CHARACTERISTICS OF LAMB.* In adding our tribute to the memory of Lamb, we are conscious of personal associations of peculiar and touching interest. We recall the many listless hours he has beguiled; and the very remembrance of happy moments induced by his quiet humor, and pleasing reveries inspired by his quaint descriptions and inimitable pathos, is refreshing to our minds. It is difficult to realise that these feelings have reference to an individual whose countenance we never beheld, and the tones of whose voice never fell upon our ear. Frequent and noted instances there are in the annals of literature, of attempts, on the part of au thors, to introduce themselves to the intimate acquaintance of their readers. In portraying their own characters in those of their heroes, in imparting the history of their lives in the form of an epic poem, a popular novel, or through the more direct medium of a professed autobiography, writers have aimed at a striking presentation of themselves. The success of such attempts is, in general, very limited. Like letters of introduction, they indeed, *From the American Quarterly Review. prove passports to the acquaintance, but not necessarily to the friendship of those to whom they are addressed. At best, they ordinarily afford us an insight into the mind of the author, but seldom render us familiar and at home with the man. Charles Lamb, on the contrary, if our own experience does not deceive us-has brought himself singularly near those who have once heartily entered into the spirit of his lucubrations. We seem to know his history, as if it were that of our brother, or earliest friend. The beautiful fidelity of his first love, the monotony of his long clerkship, and the strange feeling of leisure suċceeding its renunciation, the excitement of his "first play," the zest of his reading, the musings of his daily walk, and the quietude of his fireside, appear like visions of actual memory. His image, now bent over a huge ledger, in a dusky compting-house, and now threading the thoroughfares of London, with an air of abstraction, from which nothing recalls him but the outstretched hand of a little sweep, an inviting row of worm-eaten volumes upon an old book stall, or the gaunt figure of a venerable beggar ; and the same form sauntering through the groves about Oxford in the vacation solitude, or seated in a littte back study, intent upon an antiquated folio, appear like actual reminiscences rather than pictures of the fancy. The face of his old school-master is as some familiar physiognomy; and we seem to have known Bridget Elia from infancy, and to have loved her, too, notwithstanding her one "ugly habit of reading in company." Indeed we can compare our associations of Charles Lamb only to those which would naturally attach to an intimate neighbor with whom we had, for years, cultivated habits of delightful intercourse,-stepping over his threshold, to hold sweet commune, whenever weariness was upon our spirits, and we desired cheering and amiable companionship. And when death actually justified the title affixed to his most recent papers-which we had fondly regarded merely as an additional evidence of his unique method of dealing with his fellow beings,-when they really proved the last essays of Elia, we could unaf fectedly apply to him the touching language, with which an admired poet has hallowed the memory of a brother bard;"Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days, Nor named thee, but to praise." And were it only for the peculiar species of fame which Lamb's contributions to the light literature of his country have obtained him,-were it only for the valuable lesson involved in this tributary heritage,--in the method by which it was won,-in the example with which it is associated, there would remain ample cause for congratulation among the real friends of human improvement; there would be sufficient reason to remember, gratefully and long, the gifted and amiable essayist. Instead of the feverish passion for reputation, which renders the existence of the majority of professed literateurs of the present day, a wearing and anxious trial, better becoming the dust and heat of the arena, than the peaceful shades of the academy, a calm and self-reposing spirit pervades and characterises the writings of Lamb. They are obviously the offspring No of thoughtful leisure; they are redolent of the otium; and in this consists their peculiar charm. We are disposed to value this characteristic highly, at a time which abounds, as does our age, with a profusion of forced and elaborate writings. It is truly delightful to encounter a work, however limited in design and unpretending in execution, which revives the legitimate idea of literature,--which makes us feel that it is as essentially spontaneous as the process of vegatation, and is only true to its source and its object, when instinet with freshness and freedom. mind, restlessly urged by a morbid appetite for literary fame, or disciplined to a mechanical development of thought, could have originated the attractive essays we are considering. They indicate quite a different parentage. A lovely spirit of contentment, a steadfast determination towards a generous culture of the soul, breathes through these mental emanations. Imaginative enjoyment,—the boon with which the Creator has permitted man to meliorate the trying circumstances of his lot, is evidently the great recreation of the author, and to this he would introduce his readers. It is interesting to feel, that among the many accomplished men, whom necessity or ambition in. clines to the pursuit of literature, there are those who find the time and possess the will to do something like justice to their own minds. Literary biography is little else than a history of martyrdoms. We often rise from the perusal of a great man's life, whose sphere was the field of letters, with diminished faith in the good he successfully pursued. The story of disappointed hopes, ruined health, and a life in no small degree isolated from social pleasure and the in citement which nature affords, can scarcely be relieved of its melancholy aspect by the simple record of literary success. Earnestly as we honor the principle of self-devotion, our sympathy with beings of a strong intellectual and imaginative bias is too great not to awaken, above every other consideration, a desire for the self-possessed and native exhibition of such a heaven-implanted tendency. We cannot but wish that natures thus endowed should be true to themselves. We feel that, in this way, they will eventually prove most useful to the world. And yet one of the rarest results which such men arrive at, is self-satisfaction in the course they pursue-we do not mean as regards the success, but the direction of their labors. Sir James Mackintosh continually lamented, in his diary, the failure of his splendid intentions, consoled himself with the idea of additional enterprises, and finally died without completing his history. Coleridge has left only, in a fragmentary and scattered form, the philosophical system he proposed to develop. Both these remarkable men passed intellectual lives, and evolved, in conversation and fugitive productions, fruits which are worthy of a peren. nial existence; yet they fell so far short of their aims, they realised so little of what they conceived, that an impres sion the most painful remains upon the mind that, with due susceptibility, contemplates their career. We find, therefore, an especial gratification in turning from such instances, to a far humbler one indeed, but still to a man of genius, who richly enjoyed his pleasant and sequestered inheritance in the kingdom of letters, and whose comparatively few productions bear indubitable testimony to |