full of sensibility, and it came upon you like a new thought, which you could not help dwelling upon afterwards; it gave rise to meditation and did you good. This small half-clerical man was-Charles Lamb. Charles Lamb was about forty years of age when I saw him; and I knew him intimately for the greater part of twenty years. Small and spare in person, and with small legs ("immaterial legs," Hood called them), he had a dark complexion, dark, curling hair, almost black, and a grave look, lightening up occasionally, and capable of sudden merriment. His laugh was seldom excited by jokes merely ludicrous; it was never spiteful; and his quiet smile was sometimes inexpressibly sweet: perhaps it had a touch of sadness in it. His mouth was well shaped; his lips tremulous with expression; his brown eyes were quick, restless, and glittering; and he had a grand head, full of thought. Leigh Hunt said that "he had a head worthy of Aristotle." Hazlitt calls it "a fine Titian head, full of dead eloquence.' I knew that, before he had attained the age of twenty years, he had to make his way in the world; and that his lines had not been cast in pleasant places. I had heard, indeed, that his family had at one time consisted of a father and mother and an insane sister, all helpless and poor, and all huddled together in a small lodging, scarcely large enough to admit of their moving about without restraint. It is difficult to imagine a more disheartening youth. Nevertheles, out of this desert, in which no hope was visible, he rose up eventually a cheerful man (cheerful when his days were not clouded by his sister's illness); a charming companion, full of pleasant and gentle fancies, and the finest humourist of his age. Although sometimes strange in manner, he was thoroughly unaffected; in serious matters thoroughly sincere. He was, indeed (as he confesses), terribly shy; diffident, not awkward in manner, with occasionally nervous twitching motions that betrayed this infirmity. His speech was brief and pithy; not too often humorous; never sententious nor didactic. Although he sometimes talked whilst walking up and down the room (at which time he seldom looked at the person with whom he was talking), he very often spoke as if impelled by the necessity of speaking—suddenly, precipitately. If he could have spoken very easily, he might possibly have uttered long sentences, expositions, or orations, such as some of his friends indulged in, to the utter confusion of their hearers. But he knew the value of silence; and he knew that even truth may be damaged by too many words. When he did speak, his words had a flavour in them beyond any that I have heard elsewhere. His conversation dwelt upon persons or things within his own recollection, or it opened (with a startling doubt, or a question, or a piece of quaint humour) the great circle of thought. In temper he was quick, but easily appeased. He never affected that exemption from sensibility which has sometimes been mistaken for philosophy, and has conferred reputation upon little men. In a word, he exhibited his emotions in a fine, simple, natural manner. Contrary to the usual habits of wits, no retort or reply by Lamb, however smart in character, ever gave pain. It is clear that illnature is not wit; and that there may be sparkling flowers which are not surrounded by thorns. Lamb's dissent was very intelligible, but never superfluously demonstrative; often, indeed, expressed by his countenance only; sometimes merely by silence. To those who regard Lamb's life as a truly heroic one, teaching to all succeeding generations a beautiful lesson of brotherly love and devotion, called forth by one of the saddest events ever recorded in family history, this volume is full of deep and touching interest. out. They have here again presented to them by a loving pen, overflowing with tenderness and reverential sympathy, the secret of that terrible affliction which suddenly overshadowed his youthful days, and gave a new colouring and aim to all his future existence. A more striking example of noble self-devotion can nowhere be pointed Under a calamity that might have crushed many a stronger man to the earth, do we see Lamb, a youth of fragile health, and possessing all the exquisite sensibilities belonging to a genius in which the quaintest humour and the most tender pathos were united, rise at once to the highest requirements of duty, and for ever renouncing love, and whatever else might be an impediment to his self-devotedness, consecrate his whole existence to the alleviation of a sister's sorrows. And how faithfully he fulfilled his selfimposed vow-how tenderly, and with what unshaken steadfastness, he cleaved to this beloved sister throughout a period of nearly forty years, amid sad perplexities and depressions-now "snatching a fearful joy" from his books and the society of his chosen friends, while she was well and by his side; and, anon, bearing up, as best he could, when, "alone and very miserable," he sat, during the long evenings, in nervous unrest, by that fireside which her frequently recurring malady too often left vacant and cheerless;all this, and much else that throws light on his character, is again told us by Mr. Procter, in grave, tender, and simple language. Lamb had his " exceeding great reward" for the renunciation of his own hopes, and for all his anxious care of his sister, in her unbounded love and devotion to himself. Wordsworth thus alludes to their life-long attachment in a beautiful tribute to the memory of his friend : Our days glide on; And let him grieve who cannot choose but grieve And her bright dower of clustering charities, That, round his trunk and branches, might have clung, Not so enriched, not so adorned, to him Was given a sister, In whom his reason and intelligent heart Found-for all interests, hopes, and tender cares, All softening, humanising, hallowing powers, Her love Was as the love of mothers; and when years, Was undissolved; and, in or out of sight, With life itself. Thus, 'mid a shifting world, Did they together testify of time And seasons' difference-a double tree, With two collateral stems sprung from one root; Such were they-such through life they might have been In union, in partition only such; Otherwise wrought the will of the Most High; Yet, through all visitations and all trials, Still they were faithful, like two vessels launched Oh, gift divine of quiet sequestration! Was, to your souls, and, to the thoughts of others-- Your dual loneliness. The following passage, taken from Talfourd's "Final Memorials of Lamb," will give the reader some additional insight into the characters of brother and sister, showing the peculiar relation in which they stood to each other, and the patience and tenderness with which Charles fulfilled the duty he had taken upon himself: Except to the few who were acquainted with the tragical occurrences of Lamb's early life, some of his peculiarities seem strange-to be forgiven, indeed, to the excellences of his nature and the delicacy of his genius, but still in themselves as much to be wondered at as deplored. The sweetness of his character, breathed through his writings, was felt even by strangers; but its heroic aspect was unguessed, even by many of his friends. Let them now consider it, and ask if the annals of self-sacrifice can show anything in human action and endurance more lovely than its self-devotion exhibits. It was not merely that he saw (which his elder brother cannot be blamed for not immediately perceiving), through the ensanguined cloud of misfortune which had fallen upon his family, the unstained excellence of his sister, whose madness had caused it; that he was ready to take her to his own home with reverential affection, and cherish her through life; that he gave up for her sake all meaner and more selfish love, and all the hopes which youth blends with the passion which disturbs and ennobles it; not even that he did all this cheerfully, and without pluming himself upon his brotherly nobleness as a virtue, or seeking to repay himself (as some uneasy martyrs do) by small instalments of long repining; but that he carried the spirit of the hour in which he first knew and took his course to his last. So far from thinking that his sacrifice of youth and love to his sister gave him a licence to follow his own caprice at the expense of her feelings, even in the lightest matters, he always wrote and spoke of her as his wiser self-his generous benefactress, of whose protecting care he was scarcely worthy. Let it also be remembered that this devotion of the entire nature was not exercised merely in the consciousness of a past tragedy, but during the frequent recurrences of the calamity which caused it, and the constant apprehension of its terrors; and this for a large portion of life, in poor lodgings, where the brother and sister were, or fancied themselves, "marked people;" where, from an income incapable of meeting the expense of the sorrow without sedulous privations, he contrived to hoard, not for holiday enjoyment or future solace, but to provide for expected distress. The constant impendency of this giant sorrow saddened to "the Lambs" even their holidays; as the journey which they both regarded as the relief and charm of the year was frequently followed by a seizure; and when they ventured to take it, a strait waistcoat, carefully packed by Miss Lamb herself, was their constant companion. Sad experience at last induced the abandonment of the annual excursion; and Lamb was contented with walks in and near London during the interval of labour. Miss Lamb experienced, and full well understood, premonitory symptoms of the attack, in restlessness, low fever, and the inability to sleep; and, as gently as possible, prepared her brother for the duty he must soon perform; and thus, unless he could stave off the terrible separation till Sunday, obliged him to ask leave of absence from the office as if for a day's pleasure-a bitter mockery. On one occasion Mr. Charles Lloyd met them, slowly pacing together a little footpath in Hoxton fields, both weeping bitterly; and found, on joining them, that they were taking their solemn way to the accustomed asylum! No one who did not know the family history would have guessed that Miss Lamb was subject to fits of insanity. A friend is reported to have said of her that "she was the last woman in the world whom you could have suspected, under any circumstances, of becoming insane; so calm, so judicious, so rational was she." Hazlitt used to say of her that she was "the only truly sensible woman he ever met with." Talfourd spoke of her as “in all her thoughts and feelings most womanly-keeping under even undue subordination to her notions of a woman's province, intellect of rare excellence, which flashed out when the restraints of gentle habit and humble manner were withdrawn by the terrible force of disease." In a letter to Wordsworth, Lamb exclaims, "she is older, wiser, and better than I, and all my wretched imperfections I cover to myself by resolutely thinking of her goodness. She would share life and death, heaven and hell, with me." In a grave in the churchyard of Edmonton, in a spot which, about a fortnight before his death, he had pointed out to his sister, on an afternoon wintry walk, as the place where he wished to be buried, all that is mortal of him quietly reposes. For nearly thirteen years his sister survived him, and her remains were, as was befitting, conveyed to the same tomb. Surely, so long as the love between brother and sister shall be a beautiful and holy thing on the earth, will the memory of those two gentle beings, whose lives were so strangely, yet so closely linked together, survive, and "smell sweet and blossom in the dust." The following touching sonnet is from the pen of the late Mr. Edward Moxon, Lamb's near and dear friend, and publisher. It was addressed to Mary Lamb, not long after her brother's death. When well, she was in the habit of strolling out in the evening to the churchyard where he was buried: Here sleeps beneath this bank, where daisies grow, Who chants her morning music o'er his bed, Mr. Procter, in his first chapter, gives the following mental portraiture of him: CHARACTERISTICS OF LAMB-THE QUALITIES OF HIS MIND AND HEART. The fact that distinguished Charles Lamb from other men was his entire devotion to one grand and tender purpose. There is probably a romance involved in every life. In his life it exceeded that of others. In gravity, in acuteness, in his noble battle with a great calamity, it was beyond the rest. Neither pleasure nor toil ever distracted him from his holy purpose. Everything was made subservient to it. He had an insane sister, who, in a moment of uncontrollable madness, had unconsciously destroyed her own mother; and to protect and save this sister-a gentlewoman, who had watched like a mother over his own infancy-the whole length of his life was devoted. What he endured through the space of nearly forty years, from the incessant fear and frequent recurrence of his sister's insanity, can now only be conjectured. In the constant and uncomplaining endurance, and in his steady adherence to a great principle of conduct, his life was heroic. We read of men giving up all their days to a single object: to religion, to vengeance, to some overpowering selfish wish; of daring acts done to avert death, or disgrace, or some oppressing misfortune. We read B |