When Lamb quitted school, he was in the lower division of the second class-which in the language of the school is termed "being in Greek Form, but not Deputy Grecian." He had read Virgil, Sallust, Terence, selections from Lucian's Dialogues, and Xenophon; and had evinced considerable skill in the niceties of Latin composition, both in prose and verse. His docility and aptitude for the attainment of classical knowledge would have insured him an exhibition; but to this the impediment in his speech proved an insuperable obstacle. The exhibitions were given under the implied, if not expressed, condition of entering into the Church; the whole course of education was preparatory to that end; and therefore Lamb, who was unfitted by nature for the clerical profession, was not adopted into the class which led to it, and quitted school to pursue the uncongenial labour of the "desk's dull wood." To this apparently hard lot he submitted with cheerfulness, and saw his schoolfellows of his own standing depart, one after another, for the University without a murmur. This acquiescence in his different fortune must have been a hard trial for the sweetness of his disposition; as he always, in after life, regarded the ancient seats of learning with the fondness of one who had been hardly divorced from them. He delighted, when other duties did not hinder, to pass his vacations in their neighbourhood, and indulge in that fancied association with them which he has so beautifully mirrored in his "Sonnet written at Cambridge."* What worldly I was not train'd in academic bowers, My brow seems tightening with the doctor's cap, success can, indeed, ever compensate for the want of timely nurture beneath the shade of one of these venerable institutions-for the sense of antiquity shading, not checking, the joyous impulses of opening manhood - for the refinement and the grace there interfused into the long labour of ambitious study-for young friendships consecrated by the associations of long past time; and for liberal emulation, crowned by successes restrained from ungenerous and selfish pride by palpable symbols of the genius and the learning of ages? On 23rd November, 1789, Lamb finally quitted Christ's Hospital for the abode of his parents, who still resided in the Temple. At first he was employed in the South Sea House, under his brother John; but on the 5th April, 1792, he obtained an appointment in the accountant's office of the East India Company. His salary, though then small, was a welcome addition to the scanty means of his parents; who now were unable, by their own exertions, to increase it, his mother being in ill health, which confined her to her bed, and his father sinking into dotage. On their comfort, however, this, and what was more precious to him, his little leisure, were freely bestowed; and his recreations were confined to a delightful visit to the twoshilling gallery of the theatre, in company with his sister, and an occasional supper with some of his schoolmates, when in town, from Cambridge. On one of these latter occasions he obtained the appellation of Guy, by which he was always called among them; but of which few of his late friends heard till after his death. "In the first year of his clerkship," says Mr. Le Grice, in the communication with which he favoured me, "Lamb spent the evening of the 5th November with some of his former schoolfellows, who being amused with the particularly large and flapping brim of his round hat, pinned it up on the sides in the form of a cocked-hat. Lamb made no alteration in it, but walked home in his usual sauntering gait towards the Temple. As he was going down Ludgate Strange forms of logic clothe my admiring speech; vein, And half had stagger'd that stout Stagyrite! hill, some gay young men, who seemed not to rare fancies, all deftly masked like hoar have passed the London Tavern without antiquity '-much superior to Dr. Kenrick's resting, exclaimed, 'The veritable Guy!-'Falstaff's Wedding.'" The work was no man of straw !' and with this exclamation neglected, although Lamb exerted all the they took him up, making a chair with their influence he subsequently acquired with arms, carried him, seated him on a post in more popular writers to obtain for it favourSt. Paul's-churchyard, and there left him. able notices, as will be seen from various This story Lamb told so seriously, that the passages in his letters. He stuck, however, truth of it was never doubted. He wore gallantly by his favourite protégé; and even his three-cornered hat many evenings, and when he could little afford to disburse retained the name of Guy ever after. Like sixpence, he made a point of buying a copy Nym, he quietly sympathized in the fun, and of the book whenever he discovered one seemed to say, 'that was the humour of it.' amidst the refuse of a bookseller's stall, and A clergyman of the City lately wrote to me, would present it to a friend in the hope of 'I have no recollection of Lamb. There was making a convert. He gave me one of these a gentleman called Guy, to whom you once copies soon after I became acquainted with introduced me, and with whom I have occa- him, stating that he had purchased it in the sionally interchanged nods for more than morning for sixpence, and assuring me I thirty years; but how is it that I never met should enjoy a rare treat in the perusal; Mr. Lamb? If I was ever introduced to but if I must confess the truth, the mask of him, I wonder that we never came in contact quaintness was so closely worn, that it during my residence for ten years in Edmon- nearly concealed the humour. To Lamb it Imagine this gentleman's surprise was, doubtless, vivified by the eye and voice when I informed him that his nods to Mr. of his old boon companion, forming to him Guy had been constantly reciprocated by an undying commentary; without which it Mr. Lamb!" was comparatively spiritless. Alas! how many even of his own most delicate fancies, rich as they are in feeling and in wisdom, will be lost to those who have not present to them the sweet broken accents, and the half playful, half melancholy smile of the writer! ton.' During these years, Lamb's most frequent companion was James White, or rather, Jem White, as he always called him. Lamb always insisted that for hearty joyous humour, tinged with Shaksperian fancy, Jem never had an equal. "Jem White!" said he, to Mr. Le Grice, when they met for the last time, after many years' absence, at the Bell at Edmonton, in June, 1833, there never was his like! We never shall see such days as those in which Jem flourished!" All that now remains of Jem is the celebration of the suppers which he gave the young chimney-sweepers in the Elia of his friend, and a thin duodecimo volume, which he published in 1796, under the title of the "Letters of Sir John Falstaff, with a dedication (printed in black letter) to Master Samuel Irelaunde," which those who knew Lamb at the time believed to be his. "White's Letters," said Lamb, in a letter to a friend about this time, are near publication. His frontispiece is a good conceit; Sir John learning to dance, to please Madame Page, in dress of doublet, &c., from the upper half, and modern pantaloons, with shoes of the eighteenth century, from the lower half, and the whole work is full of goodly quips and But if Jem White was the companion of his lighter moods, the friend of his serious thoughts was a person of far nobler powers -Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It was his good fortune to be the schoolfellow of that extraordinary man; and if no particular intimacy had been formed between them at Christ's Hospital, a foundation was there laid for a friendship to which the world is probably indebted for all that Lamb has added to its sources of pleasure. Junior to Coleridge by two years, and far inferior to him in all scholastic acquirements, Lamb had listened to the rich discourse of “the inspired charityboy" with a wondering delight, pure from all envy, and, it may be, enhanced by his sense of his own feebleness and difficulty of expression. While Coleridge remained at the University, they met occasionally on his visits to London; and when he quitted it, and came to town, full of mantling hopes and glorious schemes, Lamb became his expanded into forms and hues of its own. admiring disciple. The scene of these happy meetings was a little public-house, called the Salutation and Cat, in the neighbourhood of Smithfield, where they used to sup, and remain long after they had "heard the chimes at midnight." There they discoursed of Bowles, who was the god of Coleridge's poetical idolatry, and of Burns and Cowper, who, of recent poets, in that season of comparative barrenness, had made the deepest impression on Lamb. There Coleridge talked of "Fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute," to one who desired "to find no end" of the golden maze; and there he recited his early poems with that deep sweetness of intonation which sunk into the heart of his hearer. To ledge. The imagination, which afterwards these meetings Lamb was accustomed at all periods of his life to revert, as the season when his finer intellects were quickened into action. Shortly after they had terminated, with Coleridge's departure from London, he thus recalled them in a letter:* "When I read in your little volume your nineteenth effusion, or what you call 'the Sigh,' I think I hear you again. I imagine to myself the little smoky room at the Salutation and Cat, where we have sat together through the winter nights beguiling the cares of life with Poesy." This was early in 1796! and in 1818, when dedicating his works, then first collected, to his earliest friend, he thus spoke of the same meetings: "Some of the sonnets, which shall be carelessly turned over by the general reader, may happily awaken in you remembrances which I should be sorry should be ever totally extinct, the memory of summer days and of delightful years,' even so far back as those old suppers at our old Inn, when life was fresh, and topics exhaustless, — and you first kindled in me, if not the power, yet the love of poetry, and beauty, and kindliness." And so he talked of these unforgotten hours in that short interval during which death divided them! struggled gloriously but perhaps vainly to overmaster the stupendous clouds of German philosophies, breaking them into huge masses, and tinting them with heavenly hues, then shone through the simple articles of Unitarian faith, the graceful architecture of Hartley's theory, and the well-compacted chain by which Priestley and Edwards seemed to bind all things in necessary connexion, as through transparencies of thought; and, finding no opposition worthy of its activity in this poor foreground of the mind, opened for itself a bright succession of fairy visions, which it sought to realise on earth. In its light, oppression and force seemed to vanish like the phantoms of a feverish dream; mankind were disposed in the picturesque groups of universal brotherhood; and, in far distance, the ladder which Jacob saw in solemn vision connected earth with heaven, "and the angels of God were ascending and descending upon it." Lamb had no sympathy with these radiant hopes, except as they were part of his friend. He clung to the realities of life; to things nearest to him, which the force of habit had made dear; and caught tremblingly hold of the past. He delighted, indeed, to hear Coleridge talk of the distant and future; to see the palm-trees wave, and The warmth of Coleridge's friendship the pyramids tower in the long perspective supplied the quickening impulse to Lamb's of his style; and to catch the prophetic notes genius; but the germ enfolding all its nice of a universal harmony trembling in his peculiarities lay ready for the influence, and voice; but the pleasure was only that of admiration unalloyed by envy, and of the generous pride of friendship. The tendency of his mind to detect the beautiful and good in surrounding things, to nestle rather than to roam, was cherished by all the circum This, and other passages I have interwoven with my I own slender thread of narration, are from letters which have thought either too personal for entire publication at present, or not of sufficient interest, in comparison with others, to occupy a portion of the space, to which the letters are limited. stances of his boyish days. He had become doctrine respecting moral responsibility, and familiar with the vestiges of antiquity, both the ultimate destiny of the human race. The in his school and in his home of the Temple; adoption of this creed arose in Lamb from and these became dear to him in his serious the accident of education; he was brought and affectionate childhood. But, perhaps, up to receive and love it; and attended, more even than those external associations, when circumstances permitted, at the chapel the situation of his parents, as it was elevated at Hackney, of which Mr. Belsham, afterand graced by their character, moulded his wards of Essex Street, was then the minister young thoughts to the holy habit of a liberal It is remarkable that another of Lamb's most obedience, and unaspiring self-respect, which intimate friends, in whose conversation, next led rather to the embellishment of what was to that of Coleridge, he most delighted, Mr. near than to the creation of visionary forms. Hazlitt, with whom he became acquainted He saw at home the daily beauty of a cheerful at a subsequent time, and who came from a submission to a state bordering on the servile; distant part of the country, was educated he looked upward to his father's master, and in the same faith. With Coleridge, whose the old Benchers who walked with him on early impressions were derived from the the stately terrace, with a modest erectness rites and services of the Church of England, of mind; and he saw in his own humble Unitarianism was the result of a strong home how well the decencies of life could be conviction; so strong, that with all the maintained on slender means, by the exercise ardour of a convert, he sought to win proseof generous principle. Another circumstance, lytes to his chosen creed, and purposed to akin to these, tended also to impart a tinge of spend his days in preaching it. Neither of venerableness to his early musings. His these young men, however, long continued to maternal grandmother was for many years profess it. Lamb, in his maturer life, rarely housekeeper in the old and wealthy family of alluded to matters of religious doctrine; and the Plumers of Hertfordshire, by whom she when he did so, evinced no sympathy with was held in true esteem; and his visits to their the professors of his once-loved creed. ancient mansion, where he had the free range Hazlitt wrote to his father, who was a of every apartment, gallery and terraced-walk, Unitarian minister at Wem, with honouring gave him "a peep at the contrasting accidents affection; and of his dissenting associates of a great fortune," and an alliance with that with respect, but he had obviously ceased to gentility of soul, which to appreciate, is to think or feel with them; and Coleridge's share. He has beautifully recorded his own Remains indicate, what was well known to recollections of this place in the essay entitled all who enjoyed the privilege of his conver"Blakesmoor in H-shire," in which he sation, that he not only reverted to a belief modestly vindicates his claim to partake in in the Trinitarian mysteries, but that he was the associations of ancestry not his own, and accustomed to express as much distaste for shows the true value of high lineage by Unitarianism, and for the spirit of its more detecting the spirit of nobleness which active advocates, as the benignity of his breathes around it, for the enkindling of nature would allow him to feel for any generous affections, not only in those who human opinion honestly cherished. Perhaps may boast of its possession, but in all who this solitary approach to intolerance in the can feel its influences. universality of Coleridge's mind arose from While the bias of the minds of Coleridge the disapproval with which he might justly and Lamb thus essentially differed, it is regard his own pride of understanding, as singular that their opinions on religion, and excited in defence of the doctrines he had on those philosophical questions which border adopted. To him there was much of devoon religious belief, and receive their colour tional thought to be violated, many reverfrom it, agreed, although probably derived ential associations, intertwined with the from various sources. Both were Unitarians, moral being, to be rent away in the struggle ardent admirers of the writings and character of the intellect to grasp the doctrines which of Dr. Priestley, and both believers in necessity, according to Priestley's exposition, and in the inference which he drew from that were alien to its nurture. But to Lamb these formed the simple creed of his childhood; and slender and barren as they seem, to those who are united in religious sympathy with the great body of their fellow-countrymen, they sufficed for affections which had so strong a tendency to find out resting-places for themselves as his. Those who only knew him in his latter days, and who feel that if ever the spirit of Christianity breathed through a human life, it breathed in his, will, nevertheless, trace with suprise the extraordinary vividness of impressions directly religious, and the self-jealousy with which he watched the cares and distractions of the world, which might efface them, in his first letters. If in a life of ungenial toil, diversified with frequent sorrow, the train of these solemn meditations was broken; if he was led, in the distractions and labours of his course, to cleave more closely to surrounding objects than those early aspirations promised; if, in his cravings after immediate sympathy, he rather sought to perpetuate the social circle which he charmed, than to expatiate in scenes of untried being: his pious feeling were only diverted, not destroyed. The stream glided still, the under current of thought sometimes breaking out in sallies which strangers did not understand, but always feeding and nourishing the most exquisite sweetness of disposition, and the mcst unobtrusive proofs of self-denying love. While Lamb was enjoying habits of the closest intimacy with Coleridge in London, he was introduced by him to a young poet whose name has often been associated with his Charles Lloyd-the son of a wealthy banker at Birmingham, who had recently cast off the trammels of the Society of Friends, and, smitten with the love of poetry, had become a student at the University of Cambridge. There he had been attracted to Coleridge by the fascination of his discourse; and having been admitted to his regard, was introduced by him to Lamb. Lloyd was endeared both to Lamb and Coleridge by a very amiable disposition and a pensive cast of thought; but his intellect bore little resemblance to that of either. He wrote, indeed, pleasing verses and with great facility, -a facility fatal to excellence; but his mind was chiefly remarkable for the fine power of analysis which distinguishes his "London," and other of his later compositions. In this power of discriminating and distinguishing carried to a pitch almost of painfulness Lloyd has scarcely been equalled; and his poems, though rugged in point of versification, will be found by those who will read them with the calm attention they require, replete with critical and moral suggestions of the highest value. He and Coleridge were devoted wholly to literary pursuits; while Lamb's days were given to accounts, and only at snatches of time was he able to cultivate the faculty of which the society of Coleridge had made him imperfectly conscious. Lamb's first compositions were in verse produced slowly, at long intervals, and with self-distrust which the encouragements of Coleridge could not subdue. With the exception of a sonnet to Mrs. Siddons, whose acting, especially in the character of Lady Randolph, had made a deep impression upon him, they were exclusively personal. The longest and most elaborate is that beautiful piece of blank verse entitled "The Grandame," in which he so affectionately celebrates the virtues of the "antique world" of the aged housekeeper of Mr. Plumer. A youthful passion, which lasted only a few months, and which he afterwards attempted to regard lightly as a folly past, inspired a few sonnets of very delicate feeling and exquisite music. On the death of his parents, he felt himself called upon by duty to repay to his sister the solicitude with which she had watched over his infancy; and well indeed he performed it! To her, from the age of twentyone, he devoted his existence; - seeking thenceforth no connexion which could interfere with her supremacy in his affections, or impair his ability to sustain and to comfort her. CHAPTER II. LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. In the year 1796, Coleridge, having married, and relinquished his splendid dream of emigration, was resident at Bristol; and Lamb, who had quitted the Temple, and lived with his father, then sinking into dotage, felt his absence from London bitterly, and sought a correspondence with him as, almost, his only |