before the minds of his friends, and helped to bring in a new era of thought by influencing a few young minds. Meanwhile he was sending to certain fortunate correspondents those divine epistles which, since their publication in 1837, have placed Lamb in the front rank of English letter-writers. But still he was unknown, and remained so until the young publisher Ollier was persuaded to venture on a collection of Lamb's scattered writings. At last, at the age of forty-five, he began to immortalise himself with those Essays of Elia, of which the opening series was

ultimately given to the world as a volume in 1823.

Charles Lamb (1775-1834) was the youngest of the seven children of John Lamb, the confidential servant of one of the Benchers of the Inner Temple, and was born on the 10th of February 1775, in Crown Office Row. "I was born," says Lamb, "and passed the first seven years of my life in the Temple. Its church, its halls, its fountains, its river-these are of my oldest recollections." In 1782 he entered Christ's Hospital, and remained there until 1789; at the same school was "a poor friendless boy," called S. T. Coleridge, with whom Lamb formed a lifelong friendship. Of his six brothers and sisters only two now survivedJohn and Mary, both much older than Charles. About 1792 the latter obtained an appointment in the South Sea House, and was presently promoted to be a clerk in the accountant's office of the India House. In 1796 Mary Lamb (1764-1847), whose mental health had given cause for anxiety, went mad and stabbed their mother to death at the dinner-table. Charles was appointed her guardian, and for the rest of his life he devoted himself to her care. Four sonnets by Lamb ("C. L.") were included in Coleridge's Poems on Various Subjects (1796), and the romance of Rosamund Gray appeared in 1798. In the spring of 1799 Lamb's aged father died, and, Mary having partly recovered, the solitary pair occupied lodgings in Pentonville. From these they were ejected in 18co, but found shelter in a set of three rooms in Southampton Buildings, Holborn. Hence they moved to Mitre Court Buildings, in the Temple, where they lived very noiselessly until 1809, when they removed to Inner Temple Lane. The poetical drama called John Woodvil was printed in 1802; and poverty soon forced Charles to become in 1803-4 a contributor of puns and squibs to the Morning Post. In 1806 his farce of Mr. H. was acted with ignominious want of success at Drury Lane. Charles and Mary

Charles Lamb

continued to produce their Tales from Shakespeare and Mrs. Leicester's School in 1807, and for the first time tasted something like popularity. The Adventures of Ulysses followed in 1808, and the more important Specimens of the English Dramatic Poets. The next nine years, spent in Inner Temple Lane, were not eventful; Charles wrote little and published less; the poverty of the pair was not so pressing as it had been, but the malady of Mary recurred with distressing frequency. However, as Charles said in 1815, "the wind was tempered to the shorn Lambs," and on the whole they seem to have been happy. In 1817 they left the Temple and took a lodging in Russell Street, Covent Garden, on the site of Will's Coffee

A TALE

OF

ROSAMUND GRAY

AND

Old Blind Margaret.

BY CHARLES LAMB.

House. Charles collected his Works in two volumes in 1818, and this date closes the earlier and less distinguished half of his career. In 1820 the foundation of The London Magazine offered Lamb an opportunity for the free exercise of his characteristic humour and philosophy, and in the month of August he began to contribute essays to it. By 1823 so many of these easy, desultory articles had appeared that a volume was made of them, entitled Elia (pronounced "Ellia"); this is now usually spoken of as the Essays of Elia. This delightful book was received with a chorus of praise. Charles Lamb was now more prosperous, and his sister and he dared for the first time to take a house of their own, a cottage in Colebrook Row, Islington, and they adopted a charming little girl, Emma Isola, who brightened their lonely fireside. Charles had long fretted under the bondage of his work at the India House, where he had now served thirty-three years. The Directors met his wishes with marked generosity, and he retired on the very handsome pension of £450 a year. He wrote to Wordsworth on the 6th of April 1825: "I came home for ever on Tuesday in last week," and "it was like passing from life into eternity." It is doubtful, however, whether the sudden abandonment of all regular employment was good for Lamb; but in 1826 he worked almost daily at the British Museum, which kept him in health. In 1830 he published a volume of Album Verses, soon after boarding with a family at Enfield. A final change of residence was made to Bay Cottage, Edmonton, in 1833; in this year the Last Essays of Elia were published, and the loneliness of the ageing brother and sister was enhanced by the marriage of Emma Isola. The death of Coleridge greatly affected Charles Lamb, who was now in failing health; he wrote of Coleridge, "his great and dear spirit haunts me," and he did not long survive. Charles Lamb died at Edmonton on the 27th of December 1834, with the names of the friends he had loved best murmured

LONDON,

PRINTED FOR LEE AND HURST,
NO. 32, PATER-NOSTER ROW.

1798.

Title-page of the First Edition of Lamb's "Tale of Rosamund Gray"