545 As much as two strong oxen Could plough from morn till night; And there it stands unto this day 66 550 It stands in the Comitium, How valiantly he kept the bridge 67 And still his name sounds stirring 560 As the trumpet-blast that cries to them And wives still pray to Juno For boys with hearts as bold As his who kept the bridge so well 565 In the brave days of old, 68 And in the nights of winter, When the cold north-winds blow, And the long howling of the wolves 550. The Comitium was that part of the Forum which served as the meeting-place of the Roman patricians. 570 When round the lonely cottage 69 When the oldest cask is opened, 580 When the girls are weaving baskets, 585 70 When the goodman mends his armor, Goes flashing through the loom, - How well Horatius kept the bridge In the brave days of old. 573. The Romans brought some of their firewood from the hill of Algidus, about a dozen miles to the southeast of the town. CHARLES AND MARY LAMB. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. CHARLES LAMB was born February 10, 1775, in the Temple, the great lawyers' house on the banks of the Thames in London; and in London or its immediate neighborhood Lamb lived all his days; he was restless to get back to the city when occasional slight journeys took him away. His father was clerk and servant to a lawyer living in the Temple. He had a brother and a sister John twelve years, and Mary ten years his senior. The family was poor; but when Charles was eight years old he had the very great privilege, as it was for a boy of such a family, of being admitted to the school known as Christ's Hospital, and there he spent seven years, a recollection of which he has left in one of the most delightful of his essays. In fact, the Essays of Elia, as he called them, abound in happy little references to his early life. When he left school he was fifteen years old. He loved books and seemed marked out for a scholar; but he had an impediment in his speech which would have stood in his way sadly had he entered one of the learned professions, and besides, his family was poor, and he was needed as one of the breadwinners. His father was failing in health and powers; his elder brother held a clerkship in the South Sea House, the offices of a great trading company, but seems to have been an easy-going, rather self-indulgent fellow. Mary was Charles's dearest companion, and sympathized with him in his tastes. In his boyhood he sometimes went with her to his grandmother's home in Hertfordshire, and the sweet country life filled his mind with many beautiful images, though as a man he was most fascinated by the roar and fulness of city streets. For a short time Charles Lamb held a minor post in the South Sea House, but in April, 1792, he obtained a clerkship in the office of the East India Company, and in the service of that corporation he continued all his working life, being finally retired from duty on a pension. With the earnings of his clerkship he helped maintain his aged father and mother, and his sister Mary. They were all living in a humble way in Little Queen Street. His mother was a confirmed invalid, his father was in his second childhood, and Mary was helping to support the household by needlework. Charles Lamb had for three years been working at the East India House, when for a brief period he was stricken with a mild form of insanity, and had for a while to be kept under restraint. It is probable that the disease was in the family blood, for not long after Mary Lamb, broken down by the strain upon her, lost her reason wholly, and, ignorant of what she was doing, killed her mother and wounded her father. Charles, who was present and tried in vain to interpose, was himself injured. It was a terrible experience, and the sadness was deepened by the knowledge that they could not be sure of Mary's permanent recovery. She was in the asylum when her father died, and Charles begged to have her brought back to him. Thenceforth she was his companion through life, and outlived him. The mania never returned to afflict him, but from time to time Mary was obliged to go back to the asylum. She could commonly anticipate the attacks, and Mr. Charles Lloyd on one occasion met the brother and sister "slowly pacing together a little footpath in Hoxton fields, both weeping bitterly, and found, on joining them, that they were taking their solemn way to the accustomed asylum." Charles Lamb, the gentle, as he was affectionately called, had a nature which was tender to all that was weak and erring. This beautiful devotion of Charles Lamb to his sister, which bade him renounce marriage, was repaid by the most tender companionship; in the Essays the Bridget Elia who is so often referred to is hardly more than another name for Mary Lamb. Both loved books and the play. Together they wrote the Tales from Shakespeare that are so widely known. He was a reader who delighted in the best of old English literature, and did much to bring back a taste for it. He was an exceedingly acute critic both of literature and of some other forms of art, and in conversation he was constantly saying witty and bright things. Their cozy rooms were the gathering place for the poets, the wits, and the critics of their day. In writing his famous Essays, Lamb took for a signature Elia, the name of an obscure fellow clerk, and from time to time wrote playful papers containing reminiscences, light studies of persons, and sly hits at manners, delicate criticism of books, and bits of imaginative fancy. He contributed them one by one to journals, and some were not gathered into books till after his death. He wrote besides some happy verse. After his death his letters to his friends were published, and they are among the most delightful letters in the English language. Charles Lamb died December 27, 1834; but his sister lived more than twelve years longer. She was eighty-two at her death, May 20, 1847. |