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LAMB, CHARLES (1775–1834)

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Originally appearing in Volume V16, Page 105 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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LAMB, See also:CHARLES (1775–1834) , See also:English essayist and critic, was See also:born in See also:Crown See also:Office See also:Row, Inner See also:Temple, See also:London, on the loth of See also:February 1795. His See also:father, See also:John Lamb, a See also:Lincolnshire See also:man, who filled the situation of clerk and servant-See also:companion to See also:Samuel See also:Salt, a member of See also:parliament and one of the benchers of the Inner Temple, was successful in obtaining for Charles, the youngest of three surviving See also:children, a presentation to See also:Christ's See also:Hospital, where the boy remained from his eighth to his fifteenth See also:year (1782-1789). Here he had for a schoolfellow Samuel See also:Taylor See also:Coleridge, his See also:senior by rather more than two years, and a See also:close and See also:tender friendship began which lasted for the See also:rest of the lives of both. When the See also:time came for leaving school, where he had learned some See also:Greek and acquired consider-able facility in Latin See also:composition, Lamb, after a brief stay at See also:home (probably spent, as his school holidays had often been, over old English authors in Salt's library) was condemned to the labours of the See also:desk—" an inconquerable impediment " in his speech disqualifying him for the clerical profession, which, as the school exhibitions were usually only given to those preparing for the See also:church, thus deprived him of the only means by which he could have obtained a university See also:education. For a See also:short time he was in the office of See also:Joseph Paice, a London See also:merchant, and then for twenty-three See also:weeks, until the 8th of February 1792, he held a small See also:post in the Examiner's Office of the See also:South See also:Sea See also:House, where his See also:brother John was established, a See also:period which, although his See also:age was but sixteen, was to provide him nearly See also:thirty years later with materials for the first of the Essays of See also:Ella. On the 5th of See also:April 1792, he entered the Accountant's Office in the See also:East See also:India House, where during the next three and thirty years the See also:hundred See also:official folios of what he used to See also:call his true " See also:works " were produced. Of the years 1792–1795 we know little. At the end of 1794 he saw much of Coleridge and joined him in See also:writing sonnets in the See also:Morning Post, addressed to eminent persons: See also:early in 1795 he met See also:Southey and was much in the See also:company of See also:James See also:White, whom he probably helped in the composition of the See also:Original Letters of See also:Sir John Falstaff; and at the end of the year for a short time he became so unhinged mentally as to necessitate confinement in an See also:asylum. The cause, it is probable, was an unsuccessful love affair with See also:Ann See also:Simmons, the See also:Hertfordshire See also:maiden to whom his first sonnets are addressed, whom he would have seen when on his visits as a youth to Blakesware House, near Widford, the See also:country home of the Plumer See also:family, of which Lamb's grandmother, See also:Mary See also:Field, was for many years, until her See also:death in 1792, See also:sole custodian. It was in the See also:late summer of 1796 that a dreadful calamity came upon the See also:Lambs, which seemed to blight all Lamb's prospects in the very morning of See also:life. On the 22nd of See also:September his See also:sister Mary, " worn down to a See also:state of extreme See also:nervous misery by See also:attention to See also:needlework by See also:day and to her See also:mother at See also:night," was suddenly seized with acute See also:mania, in which she stabbed her mother to the See also:heart. The See also:calm self-mastery and loving self-renunciation which Charles Lamb, by constitution excitable, nervous and self-mistrustful, displayed at this crisis in his own See also:history and in that of those nearest him, will ever give him an imperishable claim to the reverence and See also:affection of all who are capable of appreciating the heroisms of See also:common life.

With the help of See also:

friends he succeeded in obtaining his sister's See also:release from the life-See also:long See also:restraint to which she would otherwise have been doomed, on the See also:express See also:condition that he himself should undertake the responsibility for her safe keeping. It proved no See also:light See also:charge: for though no one was capable of affording a more intelligent or affectionate companionship than Mary Lamb during her periods of See also:health, there was ever See also:present the See also:apprehension of the recurrence of her malady; and when from time to time the premonitory symptoms had become unmistakable, there was no alternative but her removal, whichtook See also:place in quietness and tears. How deeply the whole course of Lamb's domestic life must have been affected by his singular See also:loyalty as a brother needs not to be pointed out. Lamb's first See also:appearance as an author was made in the year of the See also:great tragedy of his life (1796), when there were published in the See also:volume of Poems on Various Subjects by Coleridge four sonnets by " Mr Charles Lamb of the India House." In the following year he contributed, with Charles See also:Lloyd, a See also:pupil of Coleridge, some pieces in See also:blank See also:verse to the second edition of Coleridge's Poems. In 1797 his short summer See also:holiday was spent with Coleridge at Nether Stowey, where he met the Wordsworths, See also:William and Dorothy, and established a friendship with both which only his own death terminated. In 1798, under the See also:influence of See also:Henry See also:Mackenzie's novel Julie de Roubigne, he published a short and pathetic See also:prose See also:tale entitled Rosamund See also:Gray, in which it is possible to trace beneath disguised conditions references to the misfortunes of the author's own family, and many See also:personal touches; and in the same year he joined Lloyd in a volume of Blank Verse, to which Lamb contributed poems occasioned by the death of his mother and his aunt Sarah Lamb, among them being his best-known lyric, " The Old See also:Familiar Faces." In this year, 1798, he achieved the unexpected publicity of an attack by the See also:Anti-Jacobin upon him as an See also:associate of Coleridge and Southey (to whose See also:Annual See also:Anthology he had contributed) in their Jacobin machinations. In 1799, on the death of her father, Mary Lamb came to live again with her brother, their home then being in Pentonville; but it was not until 1800 that they really settled together, their first See also:independent See also:joint home being at See also:Mitre See also:Court Buildings in the Temple, where they lived until 1809. At the end of 1801, or beginning of 1802, appeared Lamb's first See also:play John Woodvil, on which he set great See also:store, a slight dramatic piece written in the See also:style of the earlier Elizabethan period and containing some genuine See also:poetry and happy delineation of the gentler emotions, but as a whole deficient in See also:plot, vigour and See also:character; it was held up to ridicule by the See also:Edinburgh See also:Review as a specimen of the rudest condition of the See also:drama, a See also:work by " a man of the age of See also:Thespis." The dramatic spirit, however, was not thus easily quenched in Lamb, and his next effort was a See also:farce, Mr H , the point of which See also:lay in the See also:hero's anxiety to conceal his name " Hogsflesh "; but it did not survive the first night of its appearance at See also:Drury See also:Lane, in See also:December 18o6. Its author See also:bore the failure with rare equanimity and See also:good See also:humour—even to joining in the hissing—and soon struck into new and more successful See also:fields of See also:literary exertion. Before, however, passing to these it should be mentioned that he made various efforts to See also:earn See also:money by journalism, partly by humorous articles, partly as dramatic critic, but chiefly as a contributor of sarcastic or funny paragraphs, " sparing neither man nor woman," in the Morning Post, principally in 1803. In 1807 appeared Tales founded on the Plays of See also:Shakespeare, written by Charles and Mary Lamb, in which Charles was responsible for the tragedies and Mary for the comedies; and in 1808, Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of Shakespeare, with short but felicitous See also:critical notes. It was this work which laid the See also:foundation of Lamb's reputation as a critic, for it was filled with imaginative understanding of the old playwrights, and a warm, discerning and novel appreciation of their great merits.

In the same year, 1808, Mary Lamb, assisted by her brother, published Poetry for Children, and a collection of short school-girl tales under the See also:

title Mrs See also:Leicester's School; and to the same date belongs The Adventures of Ulysses, designed by Lamb as a companion to The Adventures of See also:Telemachus. In 18to began to appear See also:Leigh See also:Hunt's quarterly periodical, The Reflector, in which Lamb published much (including the See also:fine essays on the tragedies of Shakespeare and on See also:Hogarth) that subsequently appeared in the first collective edition of his Works, which he put forth in 1818. Between 1811, when The Reflector ceased, and 1820, he wrote almost nothing. In these years we may imagine him at his most social period, playing much See also:whist and entertaining his friends on Wednesday or See also:Thursday nights; meanwhile gathering that reputation as a conversationalist or inspirer of conversation in others, which See also:Hazlitt, who was at one time one of Lamb's closest friends, has done so much to celebrate. When in 1818 appeared the Works in two volumes, it may be that Lamb considered his literary career over. Before coming to 182o, and an event which was in reality to be the beginning of that career as it is generally known—the See also:establishment of the London See also:Magazine—it should be recorded that in the summer of 1819 Lamb, with his sister's full consent, proposed See also:marriage to Fanny See also:Kelly, the actress, who was then in her thirtieth year. See also:Miss Kelly could not accept, giving as one See also:reason her devotion to her mother. Lamb bore the rebuff with characteristic humour and fortitude. The establishment of the London Magazine in 182o stimulated Lamb to the See also:production of a See also:series of new essays (the Essays of Elia) which may be said to See also:form the See also:chief corner-See also:stone in the small but classic temple of his fame. The first of these, as it See also:fell out, was a description of the old South Sea House, with which Lamb happened to have associated the name of a "See also:gay light-hearted foreigner " called Elia, who was a clerk in the days of his service there. The See also:pseudonym adopted on this occasion was retained for the subsequent contributions, which appeared collectively in a volume of essays called Elia, in 1823. After a career of five years the London Magazine came to an end; and about the same period Lamb's long connexion with the India House terminated, a See also:pension of £450 (£441 See also:net) having been assigned to him.

The increased leisure, however, for which he had long sighed, did not prove favourable to literary production, which henceforth was limited to a few trifling contributions to the New Monthly and other serials, and the excavation of gems from the See also:

mass of dramatic literature bequeathed to the See also:British Museum by See also:David See also:Garrick, which Lamb laboriously read through in 1827, an occupation which supplied him for a time with the See also:regular See also:hours of work he missed so much. The malady of his sister, which continued to increase with ever shortening intervals of See also:relief, See also:broke in painfully on his lettered ease and comfort; and it is unfortunately impossible to ignore the deteriorating effects of an over-See also:free See also:indulgence in the use of See also:alcohol, and, in early life, See also:tobacco, on a temperament such as his. His removal on See also:account of his sister to the quiet of the country at See also:Enfield, by tending to withdraw him from the stimulating society of the large circle of literary friends who had helped to make his weekly or monthly " at homes " so remarkable, doubtless also tended to intensify his listlessness and helplessness. One of the brightest elements in the closing years of his life was the friendship and companionship of Emma Isola, whom he and his sister had adopted, and whose marriage in 1833 to See also:Edward See also:Moxon, the publisher, though a source of unselfish joy to Lamb, See also:left him more than ever alone. While living at See also:Edmonton, whither he had moved in 1833 so that his sister might have the continual care of Mr and Mrs See also:Walden, who were accustomed to patients of weak See also:intellect, Lamb was overtaken by an attack of See also:erysipelas brought on by an accidental fall as he was walking on the London road. After a few days' illness he died on the 27th of December, 1834. The sudden death of one so widely known, admired and beloved, fell on the public as well as on his own attached circle with all the poignancy of a personal calamity and a private grief. His memory wanted no See also:tribute that affection could bestow, and See also:Wordsworth commemorated in See also:simple and See also:solemn verse the See also:genius, virtues and fraternal devotion of his early friend. Charles Lamb is entitled to a place as an essayist beside See also:Montaigne, Sir See also:Thomas See also:Browne, See also:Steele and See also:Addison. He unites many of the characteristics of each of these writers—refined and exquisite humour, a genuine and cordial vein of pleasantry and heart-touching pathos. His See also:fancy is distinguished by great delicacy and tenderness; and even his conceits are imbued with human feeling and See also:passion. He had an extreme and almost exclusive partiality for earlier prose writers, particularly for See also:Fuller, Browne and See also:Burton, as well as for the dramatists of Shakespeare's time; and the care with which he studied them is apparent in all he ever wrote.

It shines out conspicuously in his style, which has an See also:

antique See also:air and is redolent of thepeculiarities of the 17th See also:century. Its quaintness has subjected the author to the charge of affectation, but there is nothing really affected in his writings. His style is not so much an See also:imitation as a reflexion of the older writers; for in spirit he made himself their contemporary. A confirmed See also:habit of studying them in preference to See also:modern literature had made something of their style natural to him; and long experience had rendered it not only easy and familiar but habitual. It was not a masquerade See also:dress he wore, but the See also:costume which showed the man to most See also:advantage. With thought and meaning often profound, though clothed in simple See also:language, every See also:sentence of his essays is pregnant. He played a considerable See also:part in reviving the dramatic writers of the Shakesperian age; for he preceded See also:Gifford and others in wiping the dust of ages from their works. In his brief comments on each specimen he displays exquisite See also:powers of discrimination: his discernment of the true meaning of his author is almost infallible. His work was a departure in See also:criticism. Former editors had supplied textual criticism and alternative readings: Lamb's See also:object was to show how our ancestors See also:felt when they placed themselves by the See also:power of See also:imagination in trying situations, in the conflicts of See also:duty or passion or the strife of contending duties; what sorts of loves and enmities theirs were. As a poet Lamb is not entitled to so high a place as that which can be claimed for him as essayist and critic. His dependence on Elizabethan See also:models is here also See also:manifest, but in such a way as to bring into all the greater prominence his native deficiency in " the accomplishment of verse." Yet it is impossible, once having read, ever to forget the tenderness and See also:grace of such poems as " Hester," " The Old Familiar Faces," and the lines " On an See also:infant dying as soon as born " or the See also:quaint humour of " A Farewell to Tobacco." As a See also:letter writer Lamb ranks very high, and when in a nonsensical See also:mood there is none to See also:touch him.

See also:

Editions and See also:memoirs of Lamb are numerous. The Letters, with a See also:sketch of his life by Sir Thomas See also:Noon See also:Talfourd, appeared in 1837; the Final Memorials of Charles Lamb by the same See also:hand, after Mary Lamb's death, in 1848; See also:Barry See also:Cornwall's Charles Lamb: A Memoir, in 1866. Mr P. See also:Fitzgerald's Charles Lamb: his Friends, his Haunts and his Books (1866); W. See also:Carew Hazlitt's Mary and Charles Lamb (1874). Mr Fitzgerald and Mr Hazlitt have also both edited the Letters, and Mr Fitzgerald brought Talfourd to date with an edition of Lamb's works in 187o-1876. Later and fuller editions are those of See also:Canon See also:Ainger in 12 volumes, Mr See also:Macdonald in 12 volumes and Mr E. V. See also:Lucas in 7 volumes, to which in 1905 was added The Life of Charles Lamb, in 2 volumes. (E. V.

End of Article: LAMB, CHARLES (1775–1834)

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