mple, freer and more
boisterous.

To this more high-pitched feeling, since predominant in our literature,
the writings of Charles Lamb, whose life occupies the last quarter of
the eighteenth century and the first quarter of the nineteenth, are a
transition; and such union of grave, of terrible even, with gay, we may
note in the circumstances of his life, as reflected thence into his
work. We catch the aroma of a singular, homely sweetness about his
first years, spent on Thames' side, amid the red [107] bricks and
terraced gardens, with their rich historical memories of old-fashioned
legal London. Just above the poorer class, deprived, as he says, of
the "sweet food of academic institution," he is fortunate enough to be
reared in the classical languages at an ancient school, where he
becomes the companion of Coleridge, as at a later period he was his
enthusiastic disciple. So far, the years go by with less than the
usual share of boyish difficulties; protected, one fancies, seeing what
he was afterwards, by some attraction of temper in the quaint child,
small and delicate, with a certain Jewish expression in his clear,
brown complexion, eyes not precisely of the same colour, and a slow
walk adding to the staidness of his figure; and whose infirmity of
speech, increased by agitation, is partly engaging.

And the cheerfulness of all this, of the mere aspect of Lamb's quiet
subsequent life also, might make the more superficial reader think of
him as in himself something slight, and of his mirth as cheaply bought.
Yet we know that beneath this blithe surface there was something of the
fateful domestic horror, of the beautiful heroism and devotedness too,
of old Greek tragedy. His sister Mary, ten years his senior, in a
sudden paroxysm of madness, caused the death of her mother, and was
brought to trial for what an overstrained justice might have construed
as the greatest of crimes. She was [108] released on the brother's
pledging himself to watch over her; and to this sister, from the age of
twenty-one, Charles Lamb sacrificed himself, "seeking thenceforth,"
says his earliest biographer, "no connexion which could interfere with
her supremacy in his affections, or impair his ability to sustain and
comfort her." The "feverish, romantic tie of love," he cast away in
exchange for the "charities of home." Only, from time to time, the
madness returned, affecting him too, once; and we see the brother and
sister voluntarily