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We have sometimes felt that this pas- | trast, between these two passages, is a sage, last quoted, was perhaps (uncon- little remarkable; but to the philosophy sciously and remotely) suggested to Lamb's of neither, can we give an unqualified mind, by the meditations of another, in assent. Lamb's essay is characterized by many respects a kindred spirit, and yet, some touching and genuine sentiment; on the whole, as widely separated as the and in the state of mind in which he wrote, North from the South. We cannot for- we can find some elements to love and combear quoting from Sir Thomas Browne, mend. We have especially a sympathy the scholar and the Christian philosopher, with this reverent remembrance of childand yet, no less than Lamb, a quaint ideal- hood, which constitutes one of the chief ist-we had almost said, an egotistic objects of his affection. There is an indreamer-a paragraph composed in exhaustible meaning and significance in similar mood, and suggested by like con- those days of "splendor in the grass and templations, as that we have just taken glory in the flower," which renders that from our author. period forever sacred, and tenderly to be called to mind. We can forgive even an excess of this love of the lingering splendors of childhood, bordering upon sentimentalism. But lamentably incongruous is this affection with much that we have just now quoted; and no sufficient plea can be offered in defence of a state of mind (unless it were but temporary and humorous) like that in which the not distant and inevitable approach of death is viewed by our author at fifty. Already have we seen that Lamb had not even a dream for the future!

"I thank God," says Sir Thomas Browne, "I have not those straight ligaments or narrow obligations to the world, as to dote on life, or be convulsed and tremble at the name of death. Not that I am insensible of the dread and horror thereof, or, by raking into the bowels of the deceased, continual sight of anatomies, skeletons, or cadaverous relic, like vespilloes, or gravemakers, I am become stupid, or have forgot the apprehension of mortality; but that, marshalling all the horrors, and contemplating the extremities thereof, I find not anything therein able to daunt the courage of a man, much less a well-resolved Christian; and, therefore, am not angry at the error of our first parents, or unwilling to bear a part of this common fate, and like the best of them to die, that is, to cease to breathe, to take a farewell of the elements, to be a kind of nothing for a moment, to be within one instant of a spirit. When I take a full view and circle of myself, without this reasonable moderator and equal piece of justice, death, I do conceive myself the miserablest person extant. Were there not another life that I hope for, all the vanities of this world should

not intreat a moment's breath for me; could

the devil work my belief to imagine I could never die, I would not outlive that very thought; I have so abject a conceit of this common way of existence, this retaining to the sun and elements, I cannot think this is to be a man, or to live according to the dignity of humanity. In expectation of a better, I can with patience embrace this life, yet in my best meditations do often desire death. I honor any man that contemns it, nor can I highly love any that is afraid of it: this makes me naturally love a soldier, and honor those tattered and contemptible regiments, that will die at the command of a sergeant. For a Pagan there may be some motives to be in love with life; but for a Christian to be amazed at death, I see not how he can escape this dilemma, that he is too sensible of this life, or hopeless of the life to come."

The similarity, and yet the striking con

That kindliness of nature which characterized Lamb through all his days-and which was, perhaps, rather than kindred intellectual habits or any marked originality of thinking which they found in him, one principal ground for the friendship of such men as Wordsworth, and Godwin, and Coleridge-breathes very perceptibly through all his writings.

How far such

a universal good feeling and fellowship, however, consists with a sincerely believing, manly, and independent spirit, we shall not now undertake to determine. We think, nevertheless, that Dr. Johnson has hardly overrated the importance of being, on some occasions, "a good hater." We confess that we have much difficulty in distinguishing between universal eclecticism and universal skepticism. Lest we speak more severely, therefore, than we would, upon this trait of his character, which, if in some sense a weakness, is at least an amiable one, we will dismiss it with the words of one whom Lamb once introduced to Wordsworth as his " "only admirer:"

"Lamb's indulgence to the failings of others

could hardly, indeed, be termed allowance; the name of charity is too cold to suit it. He did not merely love his friends in spite of their errors, but he loved them errors and all; so

near to him was everything human. He numbered among his associates men of all varieties of opinion-philosophical, religious, and political-and found something to like, not only in the men themselves, but in themselves as associated with their theories and their schemes. In the high and calm, but devious speculations of Godwin; in the fierce hatreds of Hazlitt;

in the gentle and glorious mysticism of Cole ridge; in the sturdy opposition of Thelwall to the government; in Leigh Hunt's softened and fancy-streaked patriotism; in the gallant toryism of Stoddart; he found traits which made the individuals more dear to him. When Leigh Hunt was imprisoned in Cold Bath Fields for a libel, Lamb was one of his most constant visitors; and when Thelwall was striving to bring the Champion' into notice, Lamb was ready to assist him with his pen, and to fancy himself, for the time, a Jacobin. In this large intellectual tolerance he resembled Professor Wilson, who, notwithstanding his own decided opinions, has a compass of mind large enough

to embrace all others which have noble alli

ances within its range. But not only to opposite opinions and devious habits of thought was Lamb indulgent; he discovered" the soul of goodness in things evil" so vividly, that the surrounding evil disappeared from his mental vision. Nothing-no discovery of error or crime-could divorce his sympathy from a man who had once engaged it. He saw in the spendthrift, the outcast, only the innocent companion of his school days or the joyous associate of his convivial hours, and he did not even make penitence or reform a condition of his regard. Perhaps he had less sympathy with philanthropic schemers for the improvement of the world than with any other class of men; but of these he numbered two of the greatest, Clarkson, the destroyer of the slave trade, and Basil Montague, the contanst opponent of the judicial infliction of death; and the labors of neither have been in vain !"*

This same love of the companionable qualities, (we must add,) with a comparative indifference as to the character and principles of his associates, may safely be affirmed to have contributed much to the fatal habits, with which the world has been made, perhaps, sufficiently familiar. How far that paper-frightful indeed in the pictures it draws-entitled "Confessions of a Drunkard," may have been a revelation of his own personal condition

* Talfourd, vol. i. pp. 318-19.

and experience, we leave it for others to conjecture. The fact, however, that his own habits afforded a sufficient ground for much that is most startling in these memorable words, cannot (and ought not to) be disguised.

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We do not quite agree with Mr. Talfourd, when he asserts that Lamb's serious efforts are always the best. There are certain veins in his serious style, we admit, which are truly touching and beautithese oftentimes, as it ful; yet, even seems to us, owe their peculiar charm to their immediate neighborhood (in the reader's own imagination, at least,) to the humorous element, which gives character, We know very well that with many, such more than all else, to the author's genius. of the Essays as Mackery End," and "The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple" wherein the heart of the author overflows with tender and pleasantly sad remembrances of childhood-have always been the favorites; and we grant to these essays a superiority over everything else of a similar kind, which we know, in any literature. But who does not love them the more especially, that they were written by Charles Lamb and because they had their origin in the same mind as the "Dissertation upon Roast Pig," and the "Praise of Chimney Sweepers ?" Rosamund Gray" is verily altogether superior to "Mr. H- -;" "Hester" and the "Old Familiar Faces," we confess, are worth more to us, than the not unpleasant "Farewell to Tobacco." For an extended production purely humorous in its character, like Tristram Shandy, the genius of Lamb was, we allow, entirely inadequate. It is for the shorter efforts in this kind, and for the ever-present consciousness of the same spirit following us continually, as we read, and always ready to break out, upon the slightest occasion, into wit and mirthful feeling of the most moving character, that we award to this element of humor the prevailing influence over our minds, in all the more natural productions of "the man Elia."

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That this quality of his mind had sometimes its more perfect development in the less elaborate efforts-in his letters, and in the unpremeditated words of ordinary social intercourse, rather than in the more deliberate essays-is doubtless true. We

know not where a specimen of humor can be found, more truly genuine than this from an unstudied letter to his Quaker friend, Bernard Barton. His words hover on the brink of the truest, most solemn meaning and yet it is hard to conceive anything more ludicrous than such a "moral improvement" of the execution of a thief:

"And now, my dear sir, trifling apart, the gloomy catastrophe of yesterday morning prompts a sadder view. The fate of the unfortunate Fauntleroy makes me, whether I will or no, to cast reflecting eyes around on such of my friends as, by a parity of situation, are exposed to a similarity of temptation. My very style seems to myself to become more impressive than usual with the charge of them. Who that standeth knoweth but he may yet fall? Your hands as yet, I am most willing

you

to believe, have never deviated into others' property. You think it impossible that could ever commit so heinous an offence; but so thought Fauntleroy once; so have thought many besides him, who at last have expiated as he hath done. You are as yet upright; but you are a banker, or, at least, the next thing to it. I feel the delicacy of the subject; but cash must pass through your hands, sometimes to a great amount. If in an unguarded hourbut I will hope better. Consider the scandal it will bring upon those of your persuasion. Thousands would go to see a Quaker hanged

that would be indifferent to the fate of a Presbyterian or an Anabaptist. Think of the effect it would have on the sale of your poems alone, not to mention higher considerations! I tremble, I am sure, at myself, when I think that so many poor victims of the law, at one time of their life, made as sure of never being hanged as I, in my own presumption, am ready, too ready, to do myself. What are we better than they? Do we come into the world with different necks? Is there any distinctive mark under our left ears? Are we unstrangulable, I ask you? Think on these things I am shocked sometimes at the shape of my own fingers, not for their resemblance to the ape tribe, (which is something,) but for the exquisite adaptation of them to the purposes of picking, fingering, &c.

"No one that is so framed, I maintain it, C. L."*

but should tremble.

Humor always stands in the foreground of a serious reality, yet never throws ridicule (in any bad sense) upon the object against which it casts its fantastic, yet

* Vol. i. pp. 243--4.

inoffensive shadow. We hardly wonder to find the humorist saying, in a private letter to his friend, "Anything awful makes me laugh: I misbehaved once at a funeral." We admit that this singular faculty is altogether beyond the power of our analysis. We shall attempt no such dissection, on the present occasion. We can only refer our readers to some admirable illustrations among the writings upon which we have been discoursing. Let the reader but carefully note the little dissertation on the ugliness of poor "Mrs. Conrady,"* (which, unfortunately, our space will not suffer us to quote,) and he will get somewhat a farther insight into the quality of true humor, than many pages of critical disquisition could afford him. We have never met with a better exemplification of that species of humor, which moves with ridiculous incongruities suggested by resemblance in particulars, and by startling contrast in generals, than in the essay "On the Melancholy of Tailors;" and not the least in its motto:

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Sedet, æternumque sedebit,
Infelix Theseus. VIRGIL."

We are conscious, however, that the labor of pointing out portions of these writings as especially characterized by genuine and genial humor is altogether gratuitous and unnecessary. All these passages are fresh and vivid to the familiar reader of Lamb, nor can they be passed over, even for the first time, without fixing a full

share of the reader's attention.

That Charles Lamb is destined to any permanent and prominent standing among the men of letters whom the generations are to remember, and whom the centuries are to embalm, cannot well be supposed. We are not certain that the warmest of

his friends ever seriously expected itextravagantly as they have suffered themselves to talk. With a wider sweep of imagination, with broader views of human life and destiny, and with a more undivided and earnest pursuit of literature, Lamb might have had more rational claims upon posterity, and his friends a juster ground to expect for him a lasting renown. With

Vol. ii. pp. 237--9. † lb. p. 431.

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LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES

OF THE

HON. DANIEL DEWEY BARNARD, LL.D.*

DANIEL DEWEY BARNARD was born in Massachusetts, in Berkshire county, where his parents, at the time, had their temporary residence. His mother, still living, is of the family of Deweys, natives of Berkshire county, a family not undistinguished in the State of Massachusetts and elsewhere. The late Daniel Dewey, a Judge of the Supreme Court of that State, and father of the present Judge Dewey, was the brother of Mrs. Barnard, and from him her son took his name. The father of the subject of the present sketch was a native of Hartford, Connecticut. He served through the war of the Revolution, principally in the commissary department, under Commissary-general Wadsworth. He held no commission, but had, by courtesy as a staff officer, the rank and title of Major. He was third in descent from the first of that name in this country. His grandfather, who was a man of good education and good family, and a Puritan, emigrated from England and settled in Hartford, while he was yet young, about 1720. A son, the father of Daniel D. Barnard, resided in Hartford until the year 1809, when he removed, with his family, to the then county of Ontario in New York. Here he fixed his residence on a beautiful farm already under cultivation, though at that time nearly surrounded by the prime

val forests.

This gentleman was, for many years, in Ontario county, and afterwards in Monroe, when that county was established, a magistrate and judge. He maintained the reputation of a man of strong sense and invincible integrity. He died much respected and beloved, about a year ago, at an age exceeding ninety years.

For some years following the first establishment of the family in Western New York, the county was too new to maintain good schools, and the boy Daniel was set at work upon the farm; but being of a delicate, almost sickly, constitution, his natural genius inclined him to reading and the composition of essays for pastime and occupation. While yet very young, for want of better employment, his father placed him in the Clerk's office of the county, at Canandaigua, where he remained for two years. At the age of fourteen, he began to act as Deputy Clerk of the county, having often full charge of the business of the office, and sometimes officiating in that capacity in court. After this he was sent back to New England for his education, and fitted for college at Lenox Academy, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, then a celebrated school, under the charge of an eccentric genius, of the name of Gleason. After a year spent at Lenox, he entered as a sophomore at Williams College, and in 1818 took the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In general scholarship he did not fall behind any of his classmates, though, as it happened, his companions were none of them remarkable for brilliancy of parts. At this, the romantic period of life, a turn for poetry and revery discovered in him that quality of imagination and sentiment, without which, perhaps, no man has ever become eminent in the world of letters, or of law; and prompted by the natural instinct, he composed dramatic pieces which were represented in due form by his classmates, at their exhibition. He also delivered a poem at the commencement, when the honors of good scholarship were assigned him.

* The portrait, which accompanies this number, was taken, by permission, from a very excellent Daguerreotype likeness in the possession of Mr. Barnard We have prevailed upon that gentleman to allow us to give our readers the following account of his life and public services, believing that we could not more gratify them than by presenting them with this full account of our most valued contributor and counsellor; such being the true and sole relation in which he stands to this Journal.-ED.

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