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friends. Attached always to things of flesh renders our own passions and frailties and and blood rather than to "the bare earth virtues strange to us; presents them at a and mountains bare, and grass in the green distance in splendid masquerade; exalts them field," he chiefly loved the great dramatists, into new and unauthorised mythology, and whose beauties he supported, and sometimes crystallises all our freshest loves and mantheightened, in his suggestive criticisms. ling joys into clusters of radiant fancies. He While he enjoyed Wordsworth's poetry, made some amends for his indifference to especially The Excursion," with a love Shelley, by his admiration of Mrs. Shelley's which grew upon him from his youth, he "Frankenstein," which he thought the most would repeat some of Pope's divine compli- extraordinary realisation of the idea of a ments, or Dryden's lines, weighty with being out of nature which had ever been sterling sense or tremendous force of satire, effected. For the Scotch novels he cared with eyes trembling into tears. The come- very little, not caring to be puzzled with dies of Wycherley, and Congreve, and new plots, and preferring to read Fielding, Farquhar, were not to him gross and sensual, and Smollett, and Richardson, whose stories but airy, delicate creations, framed out of were familiar, over and over again, to being coarse materials it might be, but evaporating worried with the task of threading the maze in wit and grace, harmless effusions of the of fresh adventure. But the good-naturedintellect and the fancy. The ponderous ness of Sir Walter to all his contemporaries dulness of old controversialists, the dead won his admiration, and he heartily rejoiced weight of volumes of once fierce dispute, of in the greatness of his fame, and the rich which time had exhausted the venom, did rewards showered upon him, and desired not appal him. He liked the massive reading they might accumulate for the glory of of the old Quaker records, the huge density literature and the triumph of kindness. He of old schoolmen, better than the flippancy was never introduced to Sir Walter; but he of modern criticism. If you spoke of Lord used to speak with gratitude and pleasure of Byron, he would turn the subject by quoting the circumstances under which he saw him the lines descriptive of his namesake in once in Fleet-street. A man, in the dress Love's Labour Lost-" Oft have I heard of of a mechanic, stopped him just at Inner you, my Lord Byron," &c.-for he could find Temple-gate, and said, touching his hat, nothing to revere or love in the poetry of "I beg your pardon, sir, but perhaps you that extraordinary but most uncomfortable would like to see Sir Walter Scott; that is poet; except the apostrophe to Parnassus, he just crossing the road;" and Lamb stamin which he exults in the sight of the real mered out his hearty thanks to his truly mountain instead of the mere poetic image. humane informer. All the Laras, and Giaours, and Childe Of his own writings it is now superfluous Harolds, were to him but "unreal mockeries," to speak; for, after having encountered long -the phantasms of a feverish dream,-forms derision and neglect, they have taken their which did not appeal to the sympathies of place among the classics of his language. mankind, and never can find root among They stand alone, at once singular and them. Shelley's poetry, too, was icy cold to delightful. They are all carefully elaborated; him; except one or two of the minor poems, yet never were works written in a higher in which he could not help admiring the defiance to the conventional pomp of style. exquisite beauty of the expression; and the A sly hit, a happy pun, a humorous com"Cenci," in which, notwithstanding the bination, lets the light into the intricacies painful nature of the subject, there is a of the subject, and supplies the place of warmth and passion, and a correspondent ponderous sentences. As his serious consimplicity of diction, which prove how mighty a poet the author would have become had he lived long enough for his feelings to cheering as they are, and suggestive ever have free discourse with his creative power. as they are of high and invigorating thoughts. Responding only to the touch of human Seeking his materials, for the most part, in affection, he could not bear poetry which, the common paths of life,-often in the instead of making the whole world kin, humblest, he gives an importance to every

versation was his best, so his serious writing is far preferable to his fantastical humours,

thing, and sheds a grace over all. The spirit of gentility seems to breathe around all his persons; he detects the venerable and the excellent in the narrowest circumstances and humblest conditions, with the same subtilty which reveals the hidden soul of the greatest works of genius. In all things he is most human. Of all modern writers, his works are most immediately directed to give us heart-ease and to make us happy.

Among the felicities of Lamb's chequered life, that which he esteemed most, was his intimate friendship with some of the greatest of our poets, Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth; the last and greatest of whom has paid a tribute to his memory, which may fitly close this memoir.

"To a good Man of most dear memory

This Stone is sacred. Here he lies apart
From the great city where he first drew breath,
Was reared and taught; and humbly earned his
bread,

To the strict labours of the merchant's desk
By duty chained. Not seldom did those tasks
Tease, and the thought of time so spent depress
His spirit, but the recompense was high;
Firm Independence, Bounty's rightful sire;
Affections, warm as sunshine, free as air;
And when the precious hours of leisure came,
Knowledge and wisdom, gained from converse sweet
With books, or while he ranged the crowded streets
With a keen eye, and overflowing heart:
So genius triumphed over seeming wrong,
And poured out truth in works by thoughtful love
Inspired-works potent over smiles and tears.
And as round mountain-tops the lightning plays,
Thus innocently sported, breaking forth
As from a cloud of some grave sympathy,
Humour and wild instinctive wit, and all
The vivid flashes of his spoken words.
From the most gentle creature nursed in fields
Had been derived the name he bore-a name,
Wherever Christian altars have been raised,
Hallowed to meekness and to innocence;
And if in him meekness at times gave way,
Provoked out of herself by troubles strange,
Many and strange, that hung about his life;
Still, at the centre of his being, lodged
A soul by resignation sanctified:
And if too often, self-reproached, he felt
That innocence belongs not to our kind,
A power that never ceased to abide in him,
Charity, 'mid the multitude of sins
That she can cover, left not his exposed
To an unforgiving judgment from just Heaven.
O, he was good, if e'er a good man lived!

From a reflecting mind and sorrowing heart
Those simple lines flowed with an earnest wish,
Though but a doubting hope, that they might serve
Fitly to guard the precious dust of him

Whose virtues called them forth. That aim is missed;

For much that truth most urgently required

Had from a faltering pen been asked in vain :
Yet, haply, on the printed page received,
The imperfect record, there, may stand unblamed
As long as verse of mine shall breathe the air
Of memory, or see the light of love.

Thou wert a scorner of the fields, my Friend, But more in show than truth; and from the fields, And from the mountains, to thy rural grave Transported, my soothed spirit hovers o'er Its green untrodden turf, and blowing flowers; And taking up a voice shall speak (though still Awed by the theme's peculiar sanctity, Which words less free presumed not even to touch) Of that fraternal love, whose heaven-lit lamp From infancy, through manhood, to the last Of threescore years, and to thy latest hour, Burnt on with ever-strengthening light, enshrined Within thy bosom.

'Wonderful' hath been The love established between man and man, 'Passing the love of women;' and between Man and his help-mate in fast wedlock joined Through God, is raised a spirit and soul of love Without whose blissful influence Paradise Had been no Paradise; and earth were now A waste where creatures bearing human form, Direst of savage beasts, would roam in fear, Joyless and comfortless. Our days glide on; And let him grieve who cannot choose but grieve That he hath been an Elm without his Vine, And her bright dower of clustering charities, That, round his trunk and branches, might have clung

Enriching and adorning. Unto thee,

Not so enriched, not so adorned, to thee
Was given (say rather thou of later birth
Wert given to her) a Sister-'tis a word
Timidly uttered, for she lives, the meek,
The self-restraining, and the ever-kind;
In whom thy reason and intelligent heart
Found-for all interests, hopes, and tender cares,
All softening, humanising, hallowing powers,
Whether withheld, or for her sake unsought-
More than sufficient recompense!

Her love

(What weakness prompts the voice to tell it here?)
Wes as the love of mothers; and when years,
Lifting the boy to man's estate, had called
The long-protected to assume the part

Of a protector, the first filial tie

Was undissolved; and, in or out of sight,
Remained imperishably interwoven

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-and 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
From the same beach one ocean to explore
With mutual help, and sailing-to their league
True, as inexorable winds, or bars
Floating or fixed of polar ice, allow.

But turn we rather, let my spirit turn
With thine, O silent and invisible Friend!
To those dear intervals, nor rare nor brief,
When reunited, and by choice withdrawn
From miscellaneous converse, ye were taught
That the remembrance of foregone distress,

And the worse fear of future ill (which oft
Doth hang around it, as a sickly child
Upon its mother) may be both alike
Disarmed of power to unsettle present good
So prized, and things inward and outward held
In such an even balance, that the heart
Acknowledges God's grace, his mercy feels,
And in its depth of gratitude is still.

O gift divine of quiet sequestration!

The hermit, exercised in prayer and praise,
And feeding daily on the hope of heaven,
Is happy in his vow, and fondly cleaves
To life-long singleness; but happier far
Was to your souls, and, to the thoughts of others,
A thousand times more beautiful appeared,
Your dual loneliness. The sacred tie

Is broken; yet why grieve? for Time but holds
His moiety in trust, till Joy shall lead
To the blest world where parting is unknown."

FINAL MEMORIALS

OF

CHARLES LAMB:

CONSISTING

CHIEFLY OF HIS LETTERS NOT BEFORE PUBLISHED, WITH SKETCHES OF

SOME OF HIS COMPANIONS.

BY

SIR THOMAS NOON TALFOURD, D.C.L.

ONE OF HIS EXECUTORS,

ΤΟ

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, ESQ. D.C.L.

POET LAUREATE,

THESE FINAL MEMORIALS

OF ONE WHO CHERISHED HIS FRIENDSHIP AS A COMFORT AMIDST GRIEFS

AND A GLORY AMIDST DEPRESSIONS, ARE,

WITH AFFECTION AND RESPECT,

INSCRIBED

BY ONE WHOSE PRIDE IS TO HAVE BEEN IN OLD TIME HIS EARNEST ADMIRER,

AND ONE OF WHOSE FONDEST WISHES IS

THAT HE MAY BE LONG SPARED TO ENJOY FAME, RARELY ACCORDED

TO THE LIVING.

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