106 Life and Times of " The Druid." 



August, 1820, and October, 1822 ; the second 

 series between May, 1823, and August, 1825. 

 All the above were written while Charles 

 Lamb was an India office clerk, and so little 

 was his genius impaired by its uncongenial 

 surroundings that the ''Essays of Elia" re- 

 flect all his unique qualities of grace, quaint- 

 ness, humour, and tenderness. They are 

 written, as Judge Talfourd said of them, 

 "with a smile on the lip and a tear in the 

 eye " of their author, and are full of his whims, 

 his wit, his poetic susceptibility, his charity, 

 and sympathy. 



There is little probability, on the other 

 hand, that had "The Druid" become an 

 Admiralty clerk he would ever have pro- 

 duced " Post and Paddock," " Scott and 

 Sebright," or " Silk and Scarlet." The chief 

 merit of these fascinating works is that they 

 are from the pen of a poet who was as great 

 a lover of Nature as Wordsworth himself, 

 and derived all his strength from her tender 

 embrace. Charles Lamb was as devout a 

 worshipper of Fleet Street as Dr. Johnson 

 himself, and as a critic of books he has no 

 superior, with perhaps the exception of Cole- 



