ingly they praise or blame, for the most part, accordingly as the qualities to them most easily discernible, impress their minds favorably or otherwise, and their admiration or their censure is mostly in unqualified terms. But to one who aspires to explore the mysteries of human character and habit, and to trace some of the hidden fountains of existence-who has a fixed idea of an eternal right and an eternal wrong, and who is able to detect the presence of each in the conduct and among the deeds of men-something more seems desirable. The admirers of Lamb cannot, we are sure, exceed us in hearty love of all that is truly worthy in his writings; and how can they be less influenced than we by any prejudice or malice? And if we speak plainly on what we deem certain fundamental defects in his mental constitution, we shall endeavor to speak as plainly of what seems truly deserving of praise. Charles Lamb was born in London, February 18th, 1775. His early condition was humble, and from his childhood up, he was accustomed to a "subordinaion," amounting almost to servility, for which our republican pride feels no great ympathy, and by which an important fluence was exerted in the development f his character. His father seems to ave been in the employ of a barrister of he Inner Temple, in a capacity somehat between that of steward and servant. was here that Lamb passed the first ven years of his life. The next seven ere spent in a charity school, named hrist's Hospital. Here his previous bits of implicit deference and veneration r whatever was established and for homsoever was ostensibly his superior, is confirmed and strengthened by the cumstances in which he was placed. a physical constitution naturally feeble, took scarcely any part in the vigorous orts of boyhood, and always preferred solitary ramble to the company of his re lively and stirring schoolfellows. s gentle deportment, however, secured 1 the kindness-if not the highest reet of all. During all these years, his ughts were mainly shut up within himHe found little sympathy with those ut him, and seems not to have very nestly sought it. His brother and sister were, the one twelve, the other ten years, older than himself. The age of his parents was such as to render their society widely removed from that which was craved by the child and the boy. Left to his own solitary meditations, his boyish dreamscompounded of much that was wild and extravagant, never looking into the future, but always lingering among the ruins of the past-gained a power over him, which not even the severe actual experience of subsequent years could entirely counteract. At fourteen, Lamb saw his school companions departing to the university, and found himself obliged, with many bitter regrets, to relinquish the studies in which there had been so much relief from his loneliness-so much solid pleasure. But, unlike so many others in a similar condition, he did not give way to any repinings, or indulge in any useless denunciations of the existing order. He submitted to what was inevitable, and seems never to have imagined but that everything was just as it ought to be. We have said that his dreams were all of the past. His imagination delighted to revel among the mysterious and venerable works of antiquity: he saw no millennial days in the future. Childhood, boyhood, youth, are seasons during which the growing mind is nurtured upon visions of beauty, and splendor, and awe. All minds pass alike through this ardent and versatile state; but dreams come not alike to all. In our own day, how large is the number who, still feeding upon the visionary "elements" of their childhood, have an eye only for the future; who see no good in the past, or in the present, but only injustice and wrong; and who, so far from a noble-minded content with a state of things, however unsatisfactory, nevertheless inevitable, are forever contriving some new reform, brooding over some new system, developing some new principle of social science, which is to work a revolution in human affairs, and banish evil entirely from the world! To see only good in the past, and to shrink with dread from everything new, may be a vicious extreme, but the opposite is certainly quite as dangerous-and while it makes a man in future vision inexpressibly happy, it inevitably makes him, in present reality, inexpressibly miserabl On leaving school, Lamb was for a while employed as an inferior clerk in an office of the South Sea Company, but, at the age of seventeen, received an appointment in the accountant's department of the East India House, in which station he remained until he was fifty years old, when he retired with a liberal pension from his employers. He died at Edmonton, near the close of the year 1734, in the sixtieth year of his age. Such was the outward condition of the author of the celebrated "Essays of Elia." The gradual development of his literary powers, and the methods by which, in the midst of so many hindrances, he won his way to an honorable and extensive literary reputation, are topics on which, interesting as they are, it is not our purpose at present to dwell. Of the friends of his early days, (particularly Coleridge,) and of their influence in arousing and urging him forward in a literary career, nothing after all can be predicated with any certainty, which is not more or less true of the similar encouraging spirits that have beckoned on all the less independent sons of genius and misfortune. Lamb was at first, as we have seen, almost entirely without sympathy. Among his school-fellows who had removed to the University at Cambridge, he remembered Coleridge, and was still occasionally admitted to fellowship with him. He became enamored of the conversation of the more advanced scholar, and, though sympathizing not at all with his mystical tendencies, and standing entirely aloof from the visions of a Susquehanna pantisocracy, with which the heads of other members of that little group were turned, he found in him, nevertheless, many impulses and tastes in common, and the first approach (distant as they indeed always remained) to a true fellow-feeling. Allowing something for what seems to have been a temporary mood of despondency, the following extract of a letter, written to Coleridge shortly after his marriage and removal to Bristol, probably gives a tolerably accurate view of Lamb's condition at this time:-"You are the only correspondent, and, I might add, the only friend I have in the world. I go nowhere, and have no acquaintance. Slow of speech and reserved of manners, no one seeks or cares for my society, and I am left alone. Coleridge, I devoutly wish that fortune, which has made sport with you so long, may play one prank more, throw you into London, or some spot near it, and there snugify you for life. "Tis a selfish but natural wish for me, cast on life's plain friendless." Lamb, at this time, was twenty-one. In the following year were published his few little poems, in the same volume with those of Coleridge and Lloyd. In the next year, he published "Rosamund Gray," a short story, full of a kind of quiet tenderness and melancholy, such as seems to have been the prevailing mood of his mind at this period. Near the close of the year 1799, (being then in his twenty-fifth year,) he completed his tragedy of "John Woodvil." This he eagerly desired to see represented on the stage, but being denied this gratification, he consoled himself by publishing it, s year or two after. Like his preceding works, however, it received no very gentle treatment from the critics, nor much favor with the public. His next effort, aside from occasional newspaper articles, was a farce, entitled “ Mr. H—," which was accepted at Drury Lane, in 1806, and once acted-nearly through. Some unimportant efforts intervene between this and the first essay of "Elia," in the London Magazine, about fifteen years later. Lamb was now forty-five years old, and in these es says (mainly written during the five years following) his genius appears in its tr character, and, for the first time, fitly ar naturally exhibited. All his writings tha precede these seem rather as an exercise and discipline of the genial power that wa struggling within him, and, with perhap two or three exceptions among his occa sional poems, would hardly have been r ticed at all at this day, but for the relat importance given them by their connect with the Essays. We have already remarked, elsewhere." that "nothing more appropriately eb acterizes the poets of the days of Wor worth and Shelley, than a stubborn re sistency in thrusting upon the world t own individual peculiarities and exp ences." Lamb belongs to this era, r partakes of its spirit. He seems to h been incapable of stepping beyond * See American Review, vol. vi. P 906 sphere of his own personality-of entering | "I am at liberty to confess," he says, in his Preface to the collected "Essays of Elia," "that much which I have heard objected to my late friend's writings was well founded. . . . Egotistical they have been pronounced by some who did not know that what he tells us, as of himself, was often true only (historically) of another; as in a former essay, (to save many instances,) where, under the first person, (his favorite figure,) he shadows forth the forlorn estate of a country-boy placed at a London school, far from his friends and connectionsin direct opposition to his own early history. If it be egotism to imply and twine with his own identity the griefs and affections of another-making himself many, or reducing many unto himselfthen is the skillful novel ist, who all along brings in his hero or heroine, speaking of themselves, the greatest egotist of all; who yet has never, therefore, been accused of that narrowness. And how shall the in tenser dramatist escape being faulty, who, doubtless, under cover of passion uttered by another, oftentimes gives blameless vent to his most inward feelings, and expresses his own story modestly?" have done, he is entirely free from the charge of egotism. Whatever influence such a defence may have upon the minds of Lamb's unqualified admirers, with us it by no means obviates the charge we have brought against him and the class of writers to which he belonged, not only as being contemporary with them, but as in part fostered by them, and partaking largely of this same general characteristic. Nor is this a topic which we feel at liberty lightly to dismiss-bearing so directly and importantly as it seems to us to do, upon the whole literature of that somewhat remarkable period; an era ushered in by the hot-bed stimulus of a Parisian revolution, and expiring only in the repose of the conqueror in a lonely, island grave. It is, indeed, a very superficial notion that the constant use of "the first person," however objectionable in other respects, affords any sufficient ground, considered by itself, for the charge of egotism; and the "friend," from whose defence of Elia we have already quoted, could hardly have attached so much importance to his extenuation of this fault as his words would seem to imply. The accusation is made upon principles that have a bearing widely different, and more essential than a form of expression which only nate entirely, and yet leave the spirit and a very natural circumlocution might elimicharacter of the writing unchanged. The true point at issue is not at all touched, until reference is made-in rather a singular manner, we think-to the example of the novelist and the dramatist. The question plainly put amounts very nearly to this: Does the genuine poet or writer of fiction see all his characters through himself, and all his incidents through his own experience—“ making himself many, or reducing many to himself "—" under cover of passion uttered by another, giving vent to his most inward feelings"-telling "his own story modestly?"-or does he, in some proper sense of the word, create? Whatever logic there may be in this defence of Elia, is solely of that species de1ominated petitio principii. The fact that he material of these essays, in the auhor's own view, mainly consists of his wn personal experiences, is more than nplied in what we have quoted. It is the rift of his argument, indeed, that all deneators of human character and all narators of adventure and experience, spin ntirely from the accumulated stores of heir own individual being; that genuine Of course, we are now contemplating aracterization consists in diversely or- the rule, and not the exception: yet the znizing whatever their memory retains of rule, clearly enough established on other ersonal good or ill fortune, and of imme- grounds, is, for our present purpose, suffiate observation, and in conferring upon ciently proved by the exception. All the ich organization "a local habitation and world admires the novels of Sir Walter name ; and that, therefore, since Elia | Scott. That he stands at the head of the is done this, just as all other writers | class of novelists, few will deny. His ro cidents, from the first to the last of these celebrated novels, have an individuality-with only slight exceptions-as distinct from the character and fortunes of the author, as the characters and incidents of a veritable history are distinct from each mances have been subjected to a rigid | exceptions, would have passed altogether examination in many lands; they have unquestioned under the universal rule. found their way to the hearts of all read- What female relative of Sir Walter ers. We deem it safe, in such a case, to Scott was the prototype of Flora McIvor ? accept the universal verdict of criticism on Who the Bridget of Elia is, we know ; but certain leading points regarding these what sister of the novelist sat for the picwritings; and certain we are, that, in so ture of Rose Bradwardine, or Die Vernon, far at least as regards the particulars now or Jeannie Deans, or the "Maid of the especially to be considered, there can be Mist?" The originals of the Inner Temno difference of opinion. Scott, amidst ple and Christ's Hospital would have been the large and varied group of characters plainly enough recognized, doubtless, had to which he has introduced us, (scarcely they been called by fictitious names; but one of which is untrue to nature, or has when did the author of Waverley dwell in not its real prototype among living men— the Castle of Tillietudlem, and how far was whatever may be said of their originality,) he personally familiar with Kenilworth is generally understood to have drawn two Castle and the Court of King James ? or three characters from certain circum- Where did he learn the manners he has stances of his own condition, and to have depicted in Ivanhoe, and when was he woven the events of one or two stories ever present at a tournament! What did from the incidents of his own life. The Sir Walter know, personally, of Baillie early years and the education of Waverley Nicol Jarvie, and Dugald Dulgetty, and are admitted to have been taken from the Donald Bean Lean, and Balfour of Burauthor's personal experience; but here all ley? We assert, without fear of conthe personality ends, and scarcely a resem-tradiction, that both characters and inblance, even, remains in all that follows the first few chapters. In the 66 Red Gauntlet" we find another and still more noteworthy instance of the same personality. Here the author again is admitted (under the "modesty" of various disguises) to have expressed "his own story,' and to have "given vent" to some of his "most inward feelings." Now, it is a consideration which we can well afford to omit entirely, that these same introductory chapters of Waverley--which are written strictly according to the method laid down and defended by the "friend" of Elia-have been universally esteemed among the least readable parts of the book in which they occur; and that the story of "Red Gauntlet" was one of the least successful of all the author's romances. It was not, however, for the sake of showing that a work so written will almost inevitably prove a failure, (which we believe to be the fact,) that we adduced the example of this novelist. We call attention to the absurdity of pointing out two or three instances in a score of novels, and in the midst of a hundred distinct and natural fictitious characters--as the world have done--for examples of a personality, which, if the theory of Lamb be correct, is inseparable from every such composition, and which, instead of being pointed out as other. And equally true is this principle, as it respects every genuine work of fiction, whether in prose or in verse. Who, among all the characters of the Iliad and Odyssey, is the representative of the blind bard himself? Who has detected, "under cover" of any disguise," the "most inward feelings" of the real Homer? Why have two or three personal allusions in Paradise Lost been so carefully noted, and set down among the faults of John Milton? And when did he have personal experience of the "most inward feelings" "given vent" through the lips of the "lost archangel?" Even more evident, perhaps, is the absurdity of the allusion to the dramatist. So manifest and universally understood are the laws which exclude every appearance of personal feeling from the drama, and which deny the epithet dramatic to any dialogue. in which the author's self is a character, (and how much more when he "makes himself many"!) that we forbear any illustration of the subject. A more unhappy reference could not have been made, if meant to be understood as in earnest; but if only intended as a jest, as we feel inclined to believe, it certainly amounts to a very ingenious and unextenuating confession of the charge which it ostensibly refutes. How far this first-personality, (which, be it observed, is manifested in no slight degree in that species of bravado by which an author sets at defiance all the acknowledged rules and modes of expression, and, boasting a heroic originality, indulges in a style that tasks Christian forbearance to the utmost to endure,) how far this egotism may be the fundamental vice of Wordsworth, and Byron, of Hazlitt, and Godwin, and Shelley, and Hunt, and others, their contemporaries, we leave the judicious reader to decide for himself. In the writings of Charles Lamb, we find only the individual-confined to a narrow sphere-bounded in his contemplations within the limits of common sympathy, every-day fortune, and humble experience. He seems never to have had the faintest yearning after anything better than was afforded by the immediate circle that surrounded him-the immediate society and the actual stage of civilization and improvement in which his lot had been primarily cast. In his earlier days, indeed, we find some traces of a strong religious aspiration; such as, we believe, has always more or less characterized every truly great and genial spirit. But time scattered these emotions and impulses, and maturer years found him apparently indifferent, and without genuine spiritual hopes. It is, perhaps, the natural course with all healthy minds to grow more religious as they advance in life, and to become more and more attracted to things "unseen and eternal," as the sorrows and calamities of this sublunary existence calm the passions, and sober the heart to the realities of man's immortal being as the change and illusion, that mock him perpetually here, lead the disappointed mortal to long for the everlastingly true and immutable. But Lamb's religious sympathies, his heavenly yearnings, were mainly confined to his youthful days. In his general sympathies, there was little expansiveness: there was, at most, but a Liomentary elasticity. Out of the city-out of the particular quarter of London in which his days were passed, he was almost entirely lost. Out of the immediate circle about him, composed of his brother, his sister, and a score or two of friends, he knew little of men. In literature, even, he had no strong sympathies beyond a limited round of writers. His chief favorites were the dramatists, and such quaint and melancholy authors as Burton, Sir T. Brown, and old Francis Quarles. The necessities of his outward lot-the severe lesson of subordination he so faithfully learned and practiced from his youth up-the character of his literary associates-all contributed to fix the boundary of his mind within limits to which Nature herself seems to have but half intended to confine him. Literature as an amusement-notwithstanding the sage words and "advice" of Coleridge on this subject--by no means suffices one whom destiny has ordained for a man of letters. To sustain two distinct characters in the drama of actual life, is as impossible as it is undesirable. The anointed poet can by no means devote his days to the drudgery of business, and his nights to the enchantments of song. Talfourd, the author of Ion, and Talfourd, the serjeant at law, seem to us totally incongruous; nay, both characters must necessarily be partial and imperfect, and, in some good measure, failures. That Lamb, the "man of figures," could not, from the nature of the case, rise to a very exalted position in belles lettres, without casting off his original profession, seems to us too evident to admit of any argument. It requires the whole man-the whole soul, might, mind, and strength-to fill up the measure of mediocrity, even, and much more evidently, of greatness, in any high calling. In judging the literary character of Lamb, therefore, justice compels us to judge him for what he is, and not for what some too partial admirers have held him up to our view. The boyish admiration we have already confessed for this writer, was not, we are prone to think, a mistaken feeling. The characteristics which then won our attachment we now discover as plainly, and appreciate, perhaps, as fully, as in other days. To speak of these qualities delights us, after all, quite as much as to point out the limitations and short-comings to which we have alluded, and which, in the |