of the nature of a complaint that Elia's
treatment of men and things (meaning by things, books) is often
fantastical, unreal, even a shade insincere; whilst Hazlitt always at
least aims at the centre, whether he hits it or not. Lamb dances round a
subject; Hazlitt grapples with it. So far as Hazlitt is concerned,
doubtless this is so; his literary method seems to realize the agreeable
aspiration of Mr. Browning's _Italian in England_:--

'I would grasp Metternich until
I felt his wet red throat distil
In blood thro' these two hands.'

Hazlitt is always grasping some Metternich. He said himself that Lamb's
talk was like snap-dragon, and his own not very much 'unlike a game of
nine-pins.' Lamb, writing to him on one occasion about his son, wishes
the little fellow a 'smoother head of hair and somewhat of a better
temper than his father;' and the pleasant words seem to call back from
the past the stormy figure of the man who loved art, literature, and the
drama with a consuming passion, who has described books and plays,
authors and actors, with a fiery enthusiasm and reality quite
unsurpassable, and who yet, neither living nor dead, has received his due
meed of praise. Men still continue to hold aloof from Hazlitt; his
shaggy head and fierce scowling temper still seem to terrorize; and his
very books, telling us though they do about all things most
delightful--poems, pictures, and the cheerful playhouse--frown upon us
from their upper shelf. From this it appears that would a genius ensure
for himself immortality, he must brush his hair and keep his temper; but,
alas! how seldom can he be persuaded to do either. Charles Lamb did
both; and the years as they roll do but swell the rich revenues of his
praise. Lamb's popularity shows no sign of waning. Even that most
extraordinary compound, the rising generation of readers, whose taste in
literature is as erratic as it is pronounced; who have never heard of
James Thomson who sang _The Seasons_ (including the pleasant episode of
Musidora bathing), but understand by any reference to that name only the
striking author of _The City of Dreadful Night_; even these wayward
folk--the dogs of whose criticism, not yet full grown, will, when let
loose, as some day they must be, cry 'havoc' amongst established
reputations--read their Lamb, letters as well as essays, with laughter
and with love.

If it be really seriously urged against Lamb as an author that he is
fan