"It is a sort of office work to me," says Lamb, in a letter to Barton; "hours ten to four, the same. It does me good. Man must have regular occupation that has been used The Christmas of 1825 was a melancholy season for Lamb. He had always from a boy spent Christmas in the Temple with Mr. Norris, an officer of the Inner Temple, and this Christmas was made wretched by the last illness of his oldest friend. Anxious to excite the sympathy of the Benchers of the Inn for the survivors, Lamb addressed the following letter to a friend as zealous as himself in all generous offices, in order that he might show it to some of the Benchers. the feelings of any individual, and perhaps the loss was scarcely compensated by the listless leisure which it brought him. Whenever the facile kindness of his disposition permitted, he fled from those temptations of to it." society, which he could only avoid by flight; and his evening hours of solitude were hardly so sweet as when they were the reliefs and resting-places of his mind,-" glimpses which might make him less forlorn" of the world of poetry and romance. His mornings were chiefly occupied in long walks, sometimes extending to ten or twelve miles, in which at this time he was accompanied by a noble dog, the property of Mr. Hood, to whose humours Lamb became almost a slave,* and who, at last, acquired so portentous an ascendancy that Lamb requested his friend. Mr. Patmore to take him under his care. At length the desire of assisting Mr. Hone, in his struggle to support his family by "Saturday, 20th Jan. 1826. antiquarian research and modern pleasantry, "Dear Robinson,-I called upon you this renewed to him the blessing of regular morning, and found that you were gone to labour; he began the task of reading through the glorious heap of dramas collected at the British Museum under the title of the "Garrick Plays," to glean scenes of interest and beauty for the work of his friend; and the work of kindness brought with it its own reward. The following allusion to Lamb's subservience to Dash is extracted from one of a series of papers, written in a most cordial spirit, and with great characteristic power, by the friend to whom Dash was assigned, which appeared in the "Court Magazine." "During these interminable rambles-heretofore pleasant in virtue of TO MR. H. C. ROBINSON. visit a dying friend. I had been upon a like errand. Poor Norris has been lying dying for now almost a week, such is the penalty we pay for having enjoyed a strong constitution! Whether he knew me or not, I know not; or whether he saw me through his poor glazed eyes; but the group I saw about him I shall not forget. Upon the bed, or about it, were assembled his wife and two daughters, and poor deaf Richard, his son, looking doubly stupified. There they were, and seemed to have been sitting all the week. I could only reach out a hand to Mrs. Norris. Speaking was impossible in that mute chamber. By this time I hope it is all over with him. In him I have a loss the world cannot make up. He was my friend and my father's friend all the life I can remember. I seem to have made foolish friendships ever since. Those are friendships which outlive a second generation. Old as I am waxing, in his eyes I was still the child he first knew me. To the last he called me Charley. I have none to call me Charley now. He was the last link that bound me to the Temple. You are but of yesterday. In him seem to have died the old plainness of manners and singleness oftener than they otherwise would, precisely because of heart. Letters he knew nothing of, nor Dash liked it and Lamb did not."-Under his second did his reading extend beyond the pages of master, we learn from the same source, that Dash "subsided into the best bred and best behaved of his the 'Gentleman's Magazine.' Yet there was species." a pride of literature about him from being their profound loneliness and freedom from restraint, Lamb made himself a perfect slave to the dog-whose habits were of the most extravagantly errant nature, for, generally speaking, the creature was half a mile off from his companion either before or behind, scouring the fields or roads in all directions, scampering up or down all manner of streets,' and leaving Lamb in a perfect fever of irritation and annoyance; for he was afraid of losing the dog when it was out of sight, and yet could not persuade himself to keep it in sight for a moment, by curbing its roving spirit. Dash knew Lamb's weakness in these particulars as well as he did himself, and took a dog-like advantage of it. In the Regent's Park, in particular, Dash had his master completely at his mercy; for the moment they got into the ring, he used to get through the paling on to the green sward, and disappear for a quarter or half an hour together, knowing perfectly well that Lamb did not dare move from the spot where he (Dash) had disappeared, till such time as he thought proper to show himself again. And they used to take this particular walk much L amongst books (he was librarian), and from pletely succeeded in what you intended to some scraps of doubtful Latin which he had picked up in his office of entering students, that gave him very diverting airs of pedantry. Can I forget the erudite look with which, when he had been in vain trying to make out a black-letter text of Chaucer in the Temple Library, he laid it down and told me that "in those old books, Charley, there is sometimes a deal of very indifferent spelling;' and seemed to console himself in the reflection! His jokes, for he had his jokes, are now ended; but they were old trusty perennials, staples that pleased after decies repetita, and were always as good as new. One song he had, which was reserved for the night of Christmas-day, which we always spent in the Temple. It was an old thing, and spoke of the flat bottoms of our foes, and the possibility of their coming over in darkness, and alluded to threats of an invasion many years blown over; and when he came to the part 'We'll still make 'em run, and we'll still make 'em sweat, In spite of the devil, and Brussels Gazette !' his eyes would sparkle as with the freshness of an impending event. And what is the Brussels Gazette now? I cry while I enumerate these trifles. 'How shall we tell them in a stranger's ear?' "My first motive in writing, and, indeed, in calling on you, was to ask if you were enough acquainted with any of the Benchers, to lay a plain statement before them of the circumstances of the family. I almost fear not, for you are of another hall. But if you can oblige me and my poor friend, who is now insensible to any favours, pray exert yourself. You cannot say too much good of poor Norris and his poor wife. do. What is poetry may be disputed. These "One word I must object to in your little book, and it recurs more than once-fadeless is no genuine compound; loveless is, because love is a noun as well as verb; but what is a fade? And I do not quite like whipping the Greek drama upon the back of 'Genesis,' page 8. I do not like praise handed in by disparagement; as I objected to a side censure on Byron, &c. in the 'Lines on Bloomfield.' With these poor cavils excepted, your verses are without a flaw. "C. LAMB." TO BERNARD BARTON. "March 20th, 1826. "Dear B. B.,-You may know my letters by the paper and the folding. For the former, I live on scraps obtained in charity from an old friend, whose stationery is a permanent In the spring of 1826, the following letters perquisite; for folding, I shall do it neatly to Bernard Barton were written. TO BERNARD BARTON. "Feb. 7th, 1826. "Dear B. B.,-I got your book not more than five days ago, so am not so negligent as I must have appeared to you with a fortnight's sin upon my shoulders. I tell you with sincerity, that I think you have com when I learn to tie my neckcloths. I surprise most of my friends, by writing to them on ruled paper, as if I had not got past pothooks and hangers. Sealing-wax, I have none on my establishment; wafers of the coarsest bran supply its place. When my epistles come to be weighed with Pliny's, however superior to the Roman in delicate irony, judicious reflections, &c., his gilt post love. C. LAMB." TO BERNARD BARTON. "May 16th, 1826. │will bribe over the judges to him. All the in from Woodbridge; the sky does not drop time I was at the E. I. H., I never such larks every day. My very kindest mended a pen; I now cut 'em to the stumps, wishes to you all three, with my sister's best marring rather than mending the primitive goose-quill. I cannot bear to pay for articles I used to get for nothing. When Adam laid out his first penny upon nonpareils at some stall in Mesopotamos, I think it went hard "Dear B. B.,-I have had no spirits lately with him, reflecting upon his old goodly to begin a letter to you, though I am under orchard, where he had so many for nothing. obligations to you (how many !) for your neat When I write to a great man at the court little poem. 'Tis just what it professes to be, end, he opens with surprise upon a naked a simple tribute, in chaste verse, serious and note, such as Whitechapel people interchange, sincere. with no sweet degrees of envelope. I never enclosed one bit of paper in another, nor understood the rationale of it. Once only I sealed with borrowed wax, to set Walter Scott a wondering, signed with the imperial quartered arms of England, which my friend Field bears in compliment to his descent, in the female line, from Oliver Cromwell. It must have set his antiquarian curiosity upon watering. To your questions upon the currency, I refer you to Mr. Robinson's last speech, where, if you can find a solution, I cannot. I think this, though, the best ministry we ever stumbled upon;-gin reduced four shillings in the gallon, wine two shillings in the quart! This comes home to men's minds and bosoms. My tirade against visitors was not meant particularly at you or A. K—. I scarce know what I meant, for I do not just now feel the grievance. I wanted to make an article. So in another thing I talked of somebody's insipid wife, without a correspondent object in my head: and a good lady, a friend's wife, whom I really love, (don't startle, I mean in a licit way,) has looked shyly on me ever since. The blunders of personal application are ludicrous. I send out a character every now and then, on purpose to exercise the ingenuity of my friends. 'Popular Fallacies' will go on; that word concluded is an erratum, I suppose for continued. I do not know how it got stuffed in there. A little thing without name will also be printed on the Religion of the Actors, but it is out of your way, so I recommend you, with true author's hypocrisy, to skip it. We are about to sit down to roast beef, at which we could wish A. K., B. B., and B. B.'s pleasant daughter to be humble partakers. So much for my hint at visitors, which was scarcely calculated for droppers "I do not know how friends will relish it, but we outlyers, honorary friends, like it very well. I have had my head and ears stuffed up with the east winds. A continual ringing in my brain of bells jangled, or the spheres touched by some raw angel. It is not George the Third trying the Hundredth Psalm? I get my music for nothing. But the weather seems to be softening, and will thaw my stunnings. Coleridge, writing to me a week or two since, begins his note'Summer has set in with its usual severity.' A cold summer is all I know of disagreeable in cold. I do not mind the utmost rigour of real winter, but these smiling hypocrities of Mays wither me to death. My head has been a ringing chaos, like the day the winds were made, before they submitted to the discipline of a weathercock, before the quarters were made. In the street, with the blended noises of life about me, I hear, and my head is lightened; but in a room the hubbub comes back, and I am deaf as a sinner. Did I tell you of a pleasant sketch Hood has done, which he calls- Very deaf indeed?' It is of a good-natured stupid-looking old gentleman, whom a footpad has stopped, but for his extreme deafness cannot make him understand what he wants. The unconscious old gentleman is extending his ear trumpet very complacently, and the fellow is firing a pistol into it to make him hear, but the ball will pierce his skull sooner than the report reach his sensorium. I choose a very little bit of paper, for my ear hisses when I bend down to write. I can hardly read a book, for I miss that small soft voice which the idea of articulated words raises (almost imperceptibly to you) in a silent reader. I seem too deaf to see what I read. But with a touch or two of returning zephyr my head will Unmeaning joy around appears, And nature smiles as if she sneers.' "It is ill with me when I begin to look which way the wind sits. Ten years ago, I literally did not know the point from the broad end of the vane, which it was that indicated the quarter. I hope these ill winds have blown over you as they do through me. "So A. K. keeps a school; she teaches nothing wrong, I'll answer for 't. I have a Dutch print of a school-mistress; little oldfashioned Fleminglings, with only one face among them. She a princess of a schoolmistress, wielding a rod for form more than use; the scene, an old monastic chapel, with a Madonna over her head, looking just as serious, as thoughtful, as pure, as gentle as herself. 'Tis a type of thy friend. "Yours with kindest wishes to your daughter and friend, in which Mary joins, "C. LAMB." About this time a little sketch was taken of Lamb, and published. It is certainly not flattering; but there is a touch of Lamb's character in it. He sent one of the prints to Coleridge, with the following note. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "June 1st, 1826. "Dear Coleridge,-If I know myself, nobody more detests the display of personal vanity, which is implied in the act of sitting for one's picture, than myself. But the fact is, that the likeness which accompanies this letter was stolen from my person at one of my unguarded moments by some too partial artist, and my friends are pleased to think that he has not much flattered me. Whatever its merits may be, you, who have so great an interest in the original, will have a satisfaction in tracing the features of one that has so long esteemed you. There are times when in a friend's absence these graphic representations of him almost seem to bring back the man himself. The painter, whoever he was, seems to have taken me in one of those disengaged moments, if I may so term them, when the native character is so much more honestly displayed than can be possible in the restraints of an inforced sitting attitude. Perhaps it rather describes me as a thinking man, than a man in the act of thought. Whatever its pretensions, I know it will be dear to you, towards whom I should wish my thoughts to flow in a sort of an undress rather than in the more studied graces of diction. "I am, dear Coleridge, yours sincerely, "C. LAMB." In the following summer, Lamb and his sister went on a long visit to Enfield, which ultimately led to his giving up Colebrookecottage, and becoming a constant resident at that place. It was a great sacrifice to him, who loved London so well; but his sister's health and his own required a secession from the crowd of visitors who pressed on him at Islington, and whom he could not help welcoming. He thus invited Mr. Cary, once librarian of the British Museum, to look in upon his retreat. TO MR. CARY. "Dear Sir,-It is whispered me that you will not be unwilling to look into our doleful hermitage. Without more preface, you will gladden our cell by accompanying our old chums of the London, Darley and A. C., to Enfield on Wednesday. You shall have hermit's fare, with talk as seraphical as the novelty of the divine life will permit, with an innocent retrospect to the world which we have left, when I will thank you for your hospitable offer at Chiswick, and with plain hermit reasons evince the necessity of abiding here. "Without hearing from you, then, you shall give us leave to expect you. I have long had it on my conscience to invite you, but spirits have been low; and I am indebted to chance for this awkward but most sincere invitation. "Yours, with best loves to Mrs. Cary, "C. LAMB." "D. knows all about the coaches. Oh, for a Museum in the wilderness!" The following letter was addressed about this time to Coleridge, who was seriously point for the stage. He alludes to it in the contemplating a poetical pantomime. following letter. TO BERNARD BARTON. TO MR. COLERIDGE. "1826. 66 Aug. 10th, 1827. "Dear B. B.,-I have not been able to answer you, for we have had, and are having, (I just snatch a moment,) our poor quiet retreat, to which we fled from society, full of moment, as I write, almost, a heavy importation of two old ladies has come in. Whither can I take wing, from the oppression of human faces? Would I were in a wilderness of apes, tossing cocoa-nuts about, grinning and grinned at! "Dear C.,-We will with great pleasure be with you on Thursday in the next week early. Your finding out my style in your nephew's pleasant book is surprising to me. I want eyes to descry it. You are a little company,-some staying with us, and this too hard upon his morality, though I confess he has more of Sterne about him than of Sternhold. But he saddens into excellent sense before the conclusion. Your query shall be submitted to Miss Kelly, though it is obvious that the pantomime, when done, will be more easy to decide upon than in proposal. I say, do it by all means. I have Decker's play by me, if you can filch anything out of it. Miss G-, with her kitten eyes, is an actress, though she shows it not at all; and pupil to the former, whose gestures she mimics in comedy to the disparagement of her own natural manner, which is agreeable. It is funny to see her bridling up her neck, which is native to F. K.; but there is no setting another's manners upon one's shoulders any more than their head. I am glad you esteem Manning, though you see but his husk or shrine. He discloses not, save to select worshippers, and will leave the world without any one hardly but me knowing how stupendous a creature he is. I am | perfecting myself in the 'Ode to Eton Col-on Crabbe's 'Confidant,' mutatis mutandis. lege' against Thursday, that I may not appear unclassic. I have just discovered that it is much better than the 'Elegy.' "M- was hoaxing you, surely, about my engraving; 'tis a little sixpenny thing, too like by half, in which the draughtsman has done his best to avoid flattery. There have been two editions of it, which I think are all gone, as they have vanished from the window where they hung,—a print-shop, corner of Great and Little Queen-streets, Lincoln's Inn Fields,-where any London friend of yours may inquire for it; for I am (though you won't understand it) at Enfield Chase. We have been here near three months, and shall stay two more, if people will let us alone; but they persecute us from village to village. So, don't direct to Islington again, till further notice. I am trying my hand at a drama, in two acts, founded You like the Odyssey; did you ever read my 'Adventures of Ulysses,' founded on Chapman's old translation of it? for children or men. Chapman is divine, and my abridgment has not quite emptied him of his divinity. When you come to town I'll show it you. You have well described your old fashioned grand paternal hall. Is it not odd that every one's earliest recollections are of some such place! I had my Blakesware (Blakesmoor in the 'London'). Nothing fills a child's mind like a large old mansion; better if un-or partially-occupied; peopled with the spirits of deceased members of the county, and justices of the quorum. Would I were buried in the peopled solitudes of one, with my feelings at seven years old! Those marble busts of the emperors, they seemed as if they were to stand for ever, as they had stood from the living days of Rome, in that |