Little knowing who did wield

The quill that traversed their white field."

But we have the better reason, perhaps, to be grateful for what has nevertheless been bequeathed to us. These are:— his poems collected with several others, and dedicated to Coleridge in 1818; a tale of wonderful pathos and sweetness, "Rosamund Gray," published with "Old Blind Margaret," in (we believe) 1800; " John Wqodvil," a tragedy, published with "Fragments of Burton, in 1802; "Mr. H," a farce, acted at Drury Lane in 1806; "Specimens of the old Dramatic Poets," with those immortal criticisms on them, which appeared in 1808; a series of noble prose papers, including those on Hogarth and the tragedies of Shakspeare, with several essays and poetical criticisms, which were sent to the "Reflector" in the year 1811; the celebrated" Essays of Elia," published between 1820 and 1833, at different periods, in the "London," "New Monthly," "Blackwood's," "Englishman," and other Magazines, and two volumes of which have been collected and separately published; with a vast number of his sayings and deep-thoughted articles, scattered about without a name (and yet uncollected) in periodicals celebrated and obscure —in miscellanies remembered and forgotten, We find we have omitted in this list to mention his "Tales from Shakspeare," his "Adventures of Ulysses," and a volume unworthily named "Album Verses,"—inasmuch as it contained some few poems as fine as any that ever flowed or sported from his pen. His occasional theatrical criticisms in the "Examiner" should not be forgotten: they are exquisite, and will be recognised a once by any one acquainted with his style. It will startle some of his friends, perhaps, to be told that he has even done such a thing in years long past, as write a sort of poetical political libel for that distinguished journal.

The genius of Mr. Lamb as developed in these various writings, takes rank with the most original of the age. As a critic, he stands facile princeps, in all the subjects he handled.

* "Poetical Epistle," by Procter, who repaid Lamb's affection, felt toward him to the last, in a manner worthy of the hearts and the genius of both.

Search English literature through, from its first beginnings till now, and you will find none like him. There is not a criticism he ever wrote that does not directly tell you a number of things you had no previous notion of. In criticism he was indeed, in all senses of the word, "a discoverer—like Vasco Nunez or Magellan." In that very domain of literature with which you fancied yourself most variously and closely acquainted, he would show you "fresh fields and pastures new," and these the most fruitful and delightful. For the riches he discovered were richer that they had lain so deep—the more valuable were they, when found, that they had eluded the search of ordinary men.

As an Essayist, Charles Lamb will be remembered, in years to come, with Rabelais and Montaigne, with Sir Thomas Browne, with Steele, and with Addison. He unites many of the finest characteristics of these several writers. He ha» wisdom and wit of the highest order, exquisite humour, a genuine and cordial vein of pleasantry, and the most hearttouching pathos. In the largest acceptation of the word he is a humanist—no one of the great family of authors past or present has shown in matters the most important or the most trivial so delicate and extreme a sense of all that is human. It is the prevalence of this characteristic in his writings which has subjected him to occasional charges of want of imagination. This, however, is but half-criticism; for the matter of reproach may in fact be said to be his triumph. It was with a deep relish of Mr. Lamb's faculty that a friend of his once said—a friend, we may add, ever loved and admired by him through life, and worthy of all the love and admiration that are due to genius, to learning, and to virtue—it was with a fine appreciation of the characteristics of his genius in criticism that T. N. T. said, "he makes the majesties of imagination seem familiar." It is precisely thus with his own imagination—it eludes the observation of the ordinary reader in the very modesty of its truth, in its social and familiar air. His fancy as an Essayist is distinguished by singular delicacy and tenderness; and even his conceits, when they occur, will generally be found to be, as those of his favourite Fuller (the church historian) often are,

for

steeped in human feeling and passion. The fondness he entertained for Fuller, for the author of the "Anatomy of Melancholy" and for other writers of that class, was a pure matter of temperament. His thoughts were always his own; even when his words seem cast in the very mould of theirs, the perfect originality of his thinking is felt and acknowledged—we may add, in its superior wisdom, manliness, and unaffected sweetness. Every sentence in those Essays may he proved to be crammed full of thinking; the two volumes which contain them will be multiplied, we have no doubt, in the course of a few years, into as many hundred; for they contain a stock of matter which must be ever suggestive to more active minds, and will surely revisit the world in new shapes—an everlasting succession and variety of ideas. Yes, and help on the world; is it to be asserted that because Mr. Lamh was chiefly devoted to the past, that he may not therefore advantage the present, and help on the future? The past to him was not mere dry antiquity; it involved a most extensive and touching association of feelings and thoughts, reminding him of what we have been and may be, and therefore seeming to afford a surer ground for resting on than the things which are here to-day and may be gone to-morrow. We know of no inquisition more curious, no speculation more lofty, than may be found in the Essays of Charles Lamb. We know no place where conventional absurdities are so shattered—where stale evasions are so plainly exposed—where the barriers between names and things are at times so thoroughly flung down. And how could it indeed be otherwise? For it is truth which plays upon his writings like a genial and divine atmosphere. No need is there for them to prove what they would be at by any formal or logical analysis -they "feel the air of truth;" no need for him to tell the world that this institution is wrong and that doctrine right— the world may gather from his writings their surest guide to judgment in these and all other cases—a general and honest appreciation of the humane and true.

As a Poet, Mr. Lamb has left several things "the world will not willingly let die." Shall we n«t name first his prose tale of "Rosamund Gray," which we have read a dozen times, as.

well as we could for our tears? We will match this tale against the world for unequalled delicacy and pathos. Shall we not treasure up too in our heart of hearts the memory of "John Woodvil," of him who offended and was forgiven—and of the angelic, ever-honoured Margaret, whom miseries could never alienate, nor change of fortune shake, whom her lover's injuries" and slights (the worst of injuries)" eould not, in his days of shame, when all the world forsook him, make her forsake, or cease to cling with love stronger than death to her dear heart's lord, life's pride, soul-honoured John! These are destined to be everlasting creatures—once known, taken to the memory for ever. How exquisite is the tenderness with which, when questioned on John's neglect, she only turns aside for a moment with a tear, and afterwards resumes her conversation cheerfully. How sublime is the reach of pathos with which Sir Walter Woodvil, betrayed to his enemies by his son, breaks his heart without uttering a single word. When the charge of an imitation of the elder poets is brought against Charles Lamb, it is generally brought in ignorance. His style, it is true, smacks to us of the antique; tasting with a genuine Beaumont and Fletcher flavour: but this was because his way of thinking was like theirs; there is no imitation in it, setting aside the occasional indulgence of his love for them, which we all feel to be delightful. We could fancy their loving him just in the same way, because he lived in precisely that world of thought which was chiefly theirs, and which changes not with the alterations of age or style, but is everlasting, and changes Mr. Hazlitt tells a story of a rural description out of "John Woodvil," quoted anonymously in a modern book, meeting the eye of Mr. Godwin, who was so struck with the beauty of the passage, and with a consciousness of having seen it before, that he was uneasy till he could recollect where, and after hunting in vain for it in Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and other not unlikely places, sent to Mr. Lamb to know if he could help him to the author! We should have recommended him in his search to look out for a higher sort of Heywood, some one between Heywood and Fletcher. When the day of popularity for these great writers shall come round

never.

again, Mr. Lamb's poetry will be popular too. His minor pieces are full of delicacy and wit, and read occasionally like one of his Essays.

But it was not as a Critic, it was not as an Essayist, it was not as a Poet, fervently as we entertained for him in these characters the admiration we have poorly endeavoured to express—it is not in any of these that we felt towards him the strongest feeling of devotion—we loved The Man. He was the most entirely delightful person we have ever known. He had no affectation, no assumption, no fuss, no cant, nothing to make him otherwise than delightful. His very foibles, as is remarked in a recent publication, were for the most part so small, and were engrafted so curiously upon a strong original mind, that we would scarcely have desired them away. They were a sort of fret-work, which let in light, and showed the form and order of his character. They had their origin in weakness of system chiefly; and that which we have heard by the unthinking condemned as wilful, in terms of severe reproach, was in the first instance nothing but a forced resort to aid that might serve to raise his spirits in society to what was no more than the ordinary pitch of all around him without it. Never should the natural temperament against which Mr. Lamb had to struggle be forgotten by those who are left to speak of his habits and character. Of all the great and peculiar sorrows he was fated to experience through life (and there were many to which even an illusion may not here be made, and for which nearly his whole existence was offered as a willing and devoted sacrifice), the sorrows with which he was born were the greatest of all. His friends, whom he delighted by his wit, and enriched by his more serious talk, never knew the whole price he paid for those hours of social conversation. "Reader," he once said in a paper which, with some dash of fiction, conveyed his saddest personal experience, "Reader, if you are gifted with nerves like mine, aspire to any character but that of a wit. When you find a tickling relish upon your tongue disposing you to that sort of conversation, especially if you find a preternatural flow of ideas setting in upon you at the sight of a bottle and fresh glasses, avoid giving way to it as you would fly your greatest destruction. If you cannot crush the power of fancy, or that within you which you mistake for such, divert it,