row, which had been captured and imprisoned in an old cage expressly for the occasion. This is a little the effect left upon us by Mr. Fitzgerald's Lambishness in discoursing about Lamb. He seems to say, Bookstalls, folios, bindings, oddities, you see, dear readers, such things as Lamb loved," and then to put on quaintish, sly freaks of manner, the tears-and-smiles mood, to tread daintily with no visible occasion for dainty treading, to fall into ecstasies about nothing particular because it was Lamb's way, and fall out of them again with difficulty in anything but Lamb's way, and all because in talking about Lamb he wants to be Lambish, instead of forming any connected or distinct conception of him and his genius. Thus, for example:

"Even over the stall-keepers themselves, their calling exercises a chastening influence. They are generally simple men, rarely griping. So with those who explore the stalls. They have a special eye, a quick glance that runs along the shelves; which as it lights on the peculiar rusted back-say the tarnished but mellow 'bit' of old French red morocco- kindles with an eagle glance. So with their touch, which is almost tender, opening with a familiar but cautious reverence, and laying the book back softly, not ramming it violently between its fellows, to the certain abrasion of its sides, as rude heretics. do. After all, it is a good and redeeming toleration in those who watch over public buildings, bridge parapets, and the like, who suffer the humble professors of this craft, and allow to their shelves wall space. This is a redeeming feature in our hard, practical age; and who shall say that it is not a warm, pleasant, and appropriate furniture-like ivy for a wall-for the outside of inns of court, for the long stretch of the Quai Voltaire, and the bases of the Academy pillars in gay Paris? It gives a subdued monastic or scholastic air, that tells of quiet men and gentle scholars gentle scholars, like Walter Scott, Lamb, and a hundred others."

"A correspondent, Tim Tims, gossipping about the ass brings out Lamb again to plead for this suffering servant. 'Nature did prudently in furnishing him with a tegument impervious to ordinary stripes. . His back offers no mark to a puny foeman. To a common whip or switch his side presents an absolute insensibility. His jerkin is well fortified. . . . Contemplating this natural safeguard, his fortified exterior, it is with pain I view the sleek, foppish, combed, and curried person of this animal, as he is transmuted and disnaturalized at watering-places, &c., where they affect to make a palfrey of him. Fie on all such sophisticating! It will never do, Master Groom. Something of his honest, shaggy exterior will peep up in spite of you - his good, rough, native pine-apple coating.' Pineapple coating! How truly after Lamb's mind, the deceit in suggesting an agrecable image, which, on a second's reflection, shows us quite a different idea. Nothing, too, is more remarkable in him than his airy and special use of the "&c.""

This is indeed indulging in forced raptures over deep no-meanings. the &c." because Lamb, instead of putting "Airy use of "at watering-places, places of amusement, sight-seeing places, and the like," shortens down his meaning, as a good essayist should, with an "&c." Nor do we imagine that Lamb, even if warned by Mr. Fitzgerald that he had been very subtle about the pineapple coating of the ass, would have been able to take credit for really meaning it. If he did mean to suggest, and then balk his readers of, the agreeable idea of the taste of pine-apple in using the illustration of "pine-apple coating to express the hardness of the ass's skin, we do not see the What was more in humour of the freak. his mind perhaps was to suggest the value of the ass, by the strong shag coat nature had given to him and to the pine apple alike. But to us this sort of forced critical "He is brought out' by an allusion to Sir rapture over an imaginary touch that no

We suppose the value of that must be that Mr. Fitzgerald thinks it the sort of thing Lamb would have said. Certainly it does not strike us as at all true of modern bookstall-keepers, bookstall frequenters, or bookstall permitters. In London, bookstalls, even, if they have this softening influence on the hard culture of the day, have seldom now any privilege of access to places where other and vulgarer stalls are not also allowed. Then, speaking of Lamb's appearances in Hone's Every-Day Book, Mr. Fitzgerald gets into a rapture about nothing,

and says:

one would really care about even if it were | he writes, not like Dr. Johnson, a down-
seriously meant, has rather a tendency to right earnest defence of what is old-fashion-
provoke, if anything could provoke used or unreasonable, but a plea for it that is
with Lamb, than to heighten our regard the more humorous because you see at
for him. The only respectable criticisms every point that he is resolutely painting
we have found in this book are, first, the out the rational background which he dis-
suggestion of a certain analogy between likes and is trying to ignore at every touch.
Dickens's and Lamb's treatment of old Thus his "Complaint of the Decay of Beg-
childish recollections, like Noah's arks, gars in the Metropolis," is humorous by that
for instance, - and next the observation, very emphasis and grandeur of encomium
not perhaps very recondite, that in the title on the fast vanishing mendicants which be-
of Lamb's essay on 66
The Decay of Beggars trays his knowledge of the truth behind. It
in the Metropolis," "there is an art and is the fertility of the resource which he lav-
significance in the choice of the word de-ishes in excluding the truth, and excluding
cay; it is the key to the whole essay that it by a picture intended to charm the eye
follows, conveying, as it were, that mendi- far more than the reality he is seeking to
cancy was one of the choice blessings and paint out, which betrays to us that he is all
pleasant things of life, decaying away just the time smiling to himself at his own inge-
as the old artificial fountains in the old nuity, nay, indirectly painting his own men-
squares of London were being bricked up tal smile, while professing to be busy on
and abolished." This is a just but sure- praise of the mendicants. Thus he says of
ly rather obvious remark, considering that the beggar, "He is the only man in the
Lamb called his essay expressly "A Com- universe who is not obliged to study appear-
plaint of the Decay of Beggars in the Me- ances. The ups and downs of the world
tropolis." Mr. Fitzgerald's book affords us, concern him no longer. He alone continu-
on the whole, but a small net profit of re- eth in one stay.
No man troubleth
spectable criticism, for 229 pages of ram- him with questioning his religion or politics.
bling matter, though we readily admit that He is the only free man in the universe."
a certain considerable proportion of the Or again, of the beggar who had lost his
space is taken up with extracts often lower limbs, and used to push himself about
good from the more scattered writings of on his wheeled machine, " He seemed earth-
Lamb, which are not always easy to lay born, an Antæus, and to suck in fresh vig-
your hand upon. Still, even this benefit is our from the soil which he neighboured.
sadly diluted by artificial raptures; for, Mr. He was a grand fragment, - as good as an
Fitzgerald, while doing his very best to Elgin marble. The nature which should
screw up his mind into the quaint simplici- have recruited his left legs and thighs was
ties of Lamb the frolic and the gentle," not lost, but only retired into his upper parts,
succeeds only in attaining a very awkward and he was half a Hercules." The amused
and far from frolicsome simplesse.
knowledge betrayed throughout this most
humorous essay that its author was staving
off unwelcome general truths by charming
pictures of his own wayward and capricious
preferences for things as they are, is the
secret of its humour. Lamb said of him-
self very happily, that "the impressions of
infancy had burnt into him, and he resented
the impertinences of manhood." It was this
resentment of the impertinences of man-
hood, combined with a clear though averted
understanding of what manhood had forced
upon him, that created the double current
in his mind requisite to all humour.

A real study of Lamb, not an étude, if what Mr. Fitzgerald has written be an étude, -illustrating the different kinds of his humour and his pathos, and their relation to each other, would have been a fine subject for an essay, though there are not many perhaps who could adequately work it out. Leigh Hunt used to say of Lamb that he had a head worthy of Aristotle, but a great disinclination to exert the powerful understanding which he really possessed. We believe a great secret of his humour will be found in this remark. Lamb saw clearly the inference to which reason on all sorts of subjects led, but deliberately shied at the light as a horse would shy at a sudden stream of light through the gap in a fence, and took to defending some arbitrary view cherished by old and dear associations instead. Nevertheless the gleam of light from which he turns away with such mock disgust is never absent from his mind, and

Another and probably even richer source of Lamb's humour was allied to this just so far as all sorts of intellectual waywardness have the same root. Just as his fancy rebelled against the rational view of a subject, glanced aside from it, and suggested mock reason after mock reason for rejecting it, so even when there was no room for a rebellion of this sort, his mind was fertile

F

beyond expression in detecting oblique ways out of common-places, - back ways, side ways, even blind alleys leading from common-places anywhither or nowhither, as the case might be. He says of a pun, "It is a pistol let off at the ear," to startle the mind. And the reason why he was so good a punster was, that his mind was always starting aside, like a bow bent, from the rigid matter-of-fact views of things. He was, he said, "not a matter-of-fact man, but a matter-of-lie man," and certainly his mind had a wonderful felicity in detecting any opportunity of escaping, at an acute angle as it were, from the ordinary line of thought. Mr. Percy Fitzgerald has half-spoiled his most brilliant pun. When the Highgate omnibus conductor called out, " All full inside?" Lamb, who was half asleep in his corner, woke up to stammer out, "Well, I can't answer for the other gentlemen, but that last piece of pudding at Mrs. Gilman's did the business for me." The attraction of puns to him was this sudden and violent diversion they afforded from the beaten track. His brilliant answer to a superior at the India House, who complained that he always came late, "Well, that is very true, but then I always go away early," was a diversion of exactly the same character. Yet this happy zigzag impulse in his intellect, implied the clearest possible insight into the straight line of thought by the very eagerness of his desire to deviate from it. And this is in fact proved by his criticisms of poetry and dramatic art, some of the finest in the language. Here his sympathies acted with his reason, instead of tempting him into capricious rebellion. There are bits of Shakespearian criticism, such as that on Malvolio, which Coleridge scarcely equalled and never surpassed, and criticisms on actors of the day such as no living man can write.

pression of his adoration. Or take Lamb's conduct to the unfortunate stamp distributor, who expressed his belief that Milton was "a very clever man," whereupon Lamb, half dozing till then before the fire, - he had dined, not without wine, it is true, -jumped up, lighted a bed-candle, and calling out, "Let me have a look at that gentleman's phrenological developments," walked round the unfortunate man, amidst Wordsworth's shocked exclamations of "Charles! my dear Charles!" and even, when forced into the next room, continued to sing audibly,

"Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John Went to bed with his breeches on,"

as expressive, we suppose, of the stamp distributor's very coarse and inappropriate clothing for the absolute nakedness of his mind on the subject of Milton. There is the same wildness of humour about this story of Mr. Fitzgerald's:

"Quite in the same way is his humorous treatment of the poet whose friend had submitted some newly published verses to his inspection. He was to meet the gentleman at dinner, fore the author's arrival. When he came, he and the poems were shown to Lamb a little beproved to be empty and conceited. During dinner Lamb fell into the delightful drollery of saying, now and again, That reminds me of some verses I wrote when I was very young,' and then quoted a line or two, which he recollected, from the gentleman's book, to the latter's amazement and indignation. Lamb, imthe first lines of Paradise Lost Of man's first mensely diverted, capped it all by introducing disobedience,' as also written by himself, which actually brought the gentleman on his feet bursting with rage. He said he had sat by and allowed his own little verses to be taken without protest, but he could not endure to see Milton pillaged."

Yet after all perhaps his highest humour, the humour by which he will be best re- And the letter to Mr. P. G. Patmore,membered, is the humour of his occasional the one nugget in that gentleman's volumiwild moods, on which sufficient stress is sel- nous reminiscences published some eleven dom laid. When people talk of his quaint-years ago, which Mr. Fitzgerald has ness, and his dainty choice of words, and copied from that work, is the perfection of so forth, they suggest a sort of tame dry wild, unbridled humour, starting off at all humour. Now Lamb's humour was very sorts of tangents, but keeping up a pace far from dry. In its happiest moments it that no mere dainty or quaint humourist was a sort of passion, to which he throws ever even conceived: the reins and lets it carry him fast and far. Even in the great essay on the origin of roast pig, one could almost imagine that the main conception had been first suggest ed by the old gentleman in small clothes who used to throw the vegetable marrows over the wall to Mrs. Nickleby as an ex

"CHARLES LAMB TO P. G. PATMORE. “Dear P. — I am so poorly! I have been to a funeral, where I made a pun, to the consternation of the rest of the mourners. we had wine. I can't describe to you the howl which the widow set up at proper intervals.

And

Proctor has got a wen growing out at the nape
of his neck, which his wife wants him to have cut
off; but I think it rather an agreeable excres-
cence - like his poetry redundant. Hone has
hanged himself for debt. Godwin was taken
up for picking pockets. Becky takes to bad
courses. Her father was blown up in a steam
machine. The coroner found it Insanity. I
should not like him to sit on my letter. Do you
observe my direction? Is it Gallic? - Classic-
al? Do try and get some frogs. You must
ask for 'grenouilles '(green eels). They don't
understand frogs,' though it's a common phrase
with us. If you go through Buloign (Bou-
logne), inquire if old Godfrey is living, and how
he got home from the Crusades. He must be a
very old man now. If there is anything new
in politics or literature in France, keep it till I
see you again, for I'm in no hurry. Chatty-
Briant (Chateaubriand) is well, I hope. I think
I have no more news; only give both our loves
(all three,' says Dash) to Mrs. Patmore, and
bid her get quite well, as I am at present, ba-
ting qualms, and the grief incident to losing a
valuable relation.
"C. L.

Dash could, for it was not unlike what he makes. Dash is frightful this morning. He whines and stands up on his hind legs. He misses Becky, who is gone to town. I took him to Barnet the other day, and he couldn't eat his victuals after it. Pray God his intellects be not slipping. Mary is gone out for some soles. suppose it's no use to ask you to come and partake of 'em; else there's a steam vessel. Oh, I am so poorly! I waked it at my cousin's the bookbinder's, who is now with God; or if he is not, it's no fault of mine. We hope the Frank wines do not disagree with Mrs. Patmore. By the way, I like her. Did you ever taste frogs? Get them, if you can. They are like little Lilliput rabbits, only a thought nicer. Christ, how sick I am!-not of the world, but of the widow's shrub. She's sworn under £6,000, but I think she perjured herself. She howls in E la, and I comfort her in B flat. You understand music? If you haven't got Massinger, you have nothing to do but go to the first bibliothéque you can light upon at Boulogne, and ask for it (Gifford's edition), and if they haven't got it, you can have Athalie, par Monsieur Racine, and make the best of it. But that Old Law' 's delicious. 'No shrimps!' (That's in answer to Mary's question about how the soles are to be done.) It is ill work refining upon the secret of the I am uncertain where this wandering letter may humour in such mad fun as this, and we reach you. What you mean by Poste Restante, will not taper it off into common-place by God knows. Do you mean I must pay the postage? So I do, to Dover. We had a mer- any comment of our own. ry passage with the widow at the Commons. of Mr. Fitzgerald, not without a feeling of She was howling-part howling and part giv- gratitude that he has led us to return once ing directions to the proctor when crash! again to the most charming of essayists, down went my sister through a crazy chair, and though we cannot say that his somewhat made the clerks grin, and I grinned, and the histrionic raptures have, in any other way and then I knew that she was than by reminding us of Lamb once more, not inconsolable. Mary was more frightened increased the charm of that freshest, and than hurt. She'd make a good match for any sweetest, and even (in spite of its pathos) body (by she, I mean the widow). gayest corner of English literature.

widow tittered

'If he bring but a relict away

He is happy, nor heard to complain.'

SHENSTONE'

"Londres, July 19, 1827."

We take leave

VOL. XXXII.