metropolis a little coterie of half-bred men who took up poetry and literature as a trade, and who having access to one or two Sunday newspapers, and now and then to the magazines and reviews, puffed off each other as the first writers of the day. Among them was Mr. Leigh Hunt, Mr. Proctor, better known under the NambyPamby title of Barry Cornwall, Mr. Hazlitt, some half a dozen others whose names we forget, and Mr. Charles Lamb, the inditer of the precious verses before us.

"Poor fellow! he looks more like a ghost than anything human or divine. His verses partake of the same character. They were gleaned from the albums of rural damsels, who, hearing that Charles Lamb was an author, chose to have a morceau from his classic pen to show to their sires and lovers.

"At one time, from the causes which we have stated, and from the assenting and thoughtless smiles of one or two celebrated men, this individual gained a reputation for quaint wit. So quaint indeed does it appear to have been, that it has not kept. It has grown so musty that it is no longer fit for use.... Charles Lamb, forsooth,

thinks that such effusions as the Album Verses' will be equally serviceable to Mr. Moxon. ... Delicious to the ear of Miss Jane Towers was, no doubt, the address of a poet who had never chanced to see her fair face. .... Our only regret is that the book was not only clasped tight, but locked, however injurious the conse quences might have been to poor Moxon.

"How far such a publisher as Mr. Moxon ought to be considered as an accomplice in your trans,ressions, is a question that would admit of no doubt.

pun

He ought to be adjudged the greatest offender of all; and the least degree of ishment assignable to such a convict should be to give him an hour or two in the hopper."

It will scarcely be believed that this could ever have been penned lately as thirty years ago. Lamb however, was not fairly open to the heavy charge of putting by or taking copies of all his hight verses for the al bums. Not long ago a gentleman found "John Woodvil" in a book Belier's window, with some verses on the fly-leaf, not included in the collected works.

gay,

As Nature herself, could she see them, would strike

With envy, to think that she ne'er did the like;

And since some Lavaters, with headpieces comical,

Have agreed to pronounce people's heads physiognomical,

Be sure that you stuff it with autographs plenty,

All penned in a fashion so stiff and so dainty,

They no more resemble folk's ordinary writing,

Than lines penned with pains do extempore writing,

Or our everyday countenance (pardon the stricture)

The faces we make when we sit for our picture;

Then have you, Madelina, an album complete,

Which may you live to finish, and I live to see it.

"C. LAMB."

rude treatment "John Woodvil" met Talfourd has only glanced at the with from the young Edinburgh Review; but a specimen of its past complacency, and almost boyish impudence in dealing with "Mr. Lamb," will be amusing. It is to the same note which Sidney Smith struck in the first number, where, dealing with Parr's sermons, and Parr's wig, telling of the boundless convexity of friz of the latter, and recovering the reviewer out of a trance by removing the former to a distance. The play, say these agreeable wags-

"Introduces what we believe is a novelty on the stage, a peal of church bells giving their summons to morning service.

Amine if bells heard.)

Margaret Hark the bells, John. Jan. --Those are the church bells of St. Mary Ottery.

Margaret.-I know it.

scholia. Above all, one would like

In the sweet shire of Devon.
Those are the bells.'

"The exactness of John's information is of peculiar use; as Margaret, having been some time at Nottingham, may be supposed to have forgotten the name of the parish, and perhaps of the sweet shire itself; and the cautious and solemn iteration at the close, in an affair of so much moment gives an emphasis to the whole that is almost inimitable."

They then remark on the extraordinary development of drunkenness" through the piece; and reading it over now, it must be confessed that this phase seems to recur a little often.

'(Enter at another door, Three calling for Harry Freeman.)

'Harry Freeman! Harry Freeman! He is not here. Let us go look for him. Where is Freeman? Where is Harry? [Exeunt the Three, calling for Freeman.' "We may here remark, as tending to increase the confusion so happily expressive of drunkenness, the ingenuity of the artifice by which four speeches are given to those

persons, without stating to whom the fourth

shall belong."

But a more severe stroke follows:"If the plot and character of John Woodvil' be not sufficient to establish its antiquity, its language will powerfully concur. The most ancient versification was probably very rude."

Then quoting a sentence from Burton, "which Mr. Lamb introduced, perhaps, as descriptive of his own composition:""The fruit, issue, children, of these my morning meditations, have been certain crude, impolite, incomposite (what shall I say?) verses."

It must be said that a book of the class of "John Woodvil," coming out in our own day, and from the hand of a writer so obscure as Lamb then was, would have been a very tempting plot to be set before a critic.

66

Elia" is a book of the sort that should be "eterne." Too much honour could not be paid to it typographically. There should be an "edition of luxury," with "toned paper," and new type, and "bevelled boards," and rich in illustrations, Apart from such dainties it would bear a commentary, and glosses, and

of his letters and from his life. Thus, we remember his rambles on lending books, and his exception in favour of Coleridge. He says he enriches when he returns, furnishing splendid marginalia and MSS. notes, instancing rare old "Daniel," the English historian, and other names. Now it is curious that, not long ago, this very "Daniel," thus enriched, was brought to light; and in our proposed (Utopian it may be) annotated "Elia" we should have a reference to these notes.

He

Lovers of Leigh Hunt, who like to hear him chatter pleasantly in his Tatler, and Indicator, and London Journal, will remember the fond personal tone of criticism with which he dealt with favourite books, and the beauties of favourite books. is like an epicurean over a choice dish. No doubt, like his friend Lamb, he was tempted to say grace before banquets of books, as before banquets of meat. This doting and almost succulent relish has something genuine in it; though Hunt seems to have been almost too catholic in his taste. He found some sort of beauty in every page almost. He Scored profusely with his pencil. His Welcome to the fifth edition of "The Tales from Shakespeare" is, in the fullest sense, of that quiet "purring" enjoyment with which he used to hang over a book he loved. In that pleasant daily "Tatler," "price_one penny," whose motto was "Veritas et varietas," he speaks heartily and with beaming eyes:

"There is a certain neatness and painstaking in the vignettes to this volume, and a meritorious wish to make every figure tell. It is a pity the artist has made his figures so tall, and for the most part so weak in their bearing. The letterpress is delightful. The beautiful simplicity of this series of tales made us, when a child, hold it, as we still do, one of our favourite books

one of the few we especially love, that we would carry on a journey or save from an accident. It is a book in every way calculated to diffuse the love of the great dramatist, which must have made Mr. Lamb conceive and accomplish his benignant and pleasant task." No one, in truth, so lovably appreciated "Elia" as Hunt.

29 66

a curious likeness there is between this paper of Hunt's and Lamb's delightful paper on "Books and Reading," which, it must be said, appears to have been later in date. Leigh Hunt was then abroad in Italy, and his "Indicator,' My Books," appeared on the 5th of July, 1823. Now, Lamb's first "Elia" scries was published in that very year; and if Books and Reading" had been written he would have included it in his collection. It might have been that the odd fancies and even expressions might have been part of his daily and nightly talk-even of his letters, which he had poured out upon his friends, and which were vividly present to Hunt's mind. A few casual passages will show this singular resemblance. I am almost inclined to believe that we have actually thoughts of Lamb's, which, with a nicer sense, he dropped out of his own essay. In his relation to William Honethe chatty and entertaining compiler of the Every Day" and "Table Books"-Lamb comes out pleasantly. It was a sort of "Athenian oracle," or, better still, the "current notes" of the day; and there were correspondents who wrote and answered each other. The grateful dedication is worth preserving apart :—

"To Charles Lamb, esq. "DEAR L.,-Your letter to me, written the first two months from the commencement of the present work, approving my notice of St. Chad's Well, and you afterwards daring to publish me your 'friend,' with your proper name annexed, I shall never forget. Nor can I forget your and Miss Lamb's sympathy and kindness when glooms outmastered me; and that your pen spontaneously sparkled in the book when my mind was in clouds and darkness. These 'trifles, as each of you would call them, are benefits scored upon my heart; and I dedicate this volume to you and Miss Lamb with affectionate respect.

"W. HONE."

This speaks of a world of kindly and delicate acts, and very likely of pecuniary aid. With the good personality, which was a feature of his time, Hone brought them on in the very first month of his book :-"Yet Bridget and Elia live in our own times; she full of kindness to all, and of soothings to Elia especially; he no less kind and consoling to Bridget, in all simplicity holding converse with

the world, and ever and anon giving us scenes that Motteux and Defoe would admire, and portraits that Denner and Hogarth would rise from their graves to paint."

66

Hone had described, and pleasantly described, the memoirs of Captain Starkey, a fine uncut copy of which was penes me" (a favourite expression of Lamb's), and which in a few numbers after brought out some of that delightful drollery" which, besides good as any official essay of Elia, furnishes a bit of biography really valuable. From it we find that both he and his sister went to a school where Starkey had been usher about a year before they came to it-a room that looked into "a discoloured, dingy garden in the passage leading from Fetter-lane into Bartlett's Buildings." "Heaven knows what languages were taught there. I am sure that neither my sister nor myself brought any out of it but a little of our native English."

Bird and Cook, he says, were the masters. Bird had "that peculiar mild tone-especially when he was inflicting punishment-which is so much more terrible to children than the angriest looks and gestures. Whippings were not frequent, but when they took place, the correction was performed in a private room adjoining, whence we could only hear the plaints, but saw nothing. This heightened the decorum and solemnity.

He then described the ferrule"that almost obsolete weapon now," and "the malignancy, in proportion to the apparent mildness with which its strokes were applied. To make him look more formidable--if a pedagogue had need of these heightenings

-Bird wore one of those flowered Indian gowns formerly in use with schoolmasters, the strange figures upon which we used to interpret into hieroglyphics of pain and suffering." This is in Lamb's most delightful vein. So, too, with other incidents of the school. "Our little leaden inkstands, not separately subsisting, but sunk into the desks ;" and the theatrical "Cato," a reminiscence of which was supplied by Mary Lamb. "She describes the cast of the characters even now with relish. Martha, by the handsome Edgar Hickman, who afterwards went to Africa, and of whom she never afterwards heard