ense of that much-abused word. He was
not a fisherman, but an angler in the lake of letters; an author by
chance and on the sly. He had a right to disport himself on paper, to
play the frolic with his own fancies, to give the decalogue the slip,
whose life was made up of the sternest stuff, of self-sacrifice,
devotion, honesty, and good sense.

Lamb's letters from first to last are full of the philosophy of life; he
was as sensible a man as Dr. Johnson. One grows sick of the expressions,
'poor Charles Lamb,' 'gentle Charles 'Lamb,' as if he were one of those
grown-up children of the Leigh Hunt type, who are perpetually begging and
borrowing through the round of every man's acquaintance. Charles Lamb
earned his own living, paid his own way, was the helper, not the helped;
a man who was beholden to no one, who always came with gifts in his hand,
a shrewd man, capable of advice, strong in council. Poor Lamb, indeed!
Poor Coleridge, robbed of his will; poor Wordsworth, devoured by his own
_ego_; poor Southey, writing his tomes and deeming himself a classic;
poor Carlyle, with his nine volumes of memoirs, where he

'Lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way,
Tormenting himself with his prickles'--

call these men poor, if you feel it decent to do so, but not Lamb, who
was rich in all that makes life valuable or memory sweet. But he used to
get drunk. This explains all. Be untruthful, unfaithful, unkind; darken
the lives of all who have to live under your shadow, rob youth of joy,
take peace from age, live unsought for, die unmourned--and remaining
sober you will escape the curse of men's pity, and be spoken of as a
worthy person. But if ever, amidst what Burns called 'social noise,' you
so far forget yourself as to get drunk, think not to plead a spotless
life spent with those for whom you have laboured and saved; talk not of
the love of friends or of help given to the needy; least of all make
reference to a noble self-sacrifice passing the love of women, for all
will avail you nothing. You get drunk--and the heartless and the selfish
and the lewd crave the privilege of pitying you, and receiving your name
with an odious smile. It is really too bad.

The completion of Mr. Ainger's edition of Lamb's works deserves a word of
commemoration. In our judgment it is all an edition of Lamb's works
should be. Upon the vexed question, nowadays so much agitated, whether
an editor is to be allowed any discretion