have honored with the epithet 'twice-born.'[4] But not to mention that
he is so called (we conceive) in reference to the places _whence_ rather
than the places _where_ he was delivered,--for by either birth he may
probably be challenged for a Theban,--in a strict way of speaking, he
was a _filius femoris_ by no means in the same sense as he had been
before a _filius alvi_, for that latter was but a secondary and
tralatitious way of being born, and he but a denizen of the second house
of his geniture. Thus much by way of explanation was thought due to the
courteous 'Wiltshire Man.'

"To 'Indagator,' 'Investigator, 'Incertus,' and the rest of the pack,
that are so importunate about the true localities of his birth,--as if,
forsooth, Elia were presently about to be passed to his parish,--to all
such church-warden critics he answereth, that, any explanation here
given notwithstanding, he hath not so fixed his nativity (like a rusty
vane) to one dull spot, but that, if he seeth occasion, or the argument
shall demand it, he will be born again, in future papers, in whatever
place, and at whatever period, shall seem good unto him,--

"'Modo me Thebis, modo Athenis.'

"ELIA."

* * * * *

Lamb excels as a critic. His article on Hogarth is a masterly specimen
of acute and subtile criticism. Hazlitt says it ought to be read by
every lover of Hogarth and English genius. His paper on "The Tragedies
of Shakspeare, considered with Reference to their Fitness for
Stage-Representation," is, in the opinion of good judges, the noblest
criticism ever written. The brief, "matterful" notes to his Specimens of
the Old English Dramatists are the very quintessence of criticism,--the
flower and fruit of years of thoughtful reading of the old English
drama. Nay, even his incidental allusions to his favorite old poets and
prose-writers are worth whole pages of ordinary criticism.

Therefore I do not see what reason or excuse Talfourd could have for not
publishing the critical paper on De Foe's Secondary Novels, which Lamb
contributed to Walter Wilson's Life of De Foe. The author of "Robinson
Crusoe" was a great favorite with Lamb, and his criticism of "Colonel
Jack," "Moll Flanders," etc., was written _con amore_, and is, perhaps,
the very best thing ever said about those remarkable works. Those who
have read Lamb's letter to Wilson, dated December, 1822, and therefore
know how admirably he could write of t