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a sunny old age. To enjoy life he must be surrounded by old friends, and these were failing him. Popularity and a name would have come,* but they would have rather annoyed than solaced him. The world he cared forthe world of old associations, old habits, old friends, old hauntswas slipping from his grasp. long watch over his afflicted sister was coming to an end; Emma Isola," whose mirthful spirits were the youth of our house," had married his friend Moxon, and Lamb was practically alone in his household. His letters at this time were few and short, and he ended them by saying that "his hand shook." But they breathed the spirit of unselfishness: theatre orders were begged for his landlord, Wordsworth's interest was asked for "Louisa Martin who is in trouble," and "establishing a school at Carlisle." "Mr. Tuff' is informed that Covent Garden, from its thin houses, is likely to close, and that he had better lose no time "in using the orders."

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The mistress of the charity school opposite Bay Cottage is, or was till lately, living. She " was often drawn to the window by Lamb's cheery voice as he issued from Mr. Walden's, chatting loudly with anyone he chanced to meet. Otherwise he was not noticeable, except as a spare middle-sized man in pantaloons."+ One day, while making for the "Bell," John Gilpin's hostelry, "the middle-sized man in pantaloons " stumbled in the road. The fall brought on erysipelas, the erysipelas death, and Elia" was buried, on December 27th, 1834, in a spot which, about a fortnight before, he had pointed out to his sister, on an afternoon wintry walk, as the place where he wished to be buried."

Rumour says that Lamb was very kind to the poor, visiting especially the old people in the almshouses, but the oldest of the present inmates have not lived long enough there to remember him.

HENRY F. Cox.

* New editions of "Elia," after the second edition in 1833, appeared in 1835, 1839, 1840, &c.; of "The Last Essays of Elia" in 1835, 1839, 1847, &c. A collection of his works was published in Paris in 1835; and Talfourd's editions of his life and works were reprinted several times in the decade succeeding his death.

+ From an article of mine in the Globe.-H. F. C.

CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS.

NEW SERIES.-No. 10.

PROFESSOR MAX MÜLLER.

WHEN We think of the position held at Oxford, and throughout England, by the present occupant of the chair of Comparative Philology, who is of German birth, we are reminded of the old days when scholarship was almost cosmopolitan in the cultivated portions of Europe, and noted lecturers were able to set up their schools in university centres, by reason of the recognition not of their nationality but of their

power. Friedrich Max Müller was born at Dessau on the 6th December, 1823. His father was Wilhelm Müller, a German poet, who died young, after obtaining a great popularity in his own country, especially for his Songs. of the Greeks, written and sung at the time of the Greek insurrection. To be the son of a poet, who is a lover of language, is probably to inherit a facility of style and an aptitude for linguistic study. Certainly such has been the inheritance in the case of Max Müller, whom—not to name his well-known philologic labours-most persons who read his books published in this country and do not know his birthplace, must take for an Englishman, so natural and spontaneous and powerful is his language.

Through his mother he is the great-grandson of Basedow, the reformer of national education in Germany, the friend of Goethe, and the precursor of Pestalozzi. Professor Max Müller has lately published a short life of his great-grandfather in the "Deutsche Biographie." Though his family name is Müller, this name has long ago been changed in Germany, and in England also, into Max-Müller, for the simple reason that Müller in Germany, as Smith in England, has ceased to be a name, and it would have seemed conceited for any scholar in Germany to claim to be known by the name of Müller, pur et simple, with such rivals as Otfried Müller, Johannes Müller, Friedrich Müller, and others in the field.

The elements of Max Müller's education were received at the ducal school of Dessau, where he was distinguished as a bright and industrious boy, with a special talent for music. When twelve years old he was sent to Leipzig, continuing his studies at the Nicolai School, where nearly two centuries previously Leibniz had been a pupil. In

PHOTOGRAPHED BY LOCK & WHITFIELD, LONDON

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