592 



LAMB. 



virtue carried to such a degree, and it is not less 

 so to inspire it to that degree ; and it is adding to the 

 praise of M. de Lamarck, to recount what his chil- 

 dren did for him." 



LAMB, CHARLES; an essayist and critic, dis- 

 tinguished for subtilty of wit, delicacy of humour, 

 and profound sympathy with every thing human, 

 was horn in Crown Office Row, Inner Temple, Lon- 

 don, on the 18th Feb., 1775. His father was clerk 

 to Mr Salt, one of the henchers of the Inner Tem- 

 ple, and Charles was the youngest of three chil- 

 dren, John, Mary, and Charles. In the essays of 

 Elia, John and Mary are described under the names 

 of James and Bridget Elia, and they are otherwise 

 veiled by the title of cousins, but the rest is all 

 verity. His father is also celebrated under the 

 name of Lovell, in the essay entitled, The Bench- 

 ers of the Inner Temple. At the age of seven, 

 Charles was entered at Christ's hospital, and re- 

 mained a scholar of that establishment till he had 

 reached his fifteenth year. Coleridge was among 

 his school-fellows, and thus originated a friendship 

 between the two which lasted with life. His own 

 account of his school-days is admirably given in his 

 paper, entitled, " Christ Hospital Five and Thirty 

 Years ago." On the completion of the usual period 

 allotted for education at that school, he was first 

 employed for a short time in the South Sea House 

 with his brother; but on the 5th of April, 1792, 

 he obtained an appointment in the Accountant's 

 office of the East India Company, and remained in 

 the employments of these princely merchants till 

 the 29th of March, 1825, by which time his salary 

 had gradually risen to above j700 per annum, when 

 he was allowed to invalid upon the handsome pen- 

 sion of 450, which he enjoyed till his death, on 

 the 27th of Dec., 1834. He lived a bachelor with 

 his sister in various dwellings, but for the greater 

 part of his life in the Temple, which he preferred 

 to all other places. Latterly, he sequestered himself 

 in the suburbs of London, at Colebrook Row in 

 Islington, at Enfield, and at Edmonton, where he 

 died. His death was caused by erysipelas in the 

 head, brought on by an accidental fall, in which his 

 face had been slightly injured. 



The life of Charles Lamb is unusually meagre in 

 events, his publications forming almost the only 

 epochs. His first appearance as an author was in 

 a small volume of poems, published in 1797, in 

 conjunction with his friends Coleridge and Lloyd. 

 In the following year, the blank verse of Loyld 

 and Lamb contained in this volume was republished 

 in a thin duodecimo, under the title of " Blank 

 Verse of Charles Lloyd and Charles Lamb." The 

 volume obtained no notice, or was dismissed by 

 reviewers with a sneer. " A Tale of Rosamond 

 Gray and Old Blind Margaret," in prose, published 

 the same year, was better received. This tale has 

 been much praised for its sentiment and pathos, 

 but we confess it is the only production of Charles 

 Lamb's for which we have no liking. The plot, 

 or rather the point upon which the story hangs, is 

 revolting, and the sentiment is so overwrought as 

 to appear affected. In 1802, he published " John 

 Woodvil, a tragedy," along with " Fragments from 

 Burton," a favourite author. "John Woodvil," 

 written in imitation of the early English drama- 

 tists, was coldly received, and its peculiarities made 

 the subject of merriment in the Edinburgh Review. 

 " Mr H.," a farce, was Lamb's next production. 

 It was performed at Drury Lane theatre in Decem- 

 ber, 1806, but without success. The story is that 



of a young gentleman, named Hogsflesh, who, afraid 

 that his name might stand in the way of a certain 

 lady accepting his hand, passes as Mr H. only, and 

 encounters numberless difficulties in keeping his 

 real name from her knowledge. At the altar, how. 

 ever, it is necessarily divulged, upon which the 

 sentimental ludy faints, but all is set to rights by Mr 

 II. showing letters patent, empowering him to 

 change his name from Mr Hogsflesh to Mr Bacon. 

 In 1807, he published a series of stories founded 

 on the plays of Shakspeare, in which the language 

 of Shakspeare is preserved wherever possible, and 

 the outline of the plot brought within the appre- 

 hension of children. In this work his sister Mary 

 had a hand. The tales of King Lear, Macbeth, 

 Timon of Athens, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and 

 Othello, are by Charles; the others by Mary Lumb. 

 In conjunction with his sister, he also compiled two 

 other popular books for children, " Mrs Leices- 

 ter's School," and " The Adventures of Ulysses." 

 In 1808 appeared his " Specimens of English Dra- 

 matic Poets who lived about the time of Shnks- 

 peare, with Notes." This work slowly but gradu- 

 ally wrought its way into notice, and was highly 

 instrumental in creating a relish for the early En- 

 glish dramatists. In 1810-11, he contributed to a 

 quarterly magazine, edited by Leigh Hunt, entitled 

 " The Reflector," a series of papers, including those 

 on Hogarth's pictures and the tragedies of Shaks- 

 peare. In 1818, his poems and essays were col- 

 lected and published in two little 12mo volumes, 

 under the title of " The Works of Charles Lamb." 

 This, he himself said, should have been called the 

 Recreations rather, his veritable works being to 

 be found in the ledgers of the East India House. 

 The most celebrated of Mr Lamb's writings ap- 

 peared after the establishment of the London 

 Magazine, in 1820, under the auspices of Mr John 

 Scott, when he began to contribute to it, under 

 the name of " Elia." Elia was the name of an old 

 foreigner, a clerk in the South Sea House, in Lamb's 

 young days, and it was adopted without any ap- 

 plicability to himself. The Essays of Elia in the 

 London Magazine were subsequently collected and 

 published. Later papers, published in the En- 

 glishman's Magazine, the Athenaeum, &c. appeared 

 shortly before his death, with the title of " The 

 Last Essays of Elia." " Album Verses " publish- 

 ed in 1830, and two dramatic sketches which ap- 

 peared in Blackwood's Magazine about the same 

 time, nearly complete the list of his writings. After 

 his death a collection of his works was made by Mr 

 Moxon, and published by him, the poems in one 

 volume, the prose in three. " The Letters of 

 Charles Lamb, with a sketch of his Life, by T. N. 

 Talfourd," appeared in 1827, in 2 vols. 12mo. 



The place which Lamb holds in English litera- 

 ture is altogether unique and peculiar ; but the 

 sphere of his excellence is limited. In the first 

 place, he cannot be considered as a poet, in the 

 higher sense of the term. His mind was too 

 whimsical for sustained beauty, within the severe 

 limitations of poetry. It was ever wandering into 

 some fantastic train of thought ; some out-of-the- 

 way analogy, unfit for the serious muse. He had 

 but little dramatic talent; his attempts in the the- 

 atrical way proved failures. Indeed, it is plain 

 enough that to conceive and represent a character 

 dramatically, requires a steadiness of intellect, afirm- 

 ness of purpose, a power of changing places with 

 imaginary personages, which never belonged to 

 Charles Lamb. His imagination laid hold of oddi- 



