made as sure of never being hanged as I, in my own pro sumption, am ready, too ready, to do myself. What are we better than they? Do we come into the world with different necks? Is there any distinctive mark under our left ears? Are we unstrangulable, I ask you? Think on these things. I am shocked sometimes at the shape of my own fingers, not for their resemblance to the ape tribe (which is something), but for the exquisite adaptation of them to the purposes of picking, fingering, &c.

"No one that is so framed, I maintain it, but should tremble. C. L."

In the year 1824 one of Lamb's last ties to the theatre, as scene of present enjoyment, was severed. Munden, the rich peculiarities of whose acting he has embalmed in one of the choicest "Essays of Elia," left the stage in the mellowness of his powers. His relish for Munden's acting was almost a new sense; he did not compare him with the old comedians, as having common qualities with them, but regarded him as altogether of a different and original style. On the last night of his appearance Lamb was very desirous to attend, but every place in the boxes had long been secured and Lamb was not strong enough to stand the tremendous rush, by enduring which, alone, he could hope to obtain a place in the pit; when Munden's gratitude for his exquisite praise anticipated his wish, by providing for him and Miss Lamb places in a corner of the orchestra, close to the stage. The play of the "Poor Gentleman," in which Munden played "Sir Robert Bramble," had concluded, and the audience were impatiently waiting for the farce, in which the great comedian was to delight them for the last time, when my attention was suddenly called to Lamb by Miss Kelly, who sat with my party far withdrawn into the obscurity of one of the upper boxes, but overlooking the radiant hollow which waved below us, to our friend. In his hand, directly beneath the line of stage lights, glistened a huge porter pot, which he was draining; while the broad face of old Munden was seen thrust out from the door by which the musicians enter, watching the close of the draught, when he might receive and hide the portentous beaker from the gaze of the admiring neighbours. Some unknown benefactor had sent four pots of stout to keep up the veteran's heart during his last trial; and, not able to drink them all, he bethought him of Lamb; and without considering the wonder which would be excited in the brilliant crowd who surrounded him, conveyed himself the cordial chalice to Lamb's parched lips. At the end of the same farce Munden found himself unable

o deliver, from memory, a short and elegant address which one of his sons had written for him; but, provided against accidents, took it from his pocket, wiped his eyes, put on his spectacles, read it, and made his last bow. This was, perhaps, the last night when Lamb took a hearty interest in the present business scene; for though he went now and then tc the theatre to gratify Miss Isola, or to please an author who was his friend, his real stage henceforth only spread itself out in the selectest chambers of his memory.

CHAPTER XV.

[1825.]

Lamb's Emancipation from the India House.

THE year 1825 is marked by one of the principal events in Lamb's uneventful life-his retirement from the drudgery of the desk, with a pension equal to two thirds of his now liberal salary. The following letters vividly exhibit his hopes and his apprehensions before he received this noble boon from the East India Company, and his bewilderment of pleasure when he found himself in reality free. He has recorded his feelings in one of the most beautiful of his "Last Essays of Elia,” entitled “The Superannuated Man ;" but it will be interesting to contemplate them, "living as they rose," in the unstudied letters to which this chapter is devoted.

A new series of the London Magazine was commenced with this year, in an increased size and price; but the spirit of the work had evaporated, as often happens to periodical works, as the store of rich fancies with which its contributors had begun was in a measure exhausted. Lamb contributed a "Memoir of Liston," who occasionally enlivened Lamb's evening parties with his society; and who, besides the interest which he derived from his theatrical fame, was recommended to Lamb by the cordial admiration he expressed for Munden, whom he used to imitate in a style delightfully blending his own humour with that of his some time rival. The "Memoir" is altogether a fiction-of which, as Lamb did not think it worthy of republication, I will only give a specimen. After a ludicrously improbable account of his hero's pedigree, birth, and early habits, Lamb thus represents his entrance on the life of an actor.

"We accordingly find him shortly after making his début, as it is called, upon the Norwich boards, in the season of that year, being then in the twenty-second year of his age. Having a natural bent to tragedy, he chose the part of 'Pyrrhus' in the Distressed Mother,' to Sally Parker's Hermione. We find him afterward as 'Barnwell,' Altamont,' ' Chamont,' &c.; but, as if nature had destined him to the sock, an unavoidable infirmity absolutely discapacitated him for tragedy His person, at this latter period of which I have been speaking, was graceful, and even commanding; his countenance set to gravity; he had the power of arresting the attention of an audience at first sight almost beyond any other tragic actor. But he could not hold it. To understand this obstacle, we must go back a few years, to those appalling reveries at Charnwood. Those illusions, which had vanished before the dissipation of a less recluse life and more free society, now in his solitary tragic studies, and amid the intense calls upon feeling incident to tragic acting, came back upon him with tenfold vividness. In the midst of some most pathetic passage -the parting of Jaffier with his dying friend, for instance-he would suddenly be surprised with a violent fit of horse laughter. While the spectators were all sobbing before him with emotion, suddenly one of those grotesque faces would peep out upon him, and he could not resist the impulse. A timely excuse once or twice served his purpose, but no audiences could be expected to bear repeatedly this violation of the continuity of feeling. He describes them (the illusions) as so many demons haunting him, and paralyzing every effort. Even now, I am told, he cannot recite the famous soliloquy in Hamlet, even in private, without immoderate bursts of laughter. However, what he had not force of reason sufficient to overcome, he had good sense enough to turn to emolument, and determined to make a commodity of his distemper. He prudently exchanged the buskin for the sock, and the illusions instantly ceased; or, if they occurred for a short season, by their very co-operation added a zest to his comic vein; some of his most catching faces being (as he expresses it) little more than transcripts and copies of those extraordinary phantasmata."

He completed his half century on the day when he ad dressed the following letter

TO BERNARD BARTON.

"10th February, 1825.

"Dear B. B.-The Spirit of the Age' is by Hazlitt, the characters of Coleridge, &c. he had done better in forme

publications, the praise and the abuse much stronger, &c. but the new ones are capitally done. Horne Tooke is a matchless portrait. My advice is, to borrow it rather than buy it. I have it; he has laid too many colours on my likeness; but I have had so much injustice done me in my own name, that I make a rule of accepting as much over-measure to Elia as gentlemen think proper to bestow. Lay it on, and spare not. Your gentleman brother sets my mouth a watering after liberty. Oh that I were kicked out of Leadenhall, with every mark of indignity, and a competence in my fob. The birds of the air would not be so free as I should. How I would prance and curvet it, and pick up cowslips, and ramble about purposeless as an infant! The author-nometer is a good fancy. I have caused great speculation in the dramatic (not thy) world by a lying 'Life of Liston,' all pure invention. The town has swallowed it, and it is copied into newspapers, playbills, &c., as authentic. You do not know the droll, and, probably, missed reading the article (in our first number, new series). A life more improbable for him to have lived could not be easily invented. But your rebuke, coupled with 'Dreams on J. Bunyan,' checks me. I'd rather do more in my favourite way, but feel dry. I must laugh sometimes. I am poor Hypochondriachus, and not Liston.

“I have been harassed more than usually at office, which has stopped my correspondence lately. I write with a confused aching head, and you must accept this apology for a letter.

"I will do something soon, if I can, as a peace-offering to the queen of the East Angles-something she shan't scold about. "For the present, farewell.

Freedom now gleamed on him, and he became restless with the approach of deliverance.

TO BERNARD BARTON.

"March, 1825.

“Dear B. B.—I have had no impulse to write, or attend to any single object but myself for weeks past-my single self, I by myself-I. I am sick of hope deferred. The grand wheel is in agitation that is to turn up my fortune; but round it rolls, and will turn up nothing. I have a glimpse of freedom of becoming a gentleman at large; but I am put off from day to day. I have offered my resignation, and it is neither ac cepted nor rejected. Eight weeks am I kept in this fearful suspense. Guess what an absorbing state I feel it. I am

not conscious of the existence of friends present or absen, The East India Directors alone can be that thing to me or not. ■ have just learned that nothing will be decided this week. Why the next? Why any week? It has fretted me into ar itch of the fingers; I rub 'em against paper, and write to you, rather than not allay this scorbuta.

While I can write, let me abjure you to have no doubts of IRVING. Let Mr. M drop his disrespect. Irving has prefixed a dedication (of a missionary subject, first part) to Coleridge, the most beautiful, cordial, and sincere. He there acknowledges his obligation to S. T. C. for his knowledge of Gospel truths, the nature of a Christian Church, &c., to the talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (at whose Gamaliel feet he sits weekly) rather than to that of all the men living. This from him, the great dandled and petted sectarian-to a religious character so equivocal in the worlds eye as that of S. T. C., so foreign to the kirk's estimate-can this man be a quack? The language is as affecting as the spirit of the dedication. Some friend told him, 'This dedication will do you no good,' i. e., not in the world's repute, or with your own people. That is a reason for doing it,' quoth Irving.

"I am thoroughly pleased with him. He is firm, outspeak ing, intrepid, and docile as a pupil of Pythagoras. You must like him.

"Yours, in tremours of painful hope,

"C. LAMB."

These tremours of painful hope were soon changed into certain joy. The following letters contain his own expressions. of delight on his deliverance, as conveyed to several of his dearest friends. In the first his happiness is a little checked by the death of Mr. Monkhouse, a relation of Mrs. Words worth, who had gradually won Lamb's affections, and whe nobly deserved them.

TO MR. WORDSWORTH.

He

"Colebrook Cottage, 6th April, 1825. "Dear Wordsworth—I have been several times meditating a letter to you concerning the good thing which has befallen me, but the thought of poor Monkhouse came across me. was one that I had exulted in the prospect of congratulating He and you were to have been the first participators for, indeed, it has been ten weeks since the first motion of it. Here am I, then, after thirty-three years' slavery, sitting in my own room at eleven o'clock this finest of all April mornings, a freed man, with 4411. a year for the remainder of my life

me.