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less recollection, nor a fainter impression, of what has happened than I have now. It is not a light thing, nor meant by the Almighty to be received lightly. I must be serious, circumspect, and deeply religious through life; and by such means may both of us escape madness in future, if it so please the Almighty!"

Happily for Lamb, what he then understood by being "deeply religious," he was spared mental strength to outlive. It was the first trait in his character to be deeply excitable, almost miraculously so, compared with other men, by emotions, and no less keen and quicksighted in his perceptions. Whatever took hold of him, suddenly shot into a blaze and burnt out, leaving only a charred relic. All griefs and passions sublimed at once, through his over-warm affections, into his intellect, and became purified of all their grosser parts. They did not merely touch him; they pierced through and through. Thus his love drove him to madness; and in all his life after we hear no more of the passion, except when he shows he understood it perfectly. So with his religious feelings. It is easy to see that had he continued in the frame of mind indicated above, he must

have gone the way of poor Cowper. But

he doubtless perceived in this tendency to extremes of feeling something morbid-a taint of insanity, against which he had peculiar reason to be guarded. This and the society of such friends as few men ever had, or were more worthy to have, together with a most iron determination, and the pressure of necessity, enabled him to keep himself in check. But the check, though it held, seemed insecure enough. It just held him from bursting away into the region of tears. He lived on the verge where laughing and crying come together, and as he could not cry, he laughed. His portrait at the beginning of this volume harmonizes with this fundamental quality

of him no less than do his letters.

One more extract will show how near even his strong mind came to breaking down under the deadly sentimentalism that often usurps the place of a simple Christian faith. Whether Coleridge, at this time of his life, (when Lamb was in doubt whether to direct his letter "Mr." Rev.," and so left off both,) was just be adviser he should have had may be

or

oned :

"To you I owe much, under God. In my brief acquaintance with you in London, your conversations won me to the better cause, and rescued me from the polluting spirit of the world. I might have been a worthless character without you; as it is, I do possess a certain improvable portion of devotional feelings, though when I view myself in the light of divine truth, and not according to the common measure of human judgment, I am altogether corrupt and sinful. This is no cant. I am very sincere.

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These last afflictions, Coleridge, have fail ed to soften and bend my will. They found me unprepared. My former calamities produced in me a spirit of humility and a spirit of prayer. I thought they had sufficiently disciplined me; but the event ought to humble me; if God's judgments now fail to take away from me the heart of stone, what more grievous trials ought I not to expect? I have been very querulous, impatient under the rod-full of little jealousies and heart-burnings. I had wed nigh quarrelled with Charles Lloyd-and for no other reason, I believe, than that the good crea ture did all he could to make me happy. The truth is, I thought he tried to force my wird from its natural and proper bent; he continualy wished me to be from home; he was drawing me from the consideration of my poor dar Mary's situation, rather than assisting me to gain a proper view of it with religious consola tions."

"I am recovering, God be praised for it, a healthiness of mind, something like calmness —but I want more religion—I am jealous f human helps and leaning places. I rejoice in your good fortunes. May God at last serde you! You have had many and painful tria's: humanly speaking, they are going to end; at we should rather pray that discipline may al tend us through the whole of our lives. A careless and a dissolute spirit has a hansid upon me with large strides-pray God that my present afflictions may be sanctified to me!"

But he was now enlarging the circle of his friends, and this spirit was not destined to utterly overwhelm him. His strong sense breaks away from it with impati bounds, and his cheerful temper leads tim into gaieties that make him more modest In such passages as the above we have, instead of true piety, an extreme conse ness of self, but very little consciousnes of sin. In coming from this to a y condition, Lamb's perception of the crous carries him to the verge of ir. v ence; yet we know he remained a te liever all his life, and did not, like someri his learned friends, "box the com of religious faith till he had no flirt

We can see how the following should be quite as consistent with true Christianity as the extract just given :—

the

"When we die, you and I must part; sheep, you know, take the right hand, and the goats the left. Stripped of its allegory, you must know, the sheep are I, and the Apostles and the Martyrs, and the Popes, and Bishop Taylor and Bishop Horsley, and Coleridge, &c. &c.; the goats are the Atheists and the Adulterers, and dumb dogs, and Godwin and M. . . . g, and that Thyestæan crew-yaw! how my saintship sickens at the idea!

"You shall have my play and the Falstaff letters in a day or two. I will write to Lloyd by this day's post.

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'God bless you, Manning. Take my trifling as trifling-and believe me seriously and deeply your well-wisher and friend."

The truth was, Lamb was unable to entertain the thought of a heaven which would not include all his friends; and the reconciling his religious belief with his affections was probably what made him so silent with respect to the former.

But we have followed the letters till we

have now reached the period of Lamb's life, when his genius was beginning to expand into full flower. Elia lives again in the rest of the volume, and utters such a world of good things that we will forget, since he desires it, and because we cannot help it, all his troubles and struggles, in the exhilaration of his boundless mirth. First of all we must confess to a warm interest in the worthy George Dyer, who, in these letters and those of the former collection, is made to live.

TO MR. SOUTHEY.

"I showed my 'Witch,' and 'Dying Lover,' to Dyer last night, but George could not comprehend how that could be poetry which did not go upon ten feet, as George and his predecessors had taught it to do; so George read me some lectures on the distinguishing qualities of the Ode, the Epigram, and the Epic, and went home to illustrate his doctrine, by correcting a proof sheet of his own Lyrics. George writes odes where the rhymes, like fashionable man and wife, keep a comfortable distance of six or eight lines apart, and calls that observing the laws of verse.' George tells you, before he recites, that you must listen with great attention or you'll miss the rhymes. I did so, and found them pretty exact. George, speaking of the dead Ossian, exclaimeth, Dark are the I humbly represented to him that poet's eyes.'

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his own eyes were dark, and many a living bard's besides, and suggested to him, ‘Clos'd are the poet's eyes.' But that would not do. I found there was an antithesis between the darkness of his eyes and the splendor of his genius; and I acquiesced."

TO MR. MANNING.

"To come to the point then, and hasten into the middle of things; have you a copy of your Algebra to give away? I do not ask it for myself; I have too much reverence for the Black Arts, ever to approach thy circle, illustrious Trismegist! But that worthy man, and excellent poet, George Dyer, made me a visit yesternight, on purpose to borrow one, supposing, rationally enough, I must say, that you had made me a present of one before this; the omission of which I take to have proceeded only from negligence; but it is a fault. I could lend him no assistance. You must know he is just now diverted from the pursuit of the BELL LETTERS by a paradox, which he has heard his friend (that learned mathematician) maintain, that the negative quantities of mathematicians were mera nuga, things scarcely in rerum naturâ, and smacking too much of mystery for gentlemen of Mr. Friend's clear Unita

rian capacity. However, the dispute once set agoing, has seized violently on George's pericranicks; and it is necessary for his health that he should speedily come to a resolution of his doubts. He goes about teasing his friends with his new mathematics; he even frantically talks of purchasing Manning's Algebra, which shows him far gone, for, to my knowledge, he has not been master of seven shillings a good time. George's pockets and 's brains are two things in nature which do not abhor a vacuum. Now, if you could step in, on this trembling suspense of his reason, and he should find on Saturday morning, lying for him at the Porter's Lodge, Clifford's Inn-his safest address-Manning's Algebra, with a neat manuscription in the Llank leaf, running thus, FROM THE AUTHOR' it might save his wits and restore the unhappy author to those studies of poetry and criticism, which are at present suspended, to the infinite regret of the whole literary world. N. B.-Dirty covers, smeared leaves, and dog's ears, will be rather a recommendation than otherwise. N. B. He must have the book as soon as possible, or nothing can withhold him from madly purchasing the book on tick. . . . Then shall we see him sweetly restored to the chair of Longinus-to dictate in smooth and modest phrase the laws of verse; to prove that Theocritus first introduced the Pastoral, and Virgil and Pope brought it to its perfection; that Gray and Mason (who always hunt in couples in George's brain) have shown a great deal of poetical fire in their lyric poetry; that Arist

tle's rules are not to be servilely followed, which George has shown to have imposed great shackles upon modern genius. His poems, I find, are to consist of two vols.-reasonable octavo; and a third book will exclusively contain criticisms, in which he has gone pretty deeply into the laws of blank verse and rhyme-epic poetry, dramatic and pastoral ditto-all which is to come out before Christmas. But above all he has touched most deeply upon the Drama, comparing the English with the modern German stage, their merits and defects. Apprehending that his studies (not to mention his turn, which I take to be chiefly towards the lyrical poetry) hardly qualified him for these disquisitions, I modestly inquired what plays he had read? I found George's reply was that he had read Shakspeare, but that was a good while since he calls him a great, irregular genius, which I think to be an original and just remark. Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Ben Jonson, Shirley, Marlowe, Ford, and the worthies of Dodsley's Collection-he confessed he had read none of them, but professed his intention of looking through them all, so as to be able to touch upon them in his book. So Shakspeare, Otway, and I believe Rowe, to whom he was naturally directed by Johnson's Lives, and these not read lately, are to stand him instead of a general knowledge of the subject. God bless his dear absurd head!"

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FROM ANOTHER TO THE SAME.

TO MRS. HAZLITT.

"DEAR MRS. H. :--Sitting down to we letter is such a painful operation to Mary, you must accept me as her proxy. You a seen our house. What I now tell you is

ally true: yesterday week, George Dyer caled upon us, at one o'clock, (bright noond; a his way to dine with Mrs. Barbauld, at Ne ington, and he sat with Mary about half hour. The maid saw him go out, from ser kitchen window, but suddenly losing sight if him, ran up in a fright to Mary. G. D. stead of keeping the slip that leads to the gate, had deliberately, staff in hand, in broad, opes day, marched into the New River. He had t his spectacles on, and you know his abac Who helped him out, they can hardly te between 'em they got him out, drenched through and through. A mob collected t time, and accompanied him in. Send Doctor! they said; and a one-eyed fel dirty and drunk, was fetched from the p house at the end, where it seems he lurks fr the sake of picking up water practice: Fa formerly had a medal from the Humare Sce ty for some rescue. By his advice, the patie was put between blankets; and when I care home at four to dinner, I found G. D. ab and raving, light-headed, with the brandywater which the doctor had administered. He sung, laughed, whimpered, screamed, bolded of guardian angels, would get up and go he but we kept him there by force, and by test morning he departed sobered, and seems to have received no injury. All my friends are ope mouthed about having paling before the river. but I cannot see, because an absent mat chooses to walk into a river, with his ey open, at mid-day, I am any the more likely to be drowned in it, coming home at midnight.”

In a letter to Wordsworth, written stili later, Lamb

says:

Pray come on Monday, if you can, and stay your own time. I have a good, large room, with two beds in it, in the handsomest of which thou shalt repose a night, and dream of Spheroids. I hope you will understand by the nonsense of this letter, that I am not melancholy at the thoughts of thy coming: I thought it necessary to add this, because you love precision. Take notice that our stay at Dyer's will not exceed eight o'clock, after which our pursuits will be our own. But, indeed, I think a little recreation among the Bell Letters and poetry will do you some service in the interval of "To G. D. a poem is a poem. His on severer studies. I hope we shall fully discuss as good as anybody's, and, God bless him done to my satisfaction, the reason of Dr. John-sibility of one poem being better than a with George Dyer what I have never yet heard anybody's as good as his own; for I do to think he has the most distant guess of the po son's malevolent strictures on the higher spe- The gods, by denying him the very fac self of discrimination, have effectually c every seed of envy in his bosom. Bat wi envy they excised curiosity also; and if wish the copy again, which you destined bar him, I think I shall be able to find it aga a lot you, on his third shelf, where he stuffs his pre sentation copies, uncut, in shape and resembling a lump of dry dust; but o pamphlet will emerge. I have tried tai ben fully removing that stratum, a thing, ké a

cies of the Ode."

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Long after, when Lamb resided at Islington, Dyer became the hero of an adventure which, Mr. Talfourd informs us, supplies the subject of one of The Last Essays of Elia;' and which is veritably related in the following letter of Lamb, which is curious, as containing the germ

of that delightful article, and the first fifty different poetical works that have been

sketches of the Brandy-and-Water Doctor

therein celebrated as miraculous."

given G. D. in turn for as many of his ar performances, and I confess I never had any

scruple in taking my own again, wherever I found it, shaking the adherences off--and by this means one copy of my works,' served for G. D., and, with a little dusting, was made over to my good friend Dr. G-, who little thought whose leavings he was taking when he made me that graceful bow."

The last we hear of him is in a letter to Moxon, which tells a delightful anecdote of him; after relating it, Lamb says:

"G. was born, I verily think, without original sin, but chooses to have a conscience, as every Christian gentleman should have. His dear face is insusceptible of the twist they call a sneer, yet he is apprehensive of being suspected of that ugly appearance. When he makes a compliment he thinks he has given an affront—a name is personality."

After these extracts, Mr. Talfourd's account of Dyer must not be withheld. It adds to its interest with us, that a friend at our elbow (whose lucubrations are not altogether unknown to our readers) verifies the description of Dyer's person, and remembers how certain roguish young ladies, his cousins, lacking due reverence for learning and poetry, were wont to heap all sorts of meats upon the worthy gentleman's plate at dinner; he being lost in conversation until near the close of the repast, when he would suddenly recollect himself and fall to till he had finished the whole, evidently under an impression that such was his only alternative as a man of polite breeding.

"George Dyer was one of the first objects of Lamb's youthful reverence, for he had attained the stately rank of Grecian in the venerable school of Christ's Hospital, when Charles entered it, a little, timid, affectionate child; but this boyish respect, once amounting to awe, gave place to a familiar habit of loving banter, which, springing from the depths of old regard, approximated to school-boy roguery, and, now and then, though very rarely, gleamed on the consciousness of the ripe scholar. No contrast could be more vivid than that presented by the relations of each to the literature they both loved; one divining its inmost essences, plucking out the heart of its mysteries, shedding light on its dimmest recesses; the other devoted, with equal assiduity, to its externals. Books, to Dyer, 'were a real world, both pure and good; among them he passed, unconscious of time, from youth to extreme age, vegetating on their dates and forms, and trivial fond records,' in the learned air of great libraries, or the dusty confusion of his own, with the least possible ap

prehension of any human interest vital in their pages, or of any spirit of wit or fancy glancing across them. His life was an Academic Pastoral. Methinks I see his gaunt, awkward form, set off by trousers too short, like those outgrown by a gawky lad, and a rusty coat as much too large for the wearer, hanging about him like those garments which the aristocratic Milesian peasantry prefer to the most comforta ble rustic dress; his long head silvered over with short yet straggling hair, and his dark gray eyes glistening with faith and wonder, as Lamb satisfies the curiosity which has gently disturbed his studies as to the authorship of the Waverly Novels, by telling him, in the strictest confidence, that they are the works of Lord Castlereagh, just returned from the Congress of Sovereigns at Vienna! Off he runs, with animated stride and shambling enthusiasm, nor stops till he reaches Maida Hill, and breathes his news into the startled ear of Leigh Hunt, who, as a public writer,' ought to be possessed of the great fact with which George is laden! Or shall I endeavor to revive the bewildered look with which, just after he had been announced as one of Lord Stanhope's executors and residuary legatees, he received Lamb's monly reported, that he was to be made a lord?" grave inquiry, Whether it was true, as com

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O dear, no, Mr. Lamb,' responded he with earnest seriousness, but not without a moment's quivering vanity, I could not think of such a thing; it is not true, I assure you.' 'I thought not,' said Lamb, and I contradict it wherever I go. But the government will not ask your consent; they may raise you to the peerage without your even knowing it.' I hope not, Mr. Lamb; indeed-indeed, I hope not. It would not suit me at all,' responded Dyer, and went his way, musing on the possibility of a strange honor descending on his reluctant brow. Or shall I recall the visible presentiment of his bland unconsciousness of evil when his sportive friend taxed it to the utmost by suddenly asking what he thought of the murderer Williams, who, after destroying two families in Ratcliffe Highway, had broken prison by suicide, and whose body had just before been conveyed in shocking procession to its cross-road grave. The desperate attempt to compel the gentle optimist to speak ill of a mortal creature produced no happier success than the answer, Why, I should think, Mr. Lamb, he must have been rather an eccentric character.' This simplicity of a nature not only unspotted by the world, but almost abstracted from it, will seem the more remarkable when it is known that it was subjected, at the entrance of life, to a hard battle with fortune. Dyer was the son of very poor parents, residing in an eastern suburb of London, Stepney or Bethnalgreenward, where he attracted the attention of two elderly ladies as a serious child, with an extraordinary love for books. They obtained

for him a presentation to Christ's Hospital, which he entered at seven years of age; fought his way through its sturdy ranks to the head; and, at nineteen, quitted it for Cambridge, with only an exhibition and his scholarly accomplishments to help him. On he went, how ever, placid if not rejoicing, through the difficulties of a life illustrated only by scholarship, encountering tremendous labors, unresting yet serene, until, at eighty-five, he breathed out the most blameless of lives, which began in a struggle, to end in a learned dream."

But nous revenons-"let us return to our Lamb." These letters are not to be en

joyed in private. They require the play of sympathy. We confess to a high satisfaction in feeling that we have the power of introducing some choice passages to many readers who will not have seen them.

Writing to Manning, Lamb says:-

"I've often wished I lived in the Golden Age, before doubt, and propositions, and corollaries got into the world. Now, as Joseph D —, Bard of Nature, sings, going up Malvern

Hills,

'How steep-how painful the ascent! It needs the evidence of close deduction To know that ever I shall gain the top.' "You must know that Joe is lame, so that he had some reason for so saying."

And again:

"Joe's tragedy hath the following: Some king is told that his enemy has engaged twelve archers to come over in a boat from an enemy's country and waylay him. He thereupon pathetically exclaims:

The idea of a man drinking himself "pot-valiant," and boldly rushing into bed, is-worthy of the master.

This was about the time of the "Farewell to Tobacco," however, which be inclosed in a letter to Wordsworth, which opens thus:

"My dear Wordsworth, (or Dorothy rather, for to you appertains the biggest part of this answer by right,) I will not again deserve reproach by so long a silence. I have kept deluding myself with the idea that Mary would write to you, but she is so lazy, (or I believe the true state of the case, so diffident,) that it must revert to me as usual; though she writes a pretty good style, and has some notion of the force of words, she is not always so certain of the true orthography of them; that, and a poor handwriting, (in this age of female calligraphy,) often deters her where no other reason does.

This was mere banter upon his sister, Mr. Talfourd informs us.

me.

"As to our special affairs I am looking about I have done nothing since the beginning of last year, when I lost my newspaper job, and having had a long idleness, I must do something, or we shall get very poor. Some times I think of a farce, but hitherto al schemes have gone off--an idle bray or two of an evening, vaporing out of a pipe, and going off in the morning; but now I have bid fare well to my sweet enemy,' Tobacco, as you will see in my next page, I shall perhaps set nobly to work. Hang work!

"I wish that all the year were a holiday: I am sure that indolence-indefeasible indolesce is the true state of man, and business the invention of the old Teazer, whose interferenIZE

'Twelve, dost thou say? Curse on those dozen doomed Adam to an apron and set him a boring. villains!'

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Pen and ink, clerks and desks, were the rese ments of this old torturer some thousand vers after, under pretence of Commerce ay distant shores, Promoting and diffusing kaledge, good, &c.'”

The farce hinted at above was "Mr. H :" its fate is drolly communicated in a note to Mrs. Hazlitt:

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