enveloped on all sides by a net of mountains." On his return to London, Lamb wrote to his late host, saying, "I feel I shall remember your mountains to the last day of my life. They haunt me perpetually. I am like a man who has been falling in love unknown to himself, which he finds out when he leaves the lady." He soon subsided, however, into his old natural metropolitan happiness.

Wordsworth was not in the Lake country when Lamb visited Coleridge; but after his return the great poet visited Charles in London, passed some time there, and then departed for Yorkshire, where he went in order to be married.

At this time Lamb contributed (generally facetiae) to various newspapers, now forgotten. One of them, it was said jocosely, had "two and twenty readers, including the printer, the pressman, and the devil." But he was still very poor; so poor that Coleridge offered to supply him with prose translations from the German, in order that he might versify them for the "Morning Post," and thus obtain a little money. In one of his letters Lamb says, "If I got or could but get fifty pounds a year only, in addition to what I have, I should live in affluence."

About the time that he is writing this, he is recommending Chapman's "Homer" to Coleridge; is refusing to admit Coleridge's bona fide debt to himself of fifteen pounds; is composing Latin letters; and in other respects deporting himself like a "gentleman who lives at home at ease;" not like a poor clerk, obliged to husband his small means, and to deny himself the cheap luxury of books that he had long coveted. "Do you remember" (his sister says to him, in the Essay on "Old China") "the brown suit that grew so threadbare, all because of that folio of Beaumont and Fletcher that you dragged home late at night from Barker's, in Covent Garden; when you set off near ten o'clock, on Saturday night, from Islington, fearing you should be too late; and when you lugged it home, wishing it was twice as cumbersome," &c.

These realities of poverty, very imperfectly covered over by words of fiction, are very touching. It is deeply interesting, that Essay, where the rare enjoyments of a poor scholar are brought into contrast and relief with the indifference that grows upon him when his increased income enables him to acquire any objects he pleases. Those things are no longer distinguished as "enjoyments" which are not purchased by a sacrifice. "A purchase is but a purchase now. Formerly it used to be a triumph. A thing was worth buying when we felt the money that we paid for it."

(1804.) The intimacy of that extraordinary man, William Hazlitt, was the great gain of Lamb at this period of his life. If Lamb's youngest and tenderest reverence was given to Coleridge, Hazlitt's intellect must also have commanded his later permanent respect. Without the imagination and extreme facility of Coleridge, he had almost as much subtlety and far more steadfastness of mind. Perhaps this steadfastness remained sometimes until it took the color of obstinacy; but, as in the case of his constancy to the first Napoleon, it was obstinacy riveted and made firm by some concurring respect. I do not know that Hazlitt had the more affectionate nature of the two; but assuredly he was less tossed about and his sight less obscured by floating fancies and vast changing projects (muscae volitantes) than the other. To the one are ascribed fierce and envious passions; coarse thoughts and habits—(he has indeed been crowned by defamation); whilst to Coleridge have been awarded reputation and glory, and praise from a thousand tongues. To secure justice we must wait for unbiassed posterity.

I meet, at present, with few persons who recollect much of Hazlitt. Some profess to have heard nothing of him except his prejudices and violence; but his prejudices were few, and his violence (if violence he had) was of very rare occurrence. He was extremely patient, indeed, although earnest when discussing points in politics, respecting which he held very strong and decided opinions. But he circulated his thoughts on many other subjects, whereon he ought not to have excited offence or opposition. He wrote (and he wrote well) upon many things lying far beyond the limits of politics. To use his own words, "I have at least glanced over a number of subjects—painting, poetry, prose, plays, politics, parliamentary speakers, metaphysical lore, books, men, and things." This list, extensive as it is, does not specify very precisely all the subjects on which he wrote. His thoughts range over the literature of Elizabeth and James's times, and of the time of Charles II.; over a large portion of modern literature; over the distinguishing character of men, their peculiarities of mind and manners; over the wonders of poetry, the subtleties of metaphysics, and the luminous regions of art. In painting, his criticisms (it is prettily said by Leigh Hunt) cast a light upon the subject like the glory reflected "from a painted window." I myself have, in my library, eighteen volumes of Hazlitt's works, and I do not possess all that he published. Besides being an original thinker, Hazlitt excelled in conversation. He was, moreover, a very temperate liver: yet his enemies proclaimed to the world that he was wanting even in sobriety. During the thirteen years that I knew him intimately, and (at certain seasons) saw him almost every day, I know that he drank nothing stronger than water; except tea, indeed, in which he indulged in the morning. Had he been as temperate in his political views as in his cups, he would have escaped the slander that pursued him through life.

The great intimacy between these two distinguished writers, Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt (for they had known each other before), seems to have commenced in a singular manner. They were one day at Godwin's, when "a fierce dispute was going on between Holcroft and Coleridge, as to which was best, 'Man as he was, or Man as he is to be.' 'Give me,' says Lamb, 'man as he is not to be.'" "This was the beginning" (Hazlitt says,) "of a friendship which, I believe, still continues." Hazlitt married in 1805, and his wife soon became familiar with Mary Lamb. Indeed, Charles and his sister more than once visited the Hazlitts, who at that time lived at Winterslow, near Salisbury Plain, and enjoyed their visits greatly, walking from eight to twenty miles a day, and seeing Wilton, Stonehenge, and the other (to them unaccustomed) sights of the country. "The quiet, lazy, delicious month" passed there is referred to in one of Miss Lamb's pleasant letters. And the acquaintance soon deepened into friendship. Whatever good will was exhibited by Hazlitt (and there was much) is repaid by Lamb in his letter to Southey, published in the "London Magazine" (October, 1823), wherein he places on record his pride and admiration of his friend. "So far from being ashamed of the intimacy" (he says), "it is my boast that I was able, for so many years, to have preserved it entire; and I think I shall go to my grave without finding or expecting to find such another companion."

Lamb's respect for men and things did not depend on repute. His fondness for old books seldom (never, perhaps, except in the single case of the Duchess of Newcastle) deluded him into a respect for old books which were without merit. He required that excellence should be combined with antiquity. A great name was generally to him simply a great name; no more. If it had lasted through centuries, indeed, as in the case of Michael Angelo, then he admitted that "a great name implied greatness." He did not think that greatness lay in the "thews and sinews," or in the bulk alone. When Nelson was walking on the quay at Yarmouth, the mob cried out in derision, "What! make that little fellow a captain!" Lamb thought otherwise; and in regret for the death of that great seaman, he says, "I have followed him ever since I saw him walking in Pall Mall, looking just as a hero should look" (i.e., simply). "He was the only pretence of a great man we had." The large stage blusterer and ostentatious drawcansir were never, in Lamb's estimation, models for heroes. In the case of the first Napoleon also, he writes, "He is a fine fellow, as my barber says; and I should not mind standing bareheaded at his table to do him service in his fall." This was in August, 1815.

The famous "Ode to Tobacco" was written in 1805, and the pretty stories founded on the plays of Shakespeare were composed or translated about the year 1806; Lamb taking the tragic, and his sister the other share of the version. These tales were to produce about sixty pounds; to them a sum which was most important, for he and Mary at that time hailed the addition of twenty pounds to his salary (on the retirement of an elder clerk) as a grand addition to their comforts.

Charles was at this period (February, 1806) at work upon a farce, to be called "Mr. H.;" from which he says, "if it has a 'good run' I shall get two hundred pounds, and I hope one hundred pounds for the copyright." "Mr. H." (which rested solely upon the absurdity of a name, which after all was not irresistibly absurd) was accepted at the theatre, but unfortunately it had not "a good run." It failed, not quite undeservedly perhaps, for (although it has since had some success in America) there was not much probability of its prosperity in London. It was acted once (10th December, 1806), and was announced for repetition on the following evening, but was withdrawn. Lamb's courage and good humor did not fail. He joked about it to Wordsworth, said that he had many fears about it, and admitted that "John Bull required solider fare than a bare letter." As he says, in his letter to the poet, "a hundred hisses (hang the word, I write it like kisses) outweigh a thousand claps. The former come more directly from the heart. Well" (he adds), "it is withdrawn, and there's an end."

In 1807 were published "Specimens of Dramatic Poets contemporary with Shakespeare;" and these made Lamb known as a man conversant with our old English literature, and helped mainly to direct the taste of the public to those fine writers. The book brought repute (perhaps a little money) to him. Soon afterwards he published "The Adventures of Ulysses," which was intended to be an introduction to the reading of "Telemachus," always a popular book. These "adventures" were derived from Chapman's "Translation of Homer," of which Lamb says, "Chapman is divine; and my abridgment has not, I hope, quite emptied him of his divinity."

In or about 1808 Miss Lamb's pretty little stories called "Mrs. Leicester's School" (to which Charles contributed three tales) were published; and soon afterwards a small book entitled "Poetry for Children," being a joint publication by brother and sister, came out. "It was done by me and Mary in the last six months" (January, 1809). It does not appear to what extent, if at all, it added to the poor clerk's means.

In the same year (as Miss Lamb writes in December, 1808), Charles was invited by Tom Sheridan to write some scenes in a speaking Pantomime; the other parts of which (the eloquence not of words) had been already manufactured by Tom and his more celebrated father, Richard Brinsley. Lamb and Tom Sheridan had been, it seems, communicative over a bottle of claret, when an agreement for the above purpose was entered into between them. This was subsequently carried into effect, and a drama was composed. This drama, still extant in the British Museum, in Lamb's own writing, appears to be a species of comic opera, the scene of which is laid in Gibraltar, but is without a name. I have not seen it, but speak upon the report of others.

In 1809 Lamb moved once more into the Temple, now to the top story of No. 4 Inner Temple Lane, "where the household gods are slow to come, but where I mean to live and die" (he says). From this place (since pulled down and rebuilt) he writes to Manning, who is in China, "Come, and bring any of your friends the Mandarins with you. My best room commands a court, in which there are trees and a pump, the water of which is excellent cold— with brandy; and not very insipid without." He sends Manning some of his little books, to give him "some idea of European literature." It is in this letter (January, 1810) that he speaks of Braham and his singing, which I have elsewhere alluded to; of Kate with nine stars ********* ("though she is but one"); of his book (for children) "on titles of honor," exemplifying the eleven gradations, by which Mr. C. Lamb rises in succession to be Baron, Marquis, Duke, and Emperor Lamb, and finally Pope Innocent, and other lively matters fit to solace an English mathematician self-banished to China.

In July, 1810, an abstinence from all spirituous liquors took place. Lamb says that his sister has "taken to water like a hungry otter," whilst he "limps after her" for virtue's sake; but he is "full of cramps and rheumatism, and cold internally, so that fire don't warm him." It is scarcely necessary to state that the period of entire abstinence was very transient.

A quarterly magazine, called "The Reflector," was published in the autumn of 1810, and contained Essays by Charles Lamb and several other writers. Amongst these are some of the best of Lamb's earlier writings—namely, the paper on Hogarth and that on the Tragedies of Shakespeare. It is singular that these two Essays, which are as fine as anything of a similar nature in English criticism, should have been almost unnoticed (undiscovered, except by literary friends) until the year 1818, when Lamb's works were collected and published. The grand passage on "Lear" has caused the Essay on the Shakespeare Tragedies to be well known. Less known is the Essay on Hogarth, although it is more elaborate and critical; the labor being quite necessary in this case, as the pretensions of Hogarth to the grand style had been denounced by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

In affluence of genius, in variety and exuberance of thought, there surely can exist little comparison between Reynolds and Hogarth. Reynolds was, indeed, the finest painter, especially the most superb colorist, of the English school. But Hogarth was the greatest inventor,—the greatest discoverer of character,—in the English or any other school. As a painter of manners he is unapproached. In a kindred walk, he traversed all the passions from the lowest mirth to the profoundest melancholy, possessing the tragic element in the most eminent degree. And if grandeur can exist— as I presume it can—in beings who have neither costume nor rank to set off their qualities, then some of the characters of Hogarth in essential grandeur are far beyond the conventional figures of many other artists. Pain, and joy, and poverty, and human daring are not to be circumscribed by dress and fashion. Their seat is deeper (in the soul), and is altogether independent of such trivial accretions. In point of expression, I never saw the face of the madman (in the "Rake's Progress") exceeded in any picture, ancient or modern. "It is a face" (Lamb says) "that no one that has seen can easily forget." It is, as he argues, human suffering stretched to its utmost endurance. I cannot forbear directing the attention of the reader to Lamb's bold and excellent defence of Hogarth. He will like both painter and author, I think, better than before. I have, indeed, been in company where young men, professing to be painters, spoke slightingly of Hogarth. To this I might have replied that Hogarth did not paint for the applause of tyros in art, but—for the world!

The "Reflector" was edited by an old Christ's Hospital boy, Mr. Leigh Hunt, who subsequently became, and during their joint lives remained, one of Lamb's most familiar friends. It was a quarterly magazine, and received, of course, the contributions of various writers; amongst whom were Mr. Barnes (of the "Times"), Barron Field, Dr. Aikin, Mr. Landseer (the elder), Charles Lamb, Octavius Gilchrist, Mitchell (the translator of Aristophanes), and Leigh Hunt himself. I do not observe Lamb's name appended to any of the articles in the first volume; but the second comprises the Essays on Hogarth and on Burial Societies, together with a paper on the Custom of Hissing at the Theatres, under the signature of "Semel Damnatus." There is a good deal of humor in this paper (which has not been republished, I believe). It professes to come from one of a club of condemned authors, no person being admissible as a member until he had been unequivocally damned.

I observe that in the letters, &c., of Lamb, which were published in 1841, and copiously commented on by Sir Thomas N. Talfourd (the editor), there is not much beyond a bare mention of Leigh Hunt's name, and no letter from Charles Lamb to Mr. Hunt is published. It is now too late to remedy this last defect, my recent endeavors to obtain such letters having resulted in disappointment: otherwise I should have been very glad to record the extent of Lamb's liking for a poor and able man, whom I knew well for at least forty years. I know that at one time Lamb valued him, and that he always thought highly of his intellect, as indeed he has testified in his famous remonstrance to Southey. And in Mr. Hunt's autobiography I find abundant evidence of his admiration for Lamb, in a generous eulogy upon him.

Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, and Leigh Hunt, formed a remarkable trio of men, each of whom was decidedly different from the others. Only one of them (Hunt) cared much for praise. Hazlitt's sole ambition was to sell his essays, which he rated scarcely beyond their marketable value; and Lamb saw enough of the manner in which praise and censure were at that time distributed, to place any high value on immediate success. Of posterity neither of them thought. Leigh Hunt, from temperament, was more alive to pleasant influences (sunshine, freedom for work, rural walks, complimentary words) than the others. Hazlitt cared little for these things; a fierce argument or a well-contested game at rackets was more to his taste; whilst Lamb's pleasures (except, perhaps, from his pipe) lay amongst the books of the old English writers. His soul delighted in communion with ancient generations, more especially with men who had been unjustly forgotten. Hazlitt's mind attached itself to abstract subjects; Lamb's was more practical, and embraced men. Hunt was somewhat indifferent to persons as well as to things, except in the cases of Shelley and Keats, and his own family; yet he liked poetry and poetical subjects. Hazlitt (who was ordinarily very shy) was the best talker of the three. Lamb said the most pithy and brilliant things. Hunt displayed the most ingenuity. All three sympathized often with the same persons or the same books; and this, no doubt, cemented the intimacy that existed between them for so many years. Moreover, each of them understood the others, and placed just value on their objections when any difference of opinion (not infrequent) arose between them. Without being debaters, they were accomplished talkers. They did not argue for the sake of conquest, but to strip off the mists and perplexities which sometimes obscure truth. These men—who lived long ago—had a great share of my regard. They were all slandered, chiefly by men who knew little of them, and nothing of their good qualities; or by men who saw them only through the mist of political or religious animosity. Perhaps it was partly for this reason that they came nearer to my heart.

All the three men, Lamb, Hazlitt, and Hunt, were throughout their lives Unitarians, as was also George Dyer; Coleridge was a Unitarian preacher in his youth, having seceded from the Church of England; to which, however, he returned, and was in his latter years a strenuous supporter of the national faith. George Dyer once sent a pamphlet to convert Charles to Unitarianism. "Dear blundering soul" (Lamb said), "why, I am as old a One Goddite as himself." To Southey Lamb writes, "Being, as you know, not quite a Churchman, I felt a jealousy at the Church taking to herself the whole deserts of Christianity." His great, and indeed infinite reverence, nevertheless, for Christ is shown in his own Christian virtues and in constant expressions of reverence. In Hazlitt's paper of "Persons one would wish to have seen," Lamb is made to refer to Jesus Christ as he "who once put on a semblance of mortality," and to say, "If he were to come into the room, we should all fall down and kiss the hem of his garment." I do not venture to comment on these delicate matters, where men like Hazlitt, and Lamb, and Coleridge (the latter for a short time only) have entertained opinions which differ from those of the generality of their countrymen.

During these years, Mary Lamb's illnesses were frequent, as usual. Her relapses were not dependent on the seasons; they came in hot summers and with the freezing winters. The only remedy seems to have been extreme quiet when any slight symptom of uneasiness was apparent. Charles (poor fellow) had to live, day and night, in the society of a person who was— mad! If any exciting talk occurred, he had to dismiss his friend with a whisper. If any stupor or extraordinary silence was observed, then he had to rouse her instantly. He has been seen to take the kettle from the fire and place it for a moment on her head-dress, in order to startle her into recollection. He lived in a state of constant anxiety;—and there was no help.

Not to neglect Charles Lamb's migrations, it should be noted that he moved his residence from Inner Temple Lane ("where he meant to live and die") into Russell Street, Covent Garden, in the latter part of the year 1817. When there, he became personally acquainted with several members of the theatrical profession; amongst others, with Munden and Miss Kelly, for both of whom he entertained the highest admiration. One of the (Elia) Essays is written to celebrate Munden's histrionic talent; and in his letters he speaks of "Fanny Kelly's divine plain face." The Barbara S. of the second (or last) series of essays is, in fact, Miss Kelly herself. All his friends knew that he was greatly attached to her.

He also became acquainted with Miss Burrell—afterwards Mrs. Gould—but who, he says, "remained uncoined." Subsequently he was introduced to Liston and Elliston, each of whom received tokens of his liking. The first was the subject of an amusing fictitious biography. In Lamb's words, it was "a lying life of Liston," uncontaminated by a particle of truth. Munden, he says, had faces innumerable; Liston had only one; "but what a face!" he adds, admitting it to be beyond all vain description. Perhaps this subject of universal laughter and admiration never received such a compliment, except from Hazlitt, who, after commenting on Hogarth's excellences, his invention, his character, his satire, &c., concludes by saying, "I have never seen anything in the expression of comic humor equal to Hogarth's humor, except Liston's face."

In the course of time, official labor becomes tiresome, and the India House clerk grows splenetic. He complains sadly of his work. Even the incursions of his familiars annoy him, although it annoys him more when they go away. In the midst of this trouble his works are collected and published; and he emerges at once from the obscure shades of Leadenhall Street into the full blaze of public notice. He wakes from dullness and discontent, and "finds himself famous."

[1] As Lamb's changes of residence were frequent, it may be convenient to chronicle them in order, in this place, although the precise date of his moving from one to another can scarcely be specified in a single instance. 1775, Charles Lamb, born in Crown Office Row, Temple. 1795, lives at No. 7 Little Queen Street, Holborn. 1800 (early), lives at No. 45 Chapel Street, Pentonville. Same year, lives in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane. Same year, removes to No. 16 Mitre Court Buildings, Temple. 1809, removes to No. 4 Inner Temple Lane. 1817, removes to Russell Street, Covent Garden. 1823, removes to Colebrook Row, Islington. 1826, removes to Enfield. 1829, removes into lodgings in Enfield. 1830, lodges in Southampton Buildings. 1833, lives at Mrs. Walden's, in Church Street, Edmonton; where he dies on 27th December, 1834.



CHAPTER V.

My Recollections.—Russell Street.—Personal Appearance.—Manner.— Tendency of Mind.—Prejudices.—Alleged Excesses.—Mode of Life.—Love of Smoking.—His Lodgings.—His Sister.—Costume.—Reading aloud.—Tastes and Opinions.—London.—Love of Books.—Charity.—Wednesday Parties.—His Companions.—Epitaph upon them.



In the year 1817 or 1818 I first became personally acquainted with Charles Lamb.

This was about the time of his removal from the Temple. It was in the course of the year 1818 that his works had been first collected and published. They came upon the world by surprise; scarcely any one at that time being aware that a fine genius and humorist existed, within the dull shades of London, whose quality very few of the critics had assayed, and none of them had commended. He was thus thrown (waif-like) amongst the great body of the people; was at once estimated, and soon rose into renown.

Persons who had been in the habit of traversing Covent Garden at that time (seven and forty years ago) might, by extending their walk a few yards into Russell Street, have noted a small, spare man, clothed in black, who went out every morning and returned every afternoon, as regularly as the hands of the clock moved towards certain hours. You could not mistake him. He was somewhat stiff in his manner, and almost clerical in dress; which indicated much wear. He had a long, melancholy face, with keen, penetrating eyes; and he walked, with a short, resolute step, city-wards. He looked no one in the face for more than a moment, yet contrived to see everything as he went on. No one who ever studied the human features could pass him by without recollecting his countenance: it was full of sensibility, and it came upon you like a new thought, which you could not help dwelling upon afterwards; it gave rise to meditation, and did you good. This small, half-clerical man was—Charles Lamb.

I had known him for a short time previously to 1818, having been introduced to him at Mr. Leigh Hunt's house, where I enjoyed his company once or twice over agreeable suppers; but I knew him slightly only, and did not see much of him until he and his sister went to occupy the lodgings in Russell Street, where he invited me to come and see him. They lived in the corner house adjoining Bow Street. This house belonged, at that time, to an ironmonger (or brazier), and was comfortable and clean,— and a little noisy.

Charles Lamb was about forty years of age when I first saw him; and I knew him intimately for the greater part of twenty years. Small and spare in person, and with small legs ("immaterial legs" Hood called them), he had a dark complexion, dark, curling hair, almost black, and a grave look, lightening up occasionally, and capable of sudden merriment. His laugh was seldom excited by jokes merely ludicrous; it was never spiteful; and his quiet smile was sometimes inexpressibly sweet: perhaps it had a touch of sadness in it. His mouth was well shaped; his lip tremulous with expression; his brown eyes were quick, restless, and glittering; and he had a grand head, full of thought. Leigh Hunt said that "he had a head worthy of Aristotle." Hazlitt calls it "a fine Titian head, full of dumb eloquence." I knew that, before he had attained the age of twenty years, he had to make his way in the world, and that his lines had not been cast in pleasant places. I had heard, indeed, that his family had at one time consisted of a father and mother and an insane sister; all helpless and poor, and all huddled together in a small lodging, scarcely large enough to admit of their moving about without restraint. It is difficult to imagine a more disheartening youth. Nevertheless, out of this desert, in which no hope was visible, he rose up eventually a cheerful man (cheerful when his days were not clouded by his sister's illness); a charming companion, full of pleasant and gentle fancies, and the finest humorist of his age.

Although sometimes strange in manner, he was thoroughly unaffected; in serious matters thoroughly sincere. He was, indeed (as he confesses), terribly shy; diffident, not awkward in manner; with occasionally nervous, twitching motions that betrayed this infirmity. He dreaded the criticisms of servants far more than the observations of their masters. To undergo the scrutiny of the first, as he said to me, when we were going to breakfast with Mr. Rogers one morning, was "terrible." His speech was brief and pithy; not too often humorous; never sententious nor didactic. Although he sometimes talked whilst walking up and down the room (at which time he seldom looked at the person with whom he was talking), he very often spoke as if impelled by the necessity of speaking—suddenly, precipitately. If he could have spoken very easily, he might possibly have uttered long sentences, expositions, or orations; such as some of his friends indulged in, to the utter confusion of their hearers.

But he knew the value of silence; and he knew that even truth may be damaged by too many words. When he did speak, his words had a flavor in them beyond any that I have heard elsewhere. His conversation dwelt upon persons or things within his own recollection, or it opened (with a startling doubt, or a question, or a piece of quaint humor) the great circle of thought.

In temper he was quick, but easily appeased. He never affected that exemption from sensibility which has sometimes been mistaken for philosophy, and has conferred reputation upon little men. In a word, he exhibited his emotions in a fine, simple, natural manner. Contrary to the usual habits of wits, no retort or reply by Lamb, however smart in character, ever gave pain. It is clear that ill nature is not wit, and that there may be sparkling flowers which are not surrounded by thorns. Lamb's dissent was very intelligible, but never superfluously demonstrative; often, indeed, expressed by his countenance only; sometimes merely by silence.

He was more pleasant to some persons (more pleasant, I confess, to me) for the few faults or weaknesses that he had. He did not daunt us, nor throw us to a distance, by his formidable virtues. We sympathized with him; and this sympathy, which is a union between two similitudes, does not exist between perfect and imperfect natures. Like all of us, he had a few prejudices: he did not like Frenchmen; he shrunk from Scotchmen (excepting, however, Burns); he disliked bankrupts; he hated close bargainers. For the Jewish nation he entertained a mysterious awe: the Jewesses he admired, with trembling: "Jael had those full, dark, inscrutable eyes," he says. Of Braham's triumphant singing he repeatedly spoke; there had been nothing like it in his recollection: he considered him equal to Mrs. Siddons. In his letters he characterizes him as "a mixture of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel." He liked chimney- sweepers—the young ones—the "innocent blacknesses;" and with beggars he had a strong sympathy. He always spoke tenderly of them, and has written upon them an essay full of beauty. Do not be frightened (he says) at the hard words, imposture, &c. "Cast thy bread upon the waters: some have unawares entertained angels."

Much injustice has been done to Lamb by accusing him of excess in drinking. The truth is, that a small quantity of any strong liquid (wine, &c.) disturbed his speech, which at best was but an eloquent stammer. The distresses of his early life made him ready to resort to any remedy which brought forgetfulness; and he himself, frail in body and excitable, was very speedily affected. During all my intimacy with him, I never knew him drink immoderately; except once, when, having been prevailed upon to abstain altogether from wine and spirits, he resented the vow thus forced upon him by imbibing an extraordinary quantity of the "spurious" liquid. When he says, "The waters have gone over me," he speaks in metaphor, not historically. He was never vanquished by water, and seldom by wine. His energy, or mental power, was indeed subject to fluctuation; no excessive merriment, perhaps, but much depression. "My waking life," he writes, "has much of the confusion, the trouble, and obscure perplexity of an ill dream. In the daytime I stumble upon dark mountains."

Lamb's mode of life was temperate, his dinner consisting of meat, with vegetables and bread only. "We have a sure hot joint on Sundays," he writes, "and when had we better?" He appears to have had a relish for game, roast pig, and brawn, &c., roast pig especially, when given to him; but his poverty first, and afterwards his economical habits, prevented his indulging in such costly luxuries. He was himself a small and delicate eater at all times; and he entertained something like aversion towards great feeders. During a long portion of his life, his means were much straitened. The reader may note his want of money in several of his letters. Speaking of a play, he says, "I am quite aground for a plan; and I must do something for money."

He was restless and fond of walking. I do not think that he could ride on horseback; but he could walk during all the day. He had, in that manner, traversed the whole of London and its suburbs (especially the northern and north-eastern parts) frequently. "I cannot sit and think," he said. Tired with exercise, he went to bed early, except when friends supped with him; and he always rose early, from necessity, being obliged to attend at his office, in Leadenhall Street, every day, from ten until four o'clock— sometimes later. It was there that his familiar letters were written. On his return, after a humble meal, he strolled (if it was summer) into the suburbs, or traversed the streets where the old bookshops were to be found. He seldom or never gave dinners. You were admitted at all times to his plain supper, which was sufficiently good when any visitor came; at other times, it was spare. "We have tried to eat suppers," Miss Lamb writes to Mrs. Hazlitt, "but we left our appetites behind us; and the dry loaf, which offended you, now comes in at night unaccompanied." You were sure of a welcome at his house; sure of easy, unfettered talk. After supper you might smoke a pipe with your host, or gossip (upon any subject) with him or his sensible sister.

Perhaps the pipe was the only thing in which Lamb really exceeded. He was fond of it from the very early years when he was accustomed to smoke "Orinooko" at the "Salutation and Cat," with Coleridge, in 1796. He attempted on several occasions to give it up, but his struggles were overcome by counter influences. "Tobacco," he says, "stood in its own light." At last, in 1805, he was able to conquer and abandon it—for a time. His success, like desertion from a friend, caused some remorse and a great deal of regret. In writing to Coleridge about his house, which was "smoky," he inquires, "Have you cured it? It is hard to cure anything of smoking." Apart from the mere pleasure of smoking, the narcotic soothed his nerves and controlled those perpetual apprehensions which his sister's frequent illnesses excited. Of Mary Lamb, Hazlitt has said (somewhere) that she was the most rational and wisest woman whom he had ever known. Lamb and his sister had an open party once a week, every Wednesday evening, when his friends generally went to visit him, without any special invitation. He invited you suddenly, not pressingly; but with such heartiness that you at once agreed to come. There was usually a game at whist on these evenings, in which the stakes were very moderate, indeed almost nominal.

When my thoughts turn backward, as they sometimes do, to these past days, I see my dear old friend again,—"in my mind's eye, Horatio,"—with his outstretched hand, and his grave, sweet smile of welcome. It was always in a room of moderate size, comfortably but plainly furnished, that he lived. An old mahogany table was opened out in the middle of the room, round which, and near the walls, were old, high-backed chairs (such as our grandfathers used), and a long, plain bookcase completely filled with old books. These were his "ragged veterans." In one of his letters he says, "My rooms are luxurious, one for prints, and one for books; a summer and winter parlor." They, however, were not otherwise decorated. I do not remember ever to have seen a flower or an image in them. He had not been educated into expensive tastes. His extravagances were confined to books. These were all chosen by himself, all old, and all in "admired disorder;" yet he could lay his hand on any volume in a moment, "You never saw," he writes, "a bookcase in more true harmony with the contents than what I have nailed up in my room. Though new, it has more aptitude for growing old than you shall often see; as one sometimes gets a friend in the middle of life who becomes an old friend in a short time."

Here Charles Lamb sate, when at home, always near the table. At the opposite side was his sister, engaged in some domestic work, knitting or sewing, or poring over a modern novel. "Bridget in some things is behind her years." In fact, although she was ten years older than her brother, she had more sympathy with modern books and with youthful fancies than he had. She wore a neat cap, of the fashion of her youth; an old-fashioned dress. Her face was pale and somewhat square, but very placid, with gray, intelligent eyes. She was very mild in her manner to strangers, and to her brother gentle and tender always. She had often an upward look, of peculiar meaning, when directed towards him, as though to give him assurance that all was then well with her. His affection for her was somewhat less on the surface, but always present. There was great gratitude intermingled with it. "In the days of weakling infancy," he writes, "I was her tender charge, as I have been her care in foolish manhood since." Then he adds, pathetically, "I wish I could throw into a heap the remainder of our joint existences, that we might share them in equal division."

Lamb himself was always dressed in black. "I take it," he says, "to be the proper costume of an author." When this was once objected to, at a wedding, he pleaded the raven's apology in the fable, that "he had no other." His clothes were entirely black; and he wore long black gaiters, up to the knees. His head was bent a little forward, like one who had been reading; and, if not standing or walking, he generally had in his hand an old book, a pinch of snuff, or, later in the evening, a pipe. He stammered a little, pleasantly, just enough to prevent his making speeches; just enough to make you listen eagerly for his words, always full of meaning, or charged with a jest; or referring (but this was rare) to some line or passage from one of the old Elizabethan writers, which was always ushered in with a smile of tender reverence. When he read aloud it was with a slight tone, which I used to think he had caught from Coleridge; Coleridge's recitation, however, rising to a chant. Lamb's reading was not generally in books of verse, but in the old lay writers, whose tendency was towards religious thoughts. He liked, however, religious verse. "I can read," he writes to Bernard Barton, "the homely old version of the Psalms in our prayer-books, for an hour or two, without sense of weariness." He avoided manuscripts as much as practicable: "all things read raw to me in manuscript." Lamb wrote much, including many letters; but his hands were wanting in pliancy ("inveterate clumsiness" are his words), and his handwriting was therefore never good. It was neither text nor running hand, and the letters did not indicate any fluency; it was not the handwriting of an old man nor of a young man; yet it had a very peculiar character—stiff, resolute, distinct; quite unlike all others that I have seen, and easily distinguishable amongst a thousand.

No one has described Lamb's manner or merits so well as Hazlitt: "He always made the best pun and the best remark in the course of the evening. His serious conversation, like his serious writing, is his best. No one ever stammered out such fine piquant, deep, eloquent things, in half a dozen sentences, as he does. His jests scald like tears; and he probes a question with a play upon words. There was no fuss or cant about him. He has furnished many a text for Coleridge to preach upon." (I. Plain Speaker.) Charles was frequently merry; but ever, at the back of his merriment, there reposed a grave depth, in which rich colors and tender lights were inlaid. For his jests sprang from his sensibility; which was as open to pleasure as to pain. This sensibility, if it somewhat impaired his vigor, led him into curious and delicate fancies, and taught him a liking for things of the highest relish, which a mere robust jester never tastes.

Large, sounding words, unless embodying great thoughts (as in the case of Lear), he did not treasure up or repeat. He was an admirer of what was high and good, of what was delicate (especially); but he delighted most to saunter along the humbler regions, where kindness of heart and geniality of humor made the way pleasant. His intellect was very quick, piercing into the recondite meaning of things in a moment. His own sentences were compressed and full of meaning; his opinions independent and decisive; no qualifying or doubting. His descriptions were not highly colored; but, as it were, sharply cut, like a piece of marble, rather than like a picture. He liked and encouraged friendly discussion; but he hated contentious argument, which leads to quarrel rather than to truth.

There was an utter want of parade in everything he said and did, in everything about him and his home. The only ornaments on his walls were a few engravings in black frames: one after Leonardo da Vinci; one after Titian; and four, I think, by Hogarth, about whom he has written so well. Images of quaint beauty, and all gentle, simple things (things without pretension) pleased him to the fullest extent; perhaps a little beyond their strict merit. I have heard him express admiration for Leonardo da Vinci that he did not accord to Raffaelle. Raffaelle was too ostentatious of meaning; his merits were too obvious,—too much thrust upon the understanding; not retired nor involved, so as to need discovery or solution. He preferred even Titian (whose meaning is generally obvious enough) to Raffaelle; but Leonardo was above both. Without doubt, Lamb's taste on several matters was peculiar; for instance, there were a few obsolete words, such as arride, agnize, burgeon, &c., which he fancied, and chose to rescue from oblivion. Then he did not care for music. I never heard a song in his house, nor any conversation on the subject of melody or harmony, "I have no ear," he says; yet the sentiment, apart from the science of music, gave him great pleasure. He reverenced the fine organ playing of Mr. Novello, and admired the soaring singing of his daughter,— "the tuneful daughter of a tuneful sire;" but he resented the misapplication of the theatres to sacred music. He thought this a profanation of the good old original secular purposes of a playhouse.

As a comprehension of all delights he loved London; with its bustle and its living throngs of men and women; its shops, its turns and windings; the cries and noises of trade and life; beyond all other things. He liked also old buildings and out-of-the-way places; colleges; solemn churchyards, round which the murmuring thousands floated unheeding. In particular he was fond of visiting, in his short vacations, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Although (he writes) "Mine have been anything but studious hours," he professes to have received great solace from those "repositories of 'mouldering' learning." "What a place to be in is an old library!" he exclaims, "where the souls of the old writers seem reposing, as in some dormitory or middle state." The odor of the "moth- scented" coverings of the old books is "as fragrant as the blooms of the tree of knowledge which grew in the happy orchard."

An ancient manor-house, that Vanbrugh might have built, dwelt like a picture in his memory. "Nothing fills a child's mind like an old mansion," he says. Yet he could feel unaffectedly the simplicity and beauty of a country life. The heartiness of country people went to his heart direct, and remained there forever. The Fields and the Gladmans, with their homely dwellings and hospitality, drew him to them like magnets. There was nothing too fine nor too lofty in these friends for his tastes or his affection; they did not "affront him with their light." His fancy always stooped to moralize; he hated the stilted attitudes and pretensions of poetasters and self-glorifying artists.

He never spoke disparagingly of any person, nor overpraised any one. When it was proposed to erect a statue of Clarkson, during his life, he objected to it: "We should be modest," he says, "for a modest man." He was himself eminently modest; he never put himself forward: he was always sought. He had much to say on many subjects, and he was repeatedly pressed to say this, before he consented to do so. He was almost teased into writing the Elia Essays. These and all his other writings are brief and to the point. He did not exhale in words. It was said that Coleridge's talk was worth so many guineas a sheet. Charles Lamb talked but sparingly. He put forth only so much as had complete flavor. I know that high pay and frequent importunity failed to induce him to squander his strength in careless essays: he waited until he could give them their full share of meaning and humor.

When I speak of his extreme liking for London, it must not be supposed that he was insensible to great scenery. After his only visit to the Lake country, and beholding Skiddaw, he writes back to his host, "O! its fine black head, and the bleak air at the top of it, with a prospect of mountains all about making you giddy. It was a day that will stand out like a mountain in my life;" adding, however, "Fleet Street and the Strand are better places to live in, for good and all. I could not live in Skiddaw. I could spend there two or three years; but I must have a prospect of seeing Fleet Street at the end of that time, or I should mope and pine away." He loved even its smoke, and asserted that it suited his vision. A short time previously he had, in a touching letter to Wordsworth (1801), enumerated the objects that he liked so much in London. "These things," he writes, "work themselves into my mind: the rooms where I was born; a bookcase that has followed me about like a faithful dog (only exceeding him in knowledge) wherever I have moved; old chairs; old tables; squares where I have sunned myself; my old school: these are my mistresses. Have I not enough, without your mountains? I do not envy you; I should pity you, did I not know that the mind will make friends with anything."

Besides his native London, "the centre of busy interests," he had great liking for unpretending men, who would come and gossip with him in a friendly, companionable way, or who liked to talk about old authors or old books. In his love of books he was very catholic. "Shaftesbury is not too genteel, nor Jonathan Wild too low. But for books which are no books," such as "scientific treatises, and the histories of Hume, Smollett, and Gibbon," &c., he confesses that he becomes splenetic when he sees them perched up on shelves, "like false saints, who have usurped the true shrines" of the legitimate occupants. He loved old books and authors, indeed, beyond most other things. He used to say (with Shakespeare), "The Heavens themselves are old." He would rather have acquired an ancient forgotten volume than a modern one, at an equal price; the very circumstance of its having been neglected and cast disdainfully into the refuse basket of a bookstall gave it value in his eyes. He bought it, and rejoiced in being able thus to remedy the injustice of fortune.

He liked best those who had not thriven with posterity: his reverence for Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, can only be explained in this way. It must not be forgotten that his pity or generosity towards neglected authors extended also to all whom the goddess of Good Fortune had slighted. In this list were included all who had suffered in purse or in repute. He was ready to defend man or beast, whenever unjustly attacked. I remember that, at one of the monthly magazine dinners, when John Wilkes was too roughly handled, Lamb quoted the story (not generally known) of his replying, when the blackbirds were reported to have stolen all his cherries, "Poor birds, they are welcome." He said that those impulsive words showed the inner nature of the man more truly than all his political speeches.

Lamb's charity extended to all things. I never heard him speak spitefully of any author. He thought that every one should have a clear stage, unobstructed. His heart, young at all times, never grew hard or callous during life. There was always in it a tender spot, which Time was unable to touch. He gave away greatly, when the amount of his means are taken into consideration; he gave away money—even annuities, I believe—to old impoverished friends whose wants were known to him. I remember that once, when we were sauntering together on Pentonville Hill, and he noticed great depression in me, which he attributed to want of money, he said, suddenly, in his stammering way, "My dear boy, I—I have a quantity of useless things. I have now—in my desk, a—a hundred pounds—that I don't—don't know what to do with. Take it." I was much touched; but I assured him that my depression did not arise from want of money.

He was very home-loving; he loved London as the best of places; he loved his home as the dearest spot in London: it was the inmost heart of the sanctuary. Whilst at home he had no curiosity for what passed beyond his own territory. His eyes were never truant; no one ever saw him peering out of window, examining the crowds flowing by; no one ever surprised him gazing on vacancy. "I lose myself," he says, "in other men's minds. When I am not walking I am reading; I cannot sit and think; books think for me." If it was not the time for his pipe, it was always the time for an old play, or for a talk with friends. In the midst of this society his own mind grew green again and blossomed; or, as he would have said, "burgeoned."

In the foregoing desultory account of Charles Lamb I have, without doubt, set forth many things that are frequently held as trivial. Nothing, however, seems to me unimportant which serves in any way to illustrate a character. The floating straws, it is said, show from what quarter the wind is blowing. So the arching or knitting of the brow is sometimes sufficient to indicate wonder or pride, anger or contempt. On the stage, indeed, it is often the sole means of expressing the fluctuation of the passions. I myself have heard of a "Pooh!" which interrupted a long intimacy, when the pander was administering sweet words in too liberal a measure.

As with Lamb so with his companions. Each was notable for some individual mark or character. His own words will best describe them: "Not many persons of science, and few professed literati, were of his councils. They were for the most part persons of an uncertain fortune. His intimados were, to confess a truth, in the world's eye, a ragged regiment; he found them floating on the surface of society, and the color or something else in the weed pleased him. The burrs stuck to him; but they were good and loving burrs, for all that."

None of Lamb's intimates were persons of title or fashion, or of any political importance. They were reading men, or authors, or old friends who had no name or pretensions. The only tie that held these last and Lamb together was a long-standing mutual friendship—a sufficient link. None of them ever forsook him: they loved him, and in return he had a strong regard for them. His affections, indeed, were concentrated on few persons; not widened (weakened) by too general a philanthropy. When you went to Lamb's rooms on the Wednesday evenings (his "At Home"), you generally found the card table spread out, Lamb himself one of the players. On the corner of the table was a snuff-box; and the game was enlivened by sundry brief ejaculations and pungent questions, which kept alive the wits of the party present. It was not "silent whist!" I do not remember whether, in common with Sarah Battle, Lamb had a weakness in favor of "Hearts." I suppose that it was at one of these meetings that he made that shrewd remark which has since escaped into notoriety: "Martin" (observed he), "if dirt were trumps, what a hand you would hold!" It is not known what influence Martin's trumps had on the rubber then in progress.—When the conversation became general, Lamb's part in it was very effective. His short, clear sentences always produced effect. He never joined in talk unless he understood the subject; then, if the matter in question interested him, he was not slow in showing his earnestness; but I never heard him argue or talk for argument's sake. If he was indifferent to the question, he was silent.

The supper of cold meat, on these occasions, was always on the side-table; not very formal, as may be imagined; and every one might rise, when it suited him, and cut a slice or take a glass of porter, without reflecting on the abstinence of the rest of the company. Lamb would, perhaps, call out and bid the hungry guest help himself without ceremony. We learn (from Hazlitt) that Martin Burney's eulogies on books were sometimes intermingled with expressions of his satisfaction with the veal pie which employed him at the sideboard. After the game was won (and lost) the ring of the cheerful glasses announced that punch or brandy and water had become the order of the night.

It was curious to observe the gradations in Lamb's manner to his various guests, although it was courteous to all. With Hazlitt he talked as though they met the subject in discussion on equal terms; with Leigh Hunt he exchanged repartees; to Wordsworth he was almost respectful; with Coleridge he was sometimes jocose, sometimes deferring; with Martin Burney fraternally familiar; with Manning affectionate; with Godwin merely courteous; or, if friendly, then in a minor degree. The man whom I found at Lamb's house more frequently than any other person was Martin Burney. He is now scarcely known; yet Lamb dedicated his prose works to him, in 1818, and there described him as "no common judge of books and men;" and Southey, corresponding with Rickman, when his "Joan of Arc" was being reprinted, says, "The best omen I have heard of its welldoing is, that Martin Burney likes it." Lamb was very much attached to Martin, who was a sincere and able man, although with a very unprepossessing physiognomy. His face was warped by paralysis, which affected one eye and one side of his mouth. He was plain and unaffected in manner, very diffident and retiring, yet pronouncing his opinions, when asked to do so, without apology or hesitation. He was a barrister, and travelled the western circuit at the same time as Sir Thomas Wild (afterwards Lord Truro), whose briefs he used to read before the other considered them, marking out the principal facts and points for attention. Martin Burney had excellent taste in books; eschewed the showy and artificial, and looked into the sterling qualities of writing. He frequently accompanied Lamb in his visits to friends, and although very familiar with Charles, he always spoke of him, with respect, as Mr. Lamb. "He is on the top scale of my friendship ladder," Lamb says, "on which an angel or two is still climbing, and some, alas! descending." The last time I saw Burney was at the corner of a street in London, when he was overflowing on the subject of Raffaelle and Hogarth. After a great and prolonged struggle, he said, he had arrived at the conclusion that Raffaelle was the greater man of the two.

Notwithstanding Lamb's somewhat humble description of his friends and familiars, some of them were men well known in literature.

Amongst others, I met there Messrs. Coleridge, Manning, Hazlitt, Haydon, Wordsworth, Barron Field, Leigh Hunt, Clarkson, Sheridan Knowles, Talfourd, Kenney, Godwin, the Burneys, Payne Collier, and others whose names I need not chronicle. I met there, also, on one or two occasions, Liston, and Miss Kelly, and, I believe, Rickman. Politics were rarely discussed amongst them. Anecdotes, characteristic, showing the strong and weak points of human nature, were frequent enough. But politics (especially party politics) were seldom admitted. Lamb disliked them as a theme for evening talk; he perhaps did not understand the subject scientifically. And when Hazlitt's impetuosity drove him, as it sometimes did, into fierce expressions on public affairs, these were usually received in silence; and the matter thus raised up for assent or controversy was allowed to drop.

Lamb's old associates are now dead. "They that lived so long," as he says, "and flourished so steadily, are all crumbled away." The beauty of these evenings was, that every one was placed upon an easy level. No one out- topped the others. No one—not even Coleridge—was permitted to out-talk the rest. No one was allowed to hector another, or to bring his own grievances too prominently forward, so as to disturb the harmony of the night. Every one had a right to speak, and to be heard; and no one was ever trodden or clamored down (as in some large assemblies) until he had proved that he was not entitled to a hearing, or until he had abused his privilege. I never, in all my life, heard so much unpretending good sense talked, as at Charles Lamb's social parties. Often a piece of sparkling humor was shot out that illuminated the whole evening. Sometimes there was a flight of high and earnest talk, that took one half way towards the stars.

It seems great matter for regret that the thoughts of men like Lamb's associates should have passed away altogether; for scarcely any of them, save Wordsworth and Coleridge, are now distinctly remembered; and it is, perhaps, not impossible to foretell the duration of their fame. All have answered their purpose, I suppose. Each has had his turn, and has given place to a younger thinker, as the father is replaced by the son. Thus Jeremy Taylor and Sir Thomas Browne, and Webster, and the old Dramatists, have travelled out of sight, and their thoughts are reproduced by modern writers, the originators of those thoughts often remaining unknown. Perhaps One, out of many thousand authors, survives into an immortality. The manner and the taste change. The armor and falchion of old give place to the new weapons of modern warfare—less weighty, but perhaps as trenchant. We praise the old authors, but we do not read them. The Soul of Antiquity seems to survive only in its proverbs, which contain the very essence of wisdom.



CHAPTER VI.

London Magazine.—Contributors.—Transfer of Magazine.—Monthly Dinners and Visitors.—Colebrook Cottage.—Lamb's Walks.—Essays of Elia: Their Excellence and Character.—Enlarged Acquaintance.—Visit to Paris.—Miss Isola.—Quarrel with Southey.—Leaves India House.—Leisure.—Amicus Rediviuus.—Edward Irving.



The "London Magazine" was established in January, 1820, the publishers being Messrs. Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, and its editor being Mr. John Scott, who had formerly edited "The Champion" newspaper, and whose profession was exclusively that of a man of letters. At this distance of time it is impossible to specify the authors of all the various papers which gave a tone to the Magazine; but as this publication forms, in fact, the great foundation of Lamb's fame, I think it well to enter somewhat minutely into its constitution and character.

Mr. John Scott was the writer of the several articles entitled "The Living Authors;" of a good many of the earlier criticisms; of some of the papers on politics; and of some which may be termed "Controversial." The essays on Sir Walter Scott, Wordsworth, Godwin, and Lord Byron are from his hand. He contributed also the critical papers on the writings of Keats, Shelley, Leigh Hunt, and Hazlitt.

Mr. Hazlitt wrote all the articles which appear under the head "Drama;" the twelve essays entitled "Table Talk;" and the papers on Fonthill Abbey, and on the Angerstein pictures, and the Elgin marbles.

Mr. Charles Lamb's papers were the well-known Elia Essays, which first appeared in this Magazine. Mr. Elia (whose name he assumed) was, at one time, a clerk in the India House. He died, however, before the Essays were made public, and was ignorant of Lamb's intention to do honor to his name.

Mr. Thomas Carlyle was author of the "Life and Writings of Schiller," in the eighth, ninth, and tenth volumes of the Magazine. These papers, although very excellent, appear to be scarcely prophetic of the great fame which their author was afterwards destined, so justly, to achieve.

Mr. De Quincey's contributions were the "Confessions of an Opium Eater;" also various papers specified as being "by the Opium Eater;" the essay on Jean Paul Richter, and papers translated from the German, or dealing with German literature.

The Reverend Henry Francis Cary (the translator of Dante) wrote the Notices of the Early French poets; the additions to Orford's "Royal and Noble Authors;" and, I believe, the continuations of Johnson's "Lives of the Poets." Of these last, however, I am not certain. Mr. Allan Cunningham (the Scottish poet) was author of the "Twelve Tales of Lyddal Cross;" of the series of stories or papers styled "Traditional Literature;" and of various other contributions in poetry and prose.

Mr. John Poole contributed the "Beauties of the living Dramatists;" being burlesque imitations of modern writers for the stage; viz., Morton, Dibdin, Reynolds, Moncrieff, &c.

Mr. John Hamilton Reynolds wrote, I believe, in every number of the periodical, after it came into the hands of Taylor and Hessey, who were his friends. All the papers with the name of Henry Herbert affixed were written by him; also the descriptive accounts of the Coronation, Greenwich Hospital, The Cockpit Royal, The Trial of Thurtell, &c.

Mr. Thomas Hood fleshed his maiden sword here; and his first poems of length, "Lycus the Centaur" and "The two Peacocks of Bedfont" may be found in the Magazine.

Mr. George Darley (author of "Thomas a Becket," &c.) wrote the several papers entitled "Dramaticles;" some pieces of verse; and the Letters addressed to "The Dramatists of the Day."

Mr. Richard Ayton wrote "The Sea Roamers," the article on "Hunting," and such papers as are distinguished by the signature "R. A."

Mr. Keats (the poet) and Mr. James Montgomery contributed verses.

Sir John Bowring (I believe) translated into English verse the Spanish poetry, and wrote the several papers which appear under the head of "Spanish Romances."

Mr. Henry Southern (editor of "The Retrospective Review") wrote the "Conversations of Lord Byron," and "The Fanariotes of Constantinople," in the tenth volume.

Mr. Walter Savage Landor was author of the Imaginary Conversation, between Southey and Porson, in volume eight.

Mr. Julius (Archdeacon) Hare reviewed the works of Landor in the tenth volume.

Mr. Elton contributed many translations from Greek and Latin authors; from the minor poems of Homer, from Catullus, Nonnus, Propertius, &c.

Messrs. Hartley Coleridge, John Clare, Cornelius Webb, Bernard Barton, and others sent poems; generally with the indicating name.

I myself was amongst the crowd of contributors; and was author of various pieces, some in verse, and others in prose, now under the protection of that great Power which is called "Oblivion."

Finally, the too celebrated Thomas Griffiths Wainewright contributed various fantasies, on Art and Arts; all or most of which may be recognized by his assumed name of Janus Weathercock.

To show the difficulty of specifying the authorship of all the articles contributed,—even Mr. Hessey (one of the proprietors) was unable to do so; and indeed, shortly before his death, applied to me for information on the subject.

By the aid of the gentlemen who contributed—each his quota—to the "London Magazine," it acquired much reputation, and a very considerable sale. During its career of five years, it had, for a certain style of essay, no superior (scarcely an equal) amongst the periodicals of the day. It was perhaps not so widely popular as works directed to the multitude, instead of to the select few, might have been; for thoughts and words addressed to the cultivated intellect only must always reckon upon limited success. Yet the Magazine was successful to an extent that preserved its proprietors from loss; perhaps not greatly beyond that point. Readers in those years were insignificant in number, compared with readers of the present time, when almost all men are able to derive benefit from letters, and letters are placed within every one's reach.

On the death of Mr. John Scott, the Magazine, in July, 1821, passed into the hands of Messrs. Taylor and Hessey; the former being the gentleman who discovered the identity of Junius with Sir Philip Francis; the latter being simply very courteous to all, and highly respectable and intelligent.

John Scott was an able literary man. I do not remember much more of him than that he was a shrewd and I believe a conscientious writer; that he had great industry; was, generally, well read, and possessed a very fair amount of critical taste; that, like other persons, he had some prejudices, and that he was sometimes, moreover, a little hasty and irritable. Yet he agreed well, as far as I know, with the regiment of mercenaries who marched under his flag.

When Taylor and Hessey assumed the management of the "London Magazine" they engaged no editor. They were tolerably liberal paymasters; the remuneration for each page of prose (not very laborious) being, if the writer were a person of repute or ability, one pound; and for each page of verse, two pounds. Charles Lamb received (very fitly) for his brief and charming Essays, two or three times the amount of the other writers. When they purchased the Magazine, the proprietors opened a house in Waterloo Place for the better circulation of the publication.

It was there that the contributors met once a month, over an excellent dinner given by the firm, and consulted and talked on literary matters together. These meetings were very social, all the guests coming with a determination to please and to be pleased. I do not know that many important matters were arranged, for the welfare of the Magazine, at these dinners; but the hearts of the contributors were opened, and with the expansion of the heart the intellect widened also. If there had been any shades of jealousy amongst them, they faded away before the light of the friendly carousal; if there was any envy, it died. All the fences and restraints of authorship were cast off, and the natural human being was disclosed.

Amongst others, Charles Lamb came to most of these dinners, always dressed in black (his old snuff-colored suit having been dismissed for years); always kind and genial; conversational, not talkative, but quick in reply; eating little, and drinking moderately with the rest. Allan Cunningham, a stalwart man, was generally there; very Scotch in aspect, but ready to do a good turn to any one. His talk was not too abundant, although he was a voluminous writer in prose. His songs, not unworthy of being compared with even those of Burns, are (as everybody knows) excellent. His face shone at these festivities. Reynolds came always. His good temper and vivacity were like condiments at the feast.

There also came, once or twice, the Rev. H. F. Cary, the quiet gentleness of whose face almost interfered with its real intelligence. Yet he spoke well, and with readiness, on any subject that he chose to discuss. He was very intimate with Lamb, who latterly often dined with him, and was always punctual. "By Cot's plessing we will not be absent at the Grace" (he writes in 1834). Lamb's taste was very homely: he liked tripe and cow- heel, and once, when he was suggesting a particular dish to his friend, he wrote," We were talking of roast shoulder of mutton and onion sauce; but I scorn to prescribe hospitalities. "Charles had great regard for Mr. Cary; and in his last letter (written on his death-bed) he inquired for a book, which he was very uneasy about, and which he thought he had left at Mrs. Dyer's. "It is Mr. Cary's book" (he says), "and I would not lose it for the world." Cary was entirely without vanity; and he, who had traversed the ghastly regions of the Inferno, interchanged little courtesies on equal terms with workers who had never travelled beyond the pages of "The London Magazine." No one (it is said) who has performed anything great ever looks big upon it.

Thomas Hood was there, almost silent except when he shot out some irresistible pun, and disturbed the gravity of the company. Hood's labors were poetic, but his sports were passerine. It is remarkable that he, who was capable of jesting even on his own prejudices and predilections, should not (like Catullus) have brought down the "Sparrow," and enclosed him in an ode. Lamb admired and was very familiar with him. "What a fertile genius he is!" (Charles Lamb writes to Bernard Barton), "and quiet withal." He then expatiates particularly on Hood's sketch of "Very Deaf indeed!" wherein a footpad has stopped an old gentleman, but cannot make him understand what he wants, although the fellow is firing a pistol into his ear trumpet. "You'd like him very much," he adds. Although Lamb liked him very much, he was a little annoyed once by Hood writing a comical essay in imitation of (and so much like) one of his own, that people generally thought that Elia had awakened in an unruly mood. Hazlitt attended once or twice; but he was a rather silent guest, rising into emphatic talk only when some political discussion (very rare) stimulated him.

Mr. De Quincey appeared at only one of these dinners. The expression of his face was intelligent, but cramped and somewhat peevish. He was self- involved, and did not add to the cheerfulness of the meeting. I have consulted this gentleman's three essays, of which Charles Lamb is professedly the subject; but I cannot derive from them anything illustrative of my friend Lamb's character. I have been mainly struck therein by De Quincey's attacks on Hazlitt, to whom the essays had no relation. I am aware that the two authors (Hazlitt and De Quincey) had a quarrel in 1823, Hazlitt having claimed certain theories or reasonings which the other had propounded as his own. In reply to Mr. De Quincey's claims to have had a familiar acquaintance with Charles Lamb (in 1821 and 1823), I have to observe that during these years (when I was almost continually with him) I never saw Mr. De Quincey at his house, and never heard Lamb speak of him or refer to his writings on any occasion. His visits to Lamb were surely very rare.

John Clare, a peasant from Northamptonshire, and a better poet than Bloomfield, was one of the visitors. He was thoroughly rustic, dressed in conspicuously country fashion, and was as simple as a daisy. His delight at the wonders of London formed the staple of his talk. This was often stimulated into extravagance by the facetious fictions of Reynolds. Poor fellow, he died insane.

About this time Lamb determined to leave London; and in 1823 he moved into Colebrook Cottage, Islington, a small, detached white house of six rooms. "The New River, rather elderly by this time" (he says), "runs, if a moderate walking pace can be so termed, close to the foot of the house; behind is a spacious garden, &c., and the cheerful dining-room is studded all over and rough with old books: I feel like a great lord; never having had a house before."

From this place (which a friend of his christened "Petty Venice") he used often to walk into London, to breakfast or dine with an acquaintance. For walking was always grateful to him. When confined to his room in the India House, he counted it amongst his principal recreations, and even now, with the whole world of leisure before him, it ranked amongst his daily enjoyments. By himself or with an acquaintance, and subsequently with Hood's dog Dash (whose name should have been Rover), he wandered over all the roads and by-paths of the adjoining country. He was a peripatetic, in every way, beyond the followers of Aristotle. Walking occupied his energies; and when he returned home, he (like Sarah Battle) "unbent his mind over a book." "I cannot sit and think" is his phrase. If he now and then stopped for a minute at a rustic public house, tired with the excursive caprices of Dash—beguiled perhaps by the simple attractions of a village sign—I hold him excusable for the glass of porter which sometimes invigorated him in his fatigue.

In the course of these walks he traversed all the green regions which lie on the north and north-east of the metropolis. In London he loved to frequent those streets where the old bookshops were, Wardour Street, Princes Street, Seven Dials (where the shop has been long closed): he loved also Gray's Inn, in the garden of which he met Dodd, just before his death ("with his buffoon mask taken off"); and the Temple, into which you pass from the noise and crowd of Fleet Street,—into the quiet and "ample squares and green recesses," where the old Dial," the garden god of Christian gardens," then told of Time, and where the still living fountain sends up its song into the listening air.

Of the Essays of "Elia," [1] written originally for the London Magazine, I feel it difficult to speak. They are the best amongst the good—his best. I see that they are genial, delicate, terse, full of thought and full of humor; that they are delightfully personal; and when he speaks of himself you cannot hear too much; that they are not imitations, but adoptions. We encounter his likings and fears, his fancies (his nature) in all. The words have an import never known before: the syllables have expanded their meaning, like opened flowers; the goodness of others is heightened by his own tenderness; and what is in nature hard and bad is qualified (qualified, not concealed) by the tender light of pity, which always intermingles with his own vision. Gravity and laughter, fact and fiction, are heaped together, leavened in each case by charity and toleration; and all are marked by a wise humanity. Lamb's humor, I imagine, often reflected (sometimes, I hope, relieved) the load of pain that always weighed on his own heart.

The first of the Essays ("The South Sea House") appeared in the month of August, 1820; the last ("Captain Jackson") in November, 1824. Lamb's literary prosperity during this period was at the highest; yet he was always loath to show himself too much before the world. After the first series of Essays had been published (for they are divided into two parts) he feigned that he was dead, and caused the second series to be printed as by "a friend of the late Elia." These were written somewhat reluctantly. His words are, "To say the truth, it is time he [Elia] were gone. The humor of the thing, if ever there were much humor in it, was pretty well exhausted; and a two years-and-a-half existence has been a tolerable duration for a phantom." It is thus modestly that he speaks of essays which have delighted all cultivated readers.

I want a phrase to express the combination of qualities which constitutes Lamb's excellence in letters. In the absence of this, I must content myself with referring to some of the papers which live most distinctly in my recollection. I will not transcribe any part of his eulogy on Hogarth; nor of his fine survey of "Lear," that grandest of all tragedies. They are well known to students of books. I turn for a moment to the Elia Essays only. In mere variety of subject (extent in a small space) they surpass almost all other essays. They are full of a witty melancholy. Many of them may be termed autobiographical, which trebles their interest with most readers.

Let me recollect:—How he mourns over the ruins of Blakesmoor (once his home on holidays), "reduced to an antiquity"! How he stalks, ghost-like, through the desolate rooms of the South Sea House, or treads the avenues of the Temple, where the benchers ("supposed to have been children once") are pacing the stony terraces! Then there is the inimitable Sarah Battle (unconquered even by Chance), arming herself for the war of whist; and the young Africans, "preaching from their chimney-pulpits lessons of patience to mankind." If your appetite is keen, by all means visit Bobo, who invented roast pig: if gay, and disposed to saunter through the pleasant lanes of Hertfordshire, go to Mackery End, where the Gladmans and Brutons will bid you welcome: if grave, let your eyes repose on the face of dear old Bridget Elia, "in a season of distress the truest comforter." Should you wish to enlarge your humanity, place a few coins (maravedis) in the palm of one of the beggars (the "blind Tobits") of London, and try to believe his tales, histories or fables, as though they were the veritable stories (told by night) on the banks of the famous Tigris. Do not despise the poorest of the poor—even the writer of valentines: "All valentines are not foolish," as you may read in Elia's words; and "All fools' day" may cheer you, as the fool in "Lear" may make you wise and tolerant.

I could go on for many pages—to the poor relations, and the old books, and the old actors; to Dodd, who "dying put on the weeds of Dominic;" and to Mrs. Jordan and Dickey Suet (both whom I well remember); to Elliston, always on the stage; to Munden, with features ever changing; and to Liston, with only one face: "But what a face!" I forbear. I pass also over Comberbatch (Coleridge), borrower of books, and Captain Jackson, and Barbara S. (Miss Kelly), and go to the rest of my little history. The "Popular Fallacies," which in course of time followed, and were eventually added to the second series and re-published, are in manner essays also on a small scale, brief and dealing with abstract subjects more than the "Elia." It may be interesting to know that Lamb's two favorites were "That home is home, though it is never so homely," and "That we should rise with the lark." In the first of these he enters into all the discomforts and terrible distractions of a poor man's home; in the second he descants on the luxuries of bed, and the nutritious value of dreams: "The busy part of mankind," he says, "are content to swallow their sleep by wholesale: we choose to linger in bed and digest our dreams." The last "Fallacy" is remarkable for a sentence which seems to refer to Alice W.: "We were never much in the world," he says; "disappointment early struck a dark veil between us and its dazzling illusions:" he then concludes with, "We once thought life to be something; but it has unaccountably fallen from us before its time. The sun has no purposes of ours to light us to. Why should we get up?"

It will be observed by the sagacious student of the entire Essays, that however quaint or familiar, or (rarely, however) sprinkled with classical allusions, they are never vulgar, nor commonplace, nor pedantic. They are "natural with a self-pleasing quaintness." The phrases are not affected, but are derived from our ancestors, now gone to another country; they are brought back from the land of shadows, and made denizens of England, in modern times. Lamb's studies were the lives and characters of men; his humors and tragic meditations were generally dug out of his own heart: there are in them earnestness, and pity, and generosity, and truth; and there is not a mean or base thought to be found throughout all.

In reading over these old essays, some of them affect me with a grave pleasure, amounting to pain. I seem to import into them the very feeling with which he wrote them; his looks and movements are transfigured, and communicated to me by the poor art of the printer. His voice, so sincere and earnest, rings in my ear again. He was no Feignwell: apart from his joke, never was a man so real, and free from pretence. No one, as I believe, will ever taste the flavor of certain writers as he has done. He was the last true lover of Antiquity. Although he admitted a few of the beauties of modern times, yet in his stronger love he soared backwards to old acclivities, and loved to rest there. His essays, like his sonnets, are (as I have said) reflections of his own feelings. And so, I think, should essays generally be. A history or sketch of science, or a logical effort, may help the reader some way up the ladder of learning; but they do not link themselves with his affections. I myself prefer the affections to the sciences. The story of the heart is the deepest of all histories; and Shakespeare is profounder and longer lived than Maclaurin, or Malthus, or Ricardo.

Lamb's career throughout his later years was marked by an enlarged intercourse with society (it had never been confined to persons of his own way of thinking), by more frequent absences in the country and elsewhere, and by the reception of a somewhat wider body of acquaintance into his own house. He visited the Universities, in which he much delighted: he fraternized with many of the contributors to the "London Magazine." He received the letters and calls of his admirers—strangers and others. These were now much extended in number, by the publication of the Essays of Elia. I was in the habit of seeing him very frequently at his home: I met him also at Mr. Cary's, at Leigh Hunt's, at Novello's, at Haydon's, once at Hazlitt's, and elsewhere. It must have been about this time that one of his visits (which always took place when the students were absent) was made to Oxford, where he met George Dyer, dreaming amongst the quadrangles, as he has described in his pleasant paper called "Oxford in the Vacation."

Lamb's letters to correspondents are perhaps not quite so frequent now as formerly. He writes occasionally to his old friends; to Wordsworth, and Southey, and Coleridge; also to Manning, who is still in China, and to whom in December, 1815, he had sent one of his best and most characteristic letters, describing the (imaginary) death and decrepitude of his correspondent's friends in England; although he takes care (the next day) to tell him that his first was a "lying letter." Indeed, that letter itself, humorous as it is, is so obviously manufactured in the fabulous district of hyperbole, that it requires no disavowal. Manning, however, returns to England not long afterwards; and then the correspondence, if less humorous, is also less built up of improbabilities. He corresponds also with Mr. Barron Field, who is relegated to the Judicial Bench in New South Wales. Of him he inquires about "The Land of Thieves;" he wants to know if their poets be not plagiarists; and suggests that half the truth which his letters contain "will be converted into lies" before they reach his correspondent. Mr. Field is the gentleman to whom the pleasant paper on "Distant Correspondents" is addressed.

In 1822 Charles Lamb and his sister travelled as far as Paris, neither of them understanding a word of the French language. What tempted them to undertake this expedition I never knew. Perhaps, as he formerly said, when journeying to the Lakes, it was merely a daring ambition to see "remote regions." The French journey seems to have been almost barren of good. He brought nothing back in his memory, and there is no account whatever of his adventures there. It has been stated that Mary Lamb was taken ill on the road; but I do not know this with certainty. From a short letter to Barron Field, it appears, indeed, that he thought Paris "a glorious picturesque old city," to which London looked "mean and new," although the former had "no Saint Paul's or Westminster Abbey." "I and sister," he writes, "are just returned from Paris. We have eaten frogs! It has been such a treat! Nicest little delicate things; like Lilliputian rabbits." But this is all. His Reminiscences, whatever they were, do not enrich his correspondence. In conversation he used to tell how he had once intended to ask the waiter for an egg (oeuf), but called, in his ignorance, for Eau de vie, and that the mistake produced so pleasant a result, that his inquiries afterwards for Eau de vie were very frequent.

In his travels to Cambridge, which began to be frequent about this time, his gains were greater. For there he first became acquainted with Miss Emma Isola, for whom, as I can testify, he at all times exhibited the greatest parental regard. When he and Mary Lamb first knew her, she was a little orphan girl, at school. They invited her to spend her holidays with them; and she went accordingly: the liking became mutual, and gradually deepened into great affection. The visit once made and so much relished, became habitual; and Miss Isola's holidays were afterwards regularly spent at the Lambs' house. She used to take long walks with Charles, when his sister was too old and infirm to accompany him. Ultimately she was looked upon in the light of a child; and Charles Lamb, when speaking of her (and he did this always tenderly), used invariably to call her "Our Emma." To show how deep his regard was, he at one time was invited to engage in some profitable engagement (1830) whilst Miss Isola was in bad health; but he at once replied, "Whilst she is in danger, and till she is out of it, I feel that I have no spirits for an engagement of any kind." Some years afterwards, when she became well, and was about to be married, Lamb writes, "I am about to lose my only walk companion," whose mirthful spirits (as he prettily terms it) were "the youth of our house." "With my perfect approval, and more than concurrence," as he states, she was to be married to Mr. Moxon. Miss Emma Isola, who was, in Charles Lamb's phrase, "a very dear friend of ours," remained his friend till death, and became eventually his principal legatee. After her marriage, Charles, writing to her husband (November, 1833), says, "Tell Emma I every day love her more, and miss her less. Tell her so, from her loving Uncle, as she has let me call myself." It was, as I believe, a very deep paternal affection.