LAMB, CHARLES, was born February 18, 1775, in Crown Office Row, Inner Temple. His father was clerk to Mr. Salt, one of the benchers of the Inner Temple, and both master and servant (the latter under the name of Lovell) have received honourable comme moration in the ' Essays of Elie..' Burn in the Temple, Lamb was educated at Christ's Hospital. Thus his early life was spent in the most old-fashioned and busy parts of London : a circumstance which probably exercised a strong influence over his character and habits. For though many passages in his works indicate a lively power of relishing the beauties of inanimate nature (see for example his ' Lettere, vol. L, p. 221) his relish was as of a luxury, to be enjoyed &steady, and at intervals; his cravings were for the excitement of society, the splendours, oddities, and squalidness of the metropolis. This feeling breaks out everywhere iu his ' Letters.' " I often shed tears," he says, "in the motley Strand, fur fulness of joy at so much life." (See vol. L, p. 182, 213, (to.) Coleridge was his school-fellow, and thus was laid the foundation of a friendship which endured through life. Labouring under an impediment of speech, which pre vented his succeeding to an exhibition in one of our universities, Lamb was driven for subsistence to the uncongenial laboura of the desk he became in 1792 a clerk in the accountaut'e office in the India House, in which, rising in place and salary, he continued a regular labourer till March 1825, when he was allowed to retire upon a handsome pension. HM printed works, he says somewhere, were but recreations: his real ones being contained in some hundred volumes on the shelves of Leadenhall-street. But strongly as ho felt, almost to repining, the irksome bondage of his daily duties, he was duly sensible of the value of a certain iucomc and a fixed employ ment: and earnestly dissuaded one of his valued friends from exchanging the drudgery of a commercial life for the precariousness of a dependance upon literary labour. His own feelings on obtaining his liberty are beautifully recorded in The Superannuated Man,' one of the 'Last. Essays of Elia.' Throughout life Lamb remained un married, he dwelt through life with an only sister, to whom he was linked by a community of tastes, and by the strongest ties of affection strengthened to the utmost by the painful circumstances which had imposed on him the duty of watching over her with a degree of anxious solicitude far beyond what is usually felt. his sister had in a fit of inanity, in September 1790, su Ideely killed her mother; but her humility being evident, she was by the jury's verdict delivered into the keeping of I.er brother—and to this duty the rest of his days were religiously dedicated. Except at intervals, when she voluntarily removed fur a brief splice to an asylum, she was restored to a per fectly sane state, and the devotion of her brother was tenderly and earnestly reciprocated. Charles Lamb died In consequence of an accident, apparently December 27, 1834. His sister survived
him some years.
Lamb's first appearance as an author was in a small volume of poems published jointly with Coleridge and Lloyd. This association brought on him the wrath of the 'Auti-Jacobin; ' es did his drama of 'John Woodvil; published in 1801, the heavier fire of the ' Edinburgh Review.' Au increasing relish for our older poets, and for those who in our own day have sought inspiration from them, or from nature herself, has caused the beauty and feeling of Lamb's poems to be better appreciated. Still his popularity depends more on his prose writings; and especially on his Essays of Elia,' which were begun in the ',London and collected afterwards in two small volumes. They abound in references to the author's character, history, and habits; and with the two volumes of 'Letters,' published by Mr. Justice Talfoutal, present a minute and most interesting picture of a mind quaint, humorous, full of high and lovely thoughts and feelloga and affection for all things animate, and more indulgent to the weaknesses of others than its owe frailties. To these must be added the 'Final Memorials,' published by 'l'alfourd in 1848 in two additional volumes, in which the story of Lamb's sister was published for the first time, and which must be carefully considered by any one who would form a just estimate of the man as well as the author. The preface to the ' Last Essays of Elia,' is an exquisite sketch, by Lamb himself, of his own character.
His works are contained in two vols. 12ino, 1818, 'Essays of Elia, Album Verses,' &c., 1530; ' Specimens of English Dramatic l'oets who lived about the time of Shakspeare,' 1808. They have recently been republished by Mr. Moxon, the poems in one. the prose in three volumes. The 'Farewell to Tobacco' and the 'Essay on Roast are admirable specimens, in verse and prose, and in widely different styles, of his peculiar and easy humour. Christ's Hospital five Years ago ;' The Old Beuchers of the Inner Temple;' Blakes moor,' &c., chow his power of throwing a charm round things indiffer ent in themselves, but endeared to hint by early association. As specimens of his criticism we may instance his essays 'On the Genius of Hogarth; and 'On the Tragedies of Shakepeare.' llis serious is no less admirable than his humorous vein, and is always pregnant with some healthy and benevolent moral. We doubt whether his works are yet, or will be, widely popular : for there was an original quaint ness in his character, nourished by his habits and studies, which those only who have something similar in their temper and pursuits will fully relish. Few however have enjoyed so fully the affectionate admiration of a large and varied circle of friends and having with them eocouutered and surmounted much ridicule, he will hold an honourable place in our literature along with Coleridge, and others whose friendship, in life, he regarded among his most precious privileges, and with whom he would be beat pleased to be associated iu fame.