lied to Shakspeare's; but of that "fundamental excellence" which " distinguishes the artist from the mere amateur, that power of execution which creates, forms, and constitutes," it was not possible for him to supply example. And this reservation the student must be prepared to make, who would approach the study of the Elizabethan Drama by the aid of Charles Lamb's specimens.

But, whatever qualification must be interposed, it is certain that the publication of these extracts, and the accompanying commentary, has a well-defined place in the poetical renascence that marked the early years of this century. The revived study of the old English dramatists-other than Shakspeare-dates from this publication. Coleridge had not yet begun to lecture, nor Hazlitt to write, and it was not till some twenty years later that Mr. Dyce began his different, but not less important, labours in the same field. To Lamb must be allowed the oredit of having first recalled attention to a range of poetical excellence, in forgetfulness of which English poetry had too long pined and starved. It was to these mountain-heights of inspiration-not to the cultivated lowlands of the eighteenth century-that Poetry was to turn her eyes for help.

CHAPTER V.

INNER TEMPLE LANE.—PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS.

[1809-1817.]

TALFOURD made the acquaintance of Charles Lamb early in the year 1815, and has recorded the impression left by his appearance and manner at that time in words which at this stage of our memoir it may be convenient to quote. Lamb has been fortunate in his verbal describers, if not in the attempts of the painter's art to convey a true idea of his outward man. Leigh Hunt has deportrait of Lamb”

clared that "there never was a true and those who take the trouble to examine in succession the half-dozen portraits that are in existence are obliged to admit that it is difficult to derive from them any consistent idea of his features and expression. But it so happens that we have full-length portraits of him drawn by other hands, which more than compensate for this want. Poets, critics, and humourists, of kindred genius, have left on record how Charles Lamb appeared to them; and though the various accounts bear, as might be expected, the strong impress of their writers' individuality, and though each naturally gives most prominence to the traits that struck him most, the final impression left is one of agreement, in remarkable degree. We have descriptions of Lamb, all possessing points of great interest, by Tal

fourd, Procter, Hood, Patmore, and others, and from these it is possible to learn how their subject looked and spoke and bore himself, with a precision and vividness that we are seldom in such cases allowed to enjoy. I have the advantage of being able to confirm their accounts by the testimony of a living witness. Mr. James Crossley, of Manchester, has related to me his recollections of more than one interview which he had with Lamb, nearly sixty years ago, and has kindly allowed me to make use of them.

Talfourd's reminiscence, committed to writing shortly after Lamb's death, if slightly idealized by his own poetic temperament, is not for that reason a less satisfactory basis on which to form a conception of Charles Lamb's appearance. "Methinks I see him before me now, as he appeared then, and as he continued with scarcely any perceptible alteration to me, during the twenty years of intimacy which followed, and were closed by his death. A light frame, so fragile that it seemed as if a breath would overthrow it, clad in clerk-like black, was surmounted by a head of form and expression the most noble and sweet. His black hair curled crisply about an expanded forehead; his eyes, softly brown, twinkled with varying expression, though the prevalent feeling was sad; and the nose slightly curved, and delicately carved at the nostril, with the lower outline of the face regularly oval, completed a head which was finely placed on the shoulders, and gave importance and even dignity to a diminutive and shadowy stem. Who shall describe his countenance, catch its quivering sweetness, and fix it for ever in words?

*

There are

none, alas, to answer the vain desire of friendship. Deep thought, striving with humour; the lines of suffering wreathed into cordial mirth; and a smile of painful sweet

ness, present an image to the mind it can as little describe as lose. His personal appearance and manner are not unfitly characterized by what he himself says in one of his letters to Manning, of Braham, 'a compound of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel.

From this tender and charming sketch it is instructive to turn to the rude etching on copper made by Mr. Brook Pulham from life, in the year 1825, which in the opinion of Lamb's biographers (and Mr. Crossley confirms their judgment) gives a better idea than all other existing portraits of Charles Lamb's outward man. The small stature he was very noticeably below the middle height-the head apparently out of proportion to the slender frame, the Jewish cast of nose, the long black hair, the figure dwindling away down to "almost immaterial legs," the tight-fitting clerk-like suit of black, terminating in gaiters and straps, all these appear in Mr. Pulham's etching in such bold realism that the portrait might easily pass for a caricature, were it not confirmed in all its details by other authorities. Mr. Crossley recalls with perfect distinctness the aspect of Lamb as he sat at his desk in his room at the India House, looking the more diminutive for being perched upon a very high stool. His hair and complexion were so dark, that when looked at in combination with the complete suit of solemn black, they suggested old Fuller's description of the negro, of which Lamb was so fond an image "cut in ebony." He might have passed, Hood tells us, for a "Quaker in black."

"He

had a long melancholy face," says Mr. Procter, “with keen penetrating eyes." "There was altogether," Mr.

66

Patmore says, a Rabbinical look about Lamb's head which was at once striking and impressive." But the feature of his expression that all his friends dwell on with

most loving emphasis is "the bland sweet smile, with the touch of sadness in it;" and Mr. Patmore's description of the general impression produced by this countenance well sums up and confirms the testimony of all other friends: "In point of intellectual character and expression, a finer face was never seen, nor one more fully, however vaguely corresponding with the mind whose features it interpreted. There was the gravity usually engendered by a life passed in book learning, without the slightest tinge of that assumption and affectation which almost always attend the gravity so engendered; the intensity and elevation of general expression that mark high genius, without any of its pretension and its oddity; the sadness waiting on fruitless thoughts and baffled aspirations, but no evidence of that spirit of scorning and contempt which these are apt to engender. Above all there was a pervading sweetness and gentleness which went straight to the heart of every one who looked on it; and not the less so, perhaps, that it bore about it an air, a something, seeming to tell that it was-not put on-for nothing would be more unjust than to tax Lamb with assuming anything, even a virtue, which he did not possess-but preserved and persevered in, spite of opposing and contradictory feelings within that struggled in vain for mastery. It was a thing to remind you of that painful smile which bodily disease and agony will sometimes put on, to conceal their sufferings from the observation of those they love."

We know Charles Lamb's history, and have not to ask for any explanation of the appearances thus described. He had always (it must not be forgotten) to contend against sad memories, and anticipations of further sorrow. He was by nature "terribly shy," and his difficulties of speech, and possibly a consciousness of oddity of manner and ap