Lamb, Charles

Charles (1775-1834), an English essayist. He was born in London, the son of a lawyer's clerk. He was the youngest of three children; the family was poor. When eight years old he was sent to the Blue-Coat School or Christ's Hospital. At fifteen a position was obtained for him in the South Sea Office, the money he earned being acceptable at home. Three years later he found a similar but somewhat better position in the East India House. Here he worked for thirty-three years when he retired on a pension. Another cloud, darker than that brought by poverty, hung over the Lamb household. This was hereditary insanity. In a sudden and violent attack Lamb's sister Mary killed her mother. Mary had to be confined in an asylum where her reason returned, but attacks of insanity recurred occasionally as long as she lived. Charles, who had always been found of reading, longed for a University course, but, instead, took his sister from the asylum, becoming responsible for her care, and henceforth devoted his life to her interests. When she was suffering from an attack of mania--was "ill," as her brother put it--she would have to be sent to the asylum. At other times the home was a peaceful and measurably happy one. Mary was an intellectual and attractive woman; both brother and sister had many friends who used to gather in their pleasant home. Among these friends were Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Leigh Hunt, De Quincey, and others. During the daytime, Lamb was employed at the office, but his evenings were given to his friends, his books, and his writings. He wrote for the periodicals of the day, occasionally in poetry, but more often in prose. Tales from Shakespeare, by Charles and Mary Lamb, are the plays of Shakespeare retold in prose for young readers. Mary wrote the comedies and Charles the tragedies. He also published Specimens of Dramatic Poets Contemporary with Shakespeare. The Essays of Elia appeared in the London Magazine and were published afterward in book form. They are written in quaint, old-fashioned language, and remind the reader of little else that has been written. He seems to have selected his subjects at random--anything that came into his mind. Dream Children, Witches and Other Night Fears, and A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behavior of Married People, are some of his subjects. The simple, genial humor of these essays is shown to best advantage in the Dissertation on Roast Pig, in which he tells how the Chinese learned to eat roast pig by the accidental burning of a bamboo hut. Lamb was not a great writer, but he is read with pleasure.

QUOTATIONS FROM LAMB.

Much depends upon when and where you read a book. In the five or six impatient minutes before the dinner is quite ready, who would think of taking up the Faery Queene for a stop-gap?

Sentimentally I am disposed to harmony; but organically I am incapable of a tune.

I have indeed lived nominally fifty years, but deduct out of them the hours which I have lived to other people, and not to myself, and you will find me still a young fellow.

Returning to town in the stage-coach, which was filled with Mr. Gilman's guests, we stopped for a minute or two at Kentish Town. A woman asked the coachman, "Are you full inside?"

Upon which Lamb put his head through the window and said, "I am quite full inside; that last piece of pudding at Mr. Gilman's did the business for me.--Autobiographical Recollections.

SAID OF LAMB.

Lamb's memory will retain its fragrance as long as the best spice that ever was expended upon the Pharaohs.--Southey.

His work is small in quantity, but how rare and delicate it is in quality.--Nicoll.

The most original, most quaint, most simple, most touching, of all modern essayists.--Knight.