The Works of Charles Lamb

THE REV. DERWENT COLERIDGE, M.A.,

PRINCIPAL OF ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, CHELSEA,

THIS EDITION OF

THE WORKS OF HIS FATHER'S FRIEND

IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED

THE PUBLISHER.

PREFACE.

THE share of the editor in these volumes can scarcely be regarded too slightly. The successive publications of Lamb's works form almost the only events of his life which can be recorded; and upon these criticism has been nearly exhausted. Little, therefore, was necessary to accompany the letters, except such thread of narrative as might connect them together, and such explanations as might render their allusions generally understood. The reader's gratitude for the pleasure which he will derive from these memorials of one of the most delightful of English writers, is wholly due to his correspondents, who have kindly intrusted the precious relics to the care of the editor, and have permitted them to be given to the world; and to Mr. Moxon, by whose interest and zeal they have been chiefly collected. He may be allowed to express his personal sense of the honour which he has received in such trust from men, some of whom are among the greatest of England's living authors: to Wordsworth, Southey, Manning, Barton, Procter, Gilman, Patmore, Walter Wilson, Field, Robinson, Dyer, Carey, Ainsworth, to Mr. Green, the executor of Coleridge, and to the surviving relatives of Hazlitt. He is also most grateful to Lamb's esteemed schoolfellow, Mr. Le Grice, for supplying an interesting part of his history, and to Mr. Montague and Miss Beetham for the remembered sr atches. of his conversation which accompany the closing chapter. Of the few additional facts of Lamb's history, the chief have been supplied by Mr. Moxon, in whose welfare he took a most affectionate interest to the close of his life, and who has devoted some beautiful sonnets to his memory.

The recentness of the period of some of the letters has

rendered it necessary to omit many portions of them, ia which the humour and beauty are interwoven with personal references, which, although wholly free from anything which, rightly understood, could give pain to any human being, touch on subjects too sacred for public exposure. Some of the personal allusions which have been retained may seem, perhaps, too free to a stranger; but they have been retained only in cases in which the editor is well assured the parties would be rather gratified than displeased at seeing their names connected in lifelike asso ciation with one so dear to their memories.

The italics and the capitals are invariably those indicated by the MSS. It is to be regretted that in the printed letters the reader must lose the curious varieties of writing with which the originals abound, and which are scrupulously adapted to the subjects. The letters are usually undated. Where the date occurs it has generally been given; and much trouble has been necessary to assign to many of the letters (the postmarks of which are not legible) their proper place, and perhaps not always with complete success.

Many letters yet remain unpublished, which will fur ther illustrate the character of Mr. Lamb, but which must be reserved for a future time, when the editor hopes to do more justice to his own sense of the genius and the excellences of his friend than it has been possible for him to accomplish in these volumes.

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