admiring disciple. The scene of these happy expanded into forms and hues of its own. meetings was a little public-house, called the Lamb's earliest poetry was not a faint Salutation and Cat, in the neighbourhood of reflection of Coleridge's, such as the young Smithfield, where they used to sup, and lustre of original genius may cast on a remain long after they had "heard the chimes polished and sensitive mind, to glow and at midnight." There they discoursed of tremble for a season, but was streaked with Bowles, who was the god of Coleridge's delicate yet distinct traits, which proved it poetical idolatry, and of Burns and Cowper, an emanation from within. There was, who, of recent poets, in that season of com- indeed, little resemblance between the two, parative barrenness, had made the deepest except in the affection which they bore impression on Lamb. There Coleridge talked towards each other. Coleridge's mind, not of "Fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute," laden as yet with the spoils of all systems to one who desired "to find no end" of the and of all times, glowed with the ardour of golden maze; and there he recited his early uncontrollable purpose, and thirsted for poems with that deep sweetness of intonation glorious achievement and universal knowwhich sunk into the heart of his hearer. To ledge. The imagination, which afterwards these meetings Lamb was accustomed at all periods of his life to revert, as the season when his finer intellects were quickened into action. Shortly after they had terminated, with Coleridge's departure from London, he thus recalled them in a letter:* "When I read in your little volume your nineteenth effusion, or what you call 'the Sigh,' I think I hear you again. I imagine to myself the little smoky room at the Salutation and Cat, where we have sat together through the winter nights beguiling the cares of life with Poesy." This was early in 1796! and in 1818, when dedicating his works, then first collected, to his earliest friend, he thus spoke of the same meetings: "Some of the sonnets, which shall be carelessly turned over by the general reader, may happily awaken in you remembrances which I should be sorry should be ever totally extinct, the memory of summer days and of delightful years,' even so far back as those old suppers at our old Inn, when life was fresh, and topics exhaustless, and you first kindled in me, if not the power, yet the love of poetry, and beauty, and kindliness." And so he talked of these unforgotten hours in that short interval during which death divided them! The warmth of Coleridge's friendship supplied the quickening impulse to Lamb's genius; but the germ enfolding all its nice peculiarities lay ready for the influence, and • This, and other passages I have interwoven with my own slender thread of narration, are from letters which I have thought either too personal for entire publication at present, or not of sufficient interest, in comparison with others, to occupy a portion of the struggled gloriously but perhaps vainly to overmaster the stupendous clouds of German philosophies, breaking them into huge masses, and tinting them with heavenly hues, then shone through the simple articles of Unitarian faith, the graceful architecture of Hartley's theory, and the well-compacted chain by which Priestley and Edwards seemed to bind all things in necessary connexion, as through transparencies of thought; and, finding no opposition worthy of its activity in this poor foreground of the mind, opened for itself a bright succession of fairy visions, which it sought to realise on earth. In its light, oppression and force seemed to vanish like the phantoms of a feverish dream; mankind were disposed in the picturesque groups of universal brotherhood; and, in far distance, the ladder which Jacob saw in solemn vision connected earth with heaven, "and the angels of God were ascending and descending upon it." Lamb had no sympathy with these radiant hopes, except as they were part of his friend. He clung to the realities of life; to things nearest to him, which the force of habit had made dear; and caught tremblingly hold of the past. He delighted, indeed, to hear Coleridge talk of the distant and future; to see the palm-trees wave, and the pyramids tower in the long perspective of his style; and to catch the prophetic notes of a universal harmony trembling in his voice; but the pleasure was only that of admiration unalloyed by envy, and of the generous pride of friendship. The tendency of his mind to detect the beautiful and good in surrounding things, to nestle rather than to roam, was cherished by all the circum doctrine respecting moral responsibility, and the ultimate destiny of the human race. The adoption of this creed arose in Lamb from the accident of education; he was brought stances of his boyish days. He had become familiar with the vestiges of antiquity, both in his school and in his home of the Temple ; and these became dear to him in his serious and affectionate childhood. But, perhaps, up to receive and love it; and attended, more even than those external associations, the situation of his parents, as it was elevated and graced by their character, moulded his young thoughts to the holy habit of a liberal obedience, and unaspiring self-respect, which led rather to the embellishment of what was near than to the creation of visionary forms. He saw at home the daily beauty of a cheerful submission to a state bordering on the servile; he looked upward to his father's master, and the old Benchers who walked with him on the stately terrace, with a modest erectness of mind; and he saw in his own humble home how well the decencies of life could be maintained on slender means, by the exercise of generous principle. Another circumstance, akin to these, tended also to impart a tinge of venerableness to his early musings. His maternal grandmother was for many years housekeeper in the old and wealthy family of the Plumers of Hertfordshire, by whom she was held in true esteem; and his visits to their ancient mansion, where he had the free range of every apartment, gallery and terraced-walk, gave him "a peep at the contrasting accidents of a great fortune," and an alliance with that gentility of soul, which to appreciate, is to share. He has beautifully recorded his own recollections of this place in the essay entitled "Blakesmoor in H-shire," in which he modestly vindicates his claim to partake in the associations of ancestry not his own, and shows the true value of high lineage by detecting the spirit of nobleness which breathes around it, for the enkindling of generous affections, not only in those who may boast of its possession, but in all who can feel its influences. While the bias of the minds of Coleridge and Lamb thus essentially differed, it is singular that their opinions on religion, and on those philosophical questions which border on religious belief, and receive their colour from it, agreed, although probably derived from various sources. Both were Unitarians, ardent admirers of the writings and character of Dr. Priestley, and both believers in necessity, according to Priestley's exposition, and in the inference which he drew from that when circumstances permitted, at the chapel at Hackney, of which Mr. Belsham, afterwards of Essex Street, was then the minister. It is remarkable that another of Lamb's most intimate friends, in whose conversation, next to that of Coleridge, he most delighted, Mr. Hazlitt, with whom he became acquainted at a subsequent time, and who came from a distant part of the country, was educated in the same faith. With Coleridge, whose early impressions were derived from the rites and services of the Church of England, Unitarianism was the result of a strong conviction; so strong, that with all the ardour of a convert, he sought to win prose- | lytes to his chosen creed, and purposed to spend his days in preaching it. Neither of these young men, however, long continued to profess it. Lamb, in his maturer life, rarely alluded to matters of religious doctrine; and when he did so, evinced no sympathy with the professors of his once-loved creed. Hazlitt wrote to his father, who was a Unitarian minister at Wem, with honouring affection; and of his dissenting associates with respect, but he had obviously ceased to think or feel with them; and Coleridge's Remains indicate, what was well known to all who enjoyed the privilege of his conversation, that he not only reverted to a belief in the Trinitarian mysteries, but that he was accustomed to express as much distaste for Unitarianism, and for the spirit of its more active advocates, as the benignity of his nature would allow him to feel for any human opinion honestly cherished. Perhaps this solitary approach to intolerance in the universality of Coleridge's mind arose from the disapproval with which he might justly regard his own pride of understanding, as excited in defence of the doctrines he had adopted. To him there was much of devotional thought to be violated, many reverential associations, intertwined with the moral being, to be rent away in the struggle of the intellect to grasp the doctrines which were alien to its nurture. But to Lamb these formed the simple creed of his childhood; and slender and barren as they seem, to those who are united in religious sympathy-carried to a pitch almost of painfulnesswith the great body of their fellow-country- Lloyd has scarcely been equalled; and his men, they sufficed for affections which had poems, though rugged in point of versification, so strong a tendency to find out resting-places will be found by those who will read them for themselves as his. Those who only knew with the calm attention they require, replete him in his latter days, and who feel that if with critical and moral suggestions of the ever the spirit of Christianity breathed highest value. He and Coleridge were through a human life, it breathed in his, will, devoted wholly to literary pursuits; while nevertheless, trace with surprise the extra- Lamb's days were given to accounts, and ordinary vividness of impressions directly only at snatches of time was he able to religious, and the self-jealousy with which cultivate the faculty of which the society he watched the cares and distractions of the of Coleridge had made him imperfectly world, which might efface them, in his first conscious. letters. If in a life of ungenial toil, diversified with frequent sorrow, the train of these solemn meditations was broken; if he was led, in the distractions and labours of his course, to cleave more closely to surrounding objects than those early aspirations promised; if, in his cravings after immediate sympathy, he rather sought to perpetuate the social circle which he charmed, than to expatiate in scenes of untried being; his pious feelings were only diverted, not destroyed. The stream glided still, the under current of thought sometimes breaking out in sallies which strangers did not understand, but always feeding and nourishing the most exquisite sweetness of disposition, and the most unobtrusive proofs of self-denying love. Lamb's first compositions were in verseproduced slowly, at long intervals, and with self-distrust which the encouragements of Coleridge could not subdue. With the exception of a sonnet to Mrs. Siddons, whose acting, especially in the character of Lady Randolph, had made a deep impression upon him, they were exclusively personal. The longest and most elaborate is that beautiful piece of blank verse entitled "The Grandame," in which he so affectionately celebrates the virtues of the "antique world" of the aged housekeeper of Mr. Plumer. A youthful passion, which lasted only a few months, and which he afterwards attempted to regard lightly as a folly past, inspired a few sonnets of very delicate feeling and exquisite music. On the death of his parents, he felt himself While Lamb was enjoying habits of the called upon by duty to repay to his sister closest intimacy with Coleridge in London, the solicitude with which she had watched he was introduced by him to a young poet over his infancy;—and well indeed he perwhose name has often been associated with formed it! To her, from the age of twentyhis-Charles Lloyd-the son of a wealthy one, he devoted his existence; seeking banker at Birmingham, who had recently thenceforth no connexion which could intercast off the trammels of the Society of Friends, fere with her supremacy in his affections, or and, smitten with the love of poetry, had impair his ability to sustain and to comfort become a student at the University of Cam- her. bridge. There he had been attracted to Coleridge by the fascination of his discourse; and having been admitted to his regard, was introduced by him to Lamb. Lloyd was endeared both to Lamb and Coleridge by a very amiable disposition and a pensive cast of thought; but his intellect bore little resemblance to that of either. He wrote, indeed, pleasing verses and with great facility, -a facility fatal to excellence; but his mind was chiefly remarkable for the fine power of analysis which distinguishes his "London." and other of his later compositions. In this power of discriminating and distinguishing CHAPTER II. LETTERS TO COLERIDGE. In the year 1796, Coleridge, having married, and relinquished his splendid dream of emigration, was resident at Bristol; and Lamb, who had quitted the Temple, and lived with his father, then sinking into dotage, felt his absence from London bitterly, and sought a correspondence with him as, almost, his only The same fervour glows in the sectarian piety of the following letter addressed to Coleridge, when fascinated with the idea of a cottage life. TO MR. COLERIDGE. comfort. "In your absence," he writes, in profanely.”* one of the earliest of his letters,* "I feel a stupor that makes me indifferent to the hopes and fears of this life. I sometimes wish to introduce a religious turn of mind; but habits are strong things, and my religious fervours are confined, alas! to some fleeting moments of occasional solitary devotion. A "Oct. 24th, 1796. correspondence opening with you has roused Coleridge, I feel myself much your debtor me a little from my lethargy, and made me for that spirit of confidence and friendship conscious of existence. Indulge me in it! I which dictated your last letter. May your will not be very troublesome." And again, soul find peace at last in your cottage life! a few days after: "You are the only corre- I only wish you were but settled. Do conspondent, and, I might add, the only friend, tinue to write to me. I read your letters I have in the world. I go no-where, and with my sister, and they give us both abundhave no acquaintance. Slow of speech, and ance of delight. Especially they please us reserved of manners, no one seeks or cares two, when you talk in a religious strain,for my society, and I am left alone. Cole- not but we are offended occasionally with a ridge, I devoutly wish that Fortune, which certain freedom of expression, a certain air has made sport with you so long, may play of mysticism, more consonant to the conceits one freak more, throw you into London, or of pagan philosophy, than consistent with some spot near it, and there snugify you for the humility of genuine piety. To instance life. "Tis a selfish, but natural wish for me, now in your last letter-you say, 'it is by cast as I am 'on life's wide plain friendless.' ."" the press, that God hath given finite spirits These appeals, it may well be believed, were both evil and good (I suppose you mean not made in vain to one who delighted in the simply bad men and good men), a portion as lavish communication of the riches of his it were of His Omnipresence!' Now, high own mind even to strangers; but none of as the human intellect comparatively will the letters of Coleridge to Lamb have been soar, and wide as its influence, malign or preserved. He had just published his salutary, can extend, is there not, Coleridge, "Religious Musings," and the glittering a distance between the Divine Mind and it, enthusiasm of its language excited Lamb's which makes such language blasphemy? pious feelings, almost to a degree of pain. Again, in your first fine consolatory epistle "I dare not," says he of this poem, “criticise you say, 'you are a temporary sharer in it. I like not to select any part where all human misery, that you may be an eternal is excellent. I can only admire and thank partaker of the Divine Nature.' What more you for it, in the name of a lover of true than this do those men say, who are for poetryexalting the man Christ Jesus into the second person of an unknown Trinity,—men, whom you or I scruple not to call idolaters? Man, full of imperfections, at best, and subject to wants which momentarily remind rant being, 'servile' from his birth to all him of dependence; man, a weak and ignothe skiey influences,' with eyes sometimes open to discern the right path, but a head pride of speculation, forgetting his nature, generally too dizzy to pursue it; man, in the Believe thou, O my soul, Life is a vision shadowy of truth; I thank you for these lines in the name of a admiration. "In reading your Religious Musings,"" says he, "I felt a transient superiority over you: I have seen Priestley. I love to see his name repeated in your writings;-I love and honour him almost These and other passages are extracted from letters which are either too personal or not sufficiently interesting for entire publication. He probably refers to the following lines in the So Priestley, their patriot, and saint, and sage, and hailing in himself the future God, must make the angels laugh. Be not angry with me, Coleridge; I wish not to cavil; I know I cannot instruct you; I only wish to remind you of that humility which best becometh the Christian character. God, in the New Testament (our best guide,) is represented to us in the kind, condescending, amiable, familiar light of a parent: and in my poor mind 'tis best for us so to consider of him, as our heavenly father, and our best friend, without indulging too bold conceptions of his nature. Let us learn to think humbly of ourselves, and rejoice in the appellation of 'dear children,' 'brethren,' and 'co-heirs with Christ of the promises,' seeking to know no further. "I am not insensible, indeed I am not, of the value of that first letter of yours, and I shall find reason to thank you for it again and again long after that blemish in it is forgotten. It will be a fine lesson of comfort to us, whenever we read it; and read it we often shall, Mary and I. "Accept our loves and best kind wishes for the welfare of yourself and wife and little one. Nor let me forget to wish you joy on your birth-day, so lately past; I thought you had been older. My kind thanks and remembrances to Lloyd. "God love us all, and may He continue to be the father and the friend of the whole human race! "C. LAMB." "Sunday Evening." quite so well satisfied. You seem to me to have been straining your comparing faculties to bring together things infinitely distant and unlike; the feeble narrow-sphered operations of the human intellect; and the everywhere diffused mind of Deity, the peerless wisdom of Jehovah. Even the expression appears to me inaccurate-portion of omnipresenceomnipresence is an attribute whose very essence is unlimitedness. How can omnipresence be affirmed of anything in part? But enough of this spirit of disputatiousness. Let us attend to the proper business of human life, and talk a little together respecting our domestic concerns. Do you continue to make me acquainted with what you are doing, and how soon you are likely to be settled once for all. "Have you seen Bowles's new poem on 'Hope?' What character does it bear? Has he exhausted his stores of tender plaintiveness? or is he the same in this last as in all his former pieces? The duties of the day call me off from this pleasant intercourse with my friend-so for the present adieu. Now for the truant borrowing of a few minutes from business. Have you met with a new poem called the 'Pursuits of Literature?' from the extracts in the 'British Review' I judge it to be a very humorous thing, in particular I remember what I thought a very happy character of Dr. Darwin's poetry. Among all your quaint readings did you ever light upon 'Walton's Complete Angler?' I asked you the question once before; it breathes the very spirit of innocence, purity, and simplicity of heart; there are many choice old verses interespe-spersed in it; it would sweeten a man's temper time to read it; it would Christianise every discordant angry passion; pray make yourself acquainted with it. Have you made it up with Southey yet? Surely one of you two must have been a very silly fellow, and the other not much better, to fall out like boarding school misses; kiss, shake hands, and make it up. The next letter, commencing in a similar strain, diverges to literary topics, and cially alludes to "Walton's Angler,”-a book which Lamb always loved as it were a living friend. TO MR. COLERIDGE. at any "Oct. 28th, 1796. "My dear friend, I am not ignorant that to be a partaker of the Divine Nature is a phrase to be met with in Scripture: I am only apprehensive, lest we in these latter "When will he be delivered of his new days, tinctured (some of us perhaps pretty epic? Madoc, I think, is to be the name of deeply) with mystical notions and the pride it, though that is a name not familiar to my of metaphysics, might be apt to affix to such ears. What progress do you make in your phrases a meaning, which the primitive users hymns? What 'Review' are you connected of them, the simple fisher of Galilee for with? if with any, why do you delay to notice instance, never intended to convey. With White's book? You are justly offended at that other part of your apology I am not its profaneness, but surely you have under |