CHARLES LAMB.

ELIA! What a crowd of pleasing remembrances of delightful hours spent with thee throng around our hearts at the mention of thy name, a name so well fitted to conjure up happy feelings, and gladden the spirits with quaint humour, and with puns which seem, like good old wine, to become racier as they grow older.

The individual who bore this happy nom de guerre was born on the 18th of February 1775, in Crown Office Row, in the Inner Temple. He was the third son of Mr John Lamb, clerk to one of the benchers of the Inner Temple, whose character and habits the inimitable Elia has so faithfully portrayed. Although the parents of Charles Lamb might properly be said to be of humble origin, yet fortune seemed to compensate for the want of her golden favours by bestowing on him, in addition to his intellectual gifts, the virtues of contentment, of gentleness, and purity of sentiments and manner worthy of the gentlest blood. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, which he has immortalized in his "Recollections." The delineations he gives of the habits and feelings of the schoolboy are, perhaps, more a picture of himself than of schoolboys in general. Remarkable, even at this early age, for the gentleness of his nature, Charles was a favourite with all from the master to the scholar of humblest capacity. Unfitted by the delicacy of his frame, and the retiring character of his disposition, for mingling in the rough rude sports of his companions, he yet was loved by all. Lamb's parents, if not poor, were perhaps unable to give him that portion of education necessary to give him the dignity of a scholar. A natural impediment in his speech entirely precluded any hope of the ecclesiastical profession; and while most of his companions were leaving school for the higher seats of learning, Charles took his seat at the desk as a clerk in the South. Sea House, in which his elder brother John then held an appointment, and shortly after entered the India House, where he remained as long as the business of life demanded his attention. Whatever might have been his feelings of regret in being thus placed in a situation so apparently at enmity with his tastes, and so likely to check his literary aspirations, Lamb uniformly exhibited that fine spirit of contentment and equanimity which formed a prominent point in his character. His filial affection and his scrupulous attention to every filial duty were remarkable. Never having married, he dwelt through life with an only sister, to whom his attachment was extreme, -an attachment which brought out the loveable character of the brother, and the amiable disposition of the sister, and which was only broken when the former was taken away by the hand of death.

In the early years of his life his principal associates were Jem White (as he was familiarly called by his companions) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge; and many were the famous nights which the companions spent together in the study of the old English dramatists for whom Lamb had formed a great partiality. White is described by his friends as a person possessed of almost a Shakespearian wit; and so thoroughly was this accomplishment appreciated by Lamb that he used all his powers of persuasion to bring into repute a small volume which White published under the title of "The Falstaff Letters," abounding with what he was pleased to call, the very cream of the writer's thoughts. Coleridge, from the time he first became acquainted with the subject of this sketch at Christ's Hospital till his death, may be said to have been Lamb's bosom friend.

Dissimilar as were their acquirements, Coleridge being a finished scholar, Lamb, one who had made up for his smaller portion of education by the love of letters, there seems to have been a sympathy of soul between them. Lamb regarded Coleridge with reverential love for his mighty genius; Coleridge loved Lamb for his genuine simplicity and goodness as well as for his overflowing humour.

In conjunction with Coleridge and his friend Charles Lloyd, Lamb first made his appearance as an author in a volume of poetry, published in the year 1797. This volume, which excited little attention in the literary world, was yet to Lamb a matter of some consequence. It introduced him to the notice and warm friendship of Robert Southey and William Wordsworth, then beginning the course they have so honourably trod.

In the year following his debut as an author, Lamb composed and published his beautiful tale of Rosamund Gray, which was favourably noticed in the reviews at the time; and which, for depth of feeling, is still so universally admired. Deeply imbued with the love of the old dramatic literature of England, which tinged many of his works, and which he may be said to have been the means of reviving in later days (as his Tales from Shakespeare to the specimens of the old English drama show),-he set about the composition of "John Woodvil," a drama, which brought on him the wrath of the Edinburgh Review. The public were not yet prepared for the quaint Old English style of a play, written in imitation of the early writers of Elizabeth's reign. Lamb, in truth, was not ordained to be fortunate as a dramatic writer, notwithstanding the brilliancy of his wit, and the richness of his fancy. The three specimens of dramatic talent which he has left us, like the works of many of the greatest in our day, may be read with delight in the closet, while they may hardly be endurable on the stage.

Mr H, a farce, was brought out at Drury Lane; but, with all the humour which enlivens it, and the puns, which sparkle in almost every sentence, together with the acting of such a man as Elliston, it was hissed from the stage; and the author, who, with his sister, sat in the front rank of the pit, perhaps with the expectation of being called upon to present himself as a successful author, to an admiring audience, joined in the general roar, and hissed among the loudest.

Lamb's fame as an author was now, however, rapidly extending. The Reflector, then under the editorship of Leigh Hunt; the Examiner; and, above all, the London Magazine, to which he contributed the inimitable Essays of Elia (afterwards published in two small volumes), brought him into familiar correspondence with the first literary men of the age. Among the familiar friends of the select supper parties in his chambers of the Temple, he numbered Hazlitt, for whom he had a profound respect. In one of the Essays in Hazlitt's Round Table, there is an excellent description of the delights of those famous suppers, where that writer himself might be heard contesting fiercely for the supremacy of his idol Napoleon, or for the splendid powers of Edmund Kean; where poets, wits, critics, and clerks from the India House, sat entranced by the glowing eloquence of Coleridge; or were stirred to their inmost soul by his recitation of Christabel, or Kubla Khan. There even, the remarkable silence of Godwin broke, as he poured forth a stream of wonderful speculation. In these meetings, the materials of many of Elia's Essays were found; and there the veritable Elia threw out his pointed sarcasm against popular fallacies.

In the comparatively uneventful life of Lamb, there were seasons which he marked out as eras in the history of his existence. One of these was the summer vacations, which he very frequently spent in or near Cambridge. He had a particular fancy for those venerable seats of learning, where so many of his schoolfellows and early friends had been students; and where many of those whose names he loved to remember, and whose genius he so much admired, had laid the foundations of their future greatness. In a sonnet, written at Cambridge, he thus describes his feelings on these occasions :"Mine have been any thing but studious hours; Yet can I fancy, wandering 'mid thy towers, Myself a nursling, Granta, of thy lap,

My brow seems tightening with the doctor's cap,
And I walk gowned."

Another great epoch in Lamb's life was his retirement (1825) from the India House. For a considerable time previously, he had had a faint glimmering idea of his emancipation from the desk. He had been laying plans for the employment of those great hours of liberty. Hitherto his visits to his more distant correspondents had been necessarily few and short; now, he looked forward to the time when at Cambridge, at Grasmere, then the residence of Wordsworth, or at Keswick, where Southey lived, he might feel all the delights of those unoccupied forenoons which they had so long enjoyed. After all, his restlessness and impatience, the long delayed realization of his hopes, broke upon him in a bewildering manner. It seemed as if it were a dream, that he had really come home one afternoon from the India House in the enjoyment of a pension equal to two-thirds of his salary. In a letter to the venerable Wordsworth, he thus describes his feelings:"The incomprehensibleness of my condition overwhelms me every year to be as long as three, i. e., to have three times as much time that is my own. Holydays were always uneasy joys, with their conscious fugitiveness. Now, when all is holyday, there are no holydays." His feelings on this occasion are beautifully recorded in the "Superannuated Man," one of the "Last Essays of Elia."

The liberty which Lamb now fully enjoyed added little to his literary occupations. He had written, in his leisure hours, almost all that the world now possesses of his works. And, saving an occasional contribution to the magazines, and the share which his benevolent heart prompted him to take in the Everyday Book of Hone, he wrote little of any notice. The years 1830 and 1834 were peculiarly painful seasons to Charles Lamb. The former closed over the grave of William Hazlitt, and the latter deprived him of Coleridge. Those melancholy events seem not to have struck him with so much concern at the time as to have sunk deep into his heart; and ever after, when the names of either of these distinguished men were mentioned in his hearing, he exhibited signs of the deepest melancholy. Often would he start and break off from the theme of some discourse, and cry" Coleridge is dead!" He had not long to mourn their loss. In the latter end of 1834, he was called to join them in the world of spirits. A slight injury caused by a stumble while taking his usual forenoon walk, produced erysipelas in the head, and ended in his death. He was buried in the churchyard of Edmenton, where he had been residing, and in a spot which, but a fortnight before, he had pointed out to his sister as the place he wished to be the last rest of his mortality.

Thus, in his sixtieth year, died one of the most amiable of men, and the most delightful of writers,

leaving behind him many sorrow-stricken friends, and perhaps not one foe. The gentleness of his nature endeared him to all. To his literary contemporaries he had been peculiarly endeared, not only by the wealth of his intellect, but by the friendly feeling and humour of his correspondence. Almost all the leading journals of the time bore testimony to the worth of his character. Poets mourned him in strains of the deepest pathos; and Wordsworth, in his immortal epitaph, has conveyed alike the testimony of a familiar friend and the faitnful portrait

of

"A good man, of most dear memory."

Lamb had a particular reverence for the good old time; but it seldom extended farther back than the days of his own childhood; and though he spoke in enthusiasm of his visit to Wordsworth and Southey, of the glories of Skiddaw and the beauties of Windermere, yet the lingering love which he had for the dingy alleys and courts of London, rendered him incapable of enjoying a permanent residence out of the metropolis. "I have shed tears," he said, "in the motley Strand, for fulness of joy at so much life." His very genius seemed linked to the old grey walls of London and its environs. Once he was found by a friend who was sent by his sister to seek him, gazing on the old house in which he was born. And how touchingly he talks of the South Sea House, of the old benchers of the Temple, indeed, of all that interested him in his boyish days.

As an essayist, Lamb will be remembered with Steele and with Addison: no writer in the past century or in the present has so many of the excellencies which characterise the Essayists of Queen Anne's reign. As a poet, he will be remembered for the staunch Elizabethian style of John Woodvil, and the touching beauty of his smaller pieces. As a critic and periodical writer in general, he stands, facile princeps, in all he handled. The air of honest simple truth hangs around all he wrote. As a man, he was loved with that ardour which is kindled by Those who have a warm and benevolent heart. known him are still eloquent in his praise And although the clod of the valley must soon cover them, as it has covered the theme of their praise, his genuine worth, the good he has done for mankind, and the rich legacy of happy thoughts and gentle feelings which he has left, may not soon be forgotten.

His letters have lately been published, in two volumes, by Sergeant Talfourd; and Mr Moxon has republished his poems, in one, and his prose works in three volumes.

LACONICS.

invention of men has been sharpening and improving the From the earliest dawnings of policy to this day, the mystery of murder, from the first rude essay of clubs and stones to the present perfection of gunnery, cannoneering, bombarding, mining.-Burke.

Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them; as he who, in a melancholy fancy, sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot, can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.-Swift.

Those beings only are fit for solitude, who like nobody, are like nobody, and are liked by nobody.-Zimmerman.

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders generally discover every body's face but their own,-which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.Swift.

make one's blood run cold. The young mother, who had sat near the bed, lay senseless on the stone, her eyes shut, her lips livid, and her head leaning backwards on the corner of the bed, like a corpse. The little boy had seized the dangling arm of his mother, and at the very moment the two young ladies entered with the father, exclaimed, "Oh, mother, dear, I am hungry; give me a piece of bread!"

The man, regardless of the presence of Adele and her friend, sprang towards his wife, tore his hair, and in incoherent words sobbingly exclaimed, "Theresa, my unfortunate wife! Lord in heaven, is it possible! Dead, dead, of hunger and cold! Have we deserved this on earth!" With these cries he struck his hand on the table, and seized a knife; but Anna, perceiving this movement, jumped up to him, and snatched the deadly

instrument from his hand.

"Your good wife is not dead!" she cried, "take this, and run quickly for some wine to the next public-house." She gave him a piece of money, and pointed to the door, when he darted off quick as an arrow.

Anna took the unfortunate woman in her arms. The noble girl did not mind her silk cloak and velvet bonnet being crumpled against the poor clothes of the wretched sufferer, but tenderly nursed her in conformity with the divine command of the Saviour, considering this poor woman dying from misery as her real sister. She took an orange from her pocket, and squeezed the juice between the livid lips of the woman, and rubbed her hands between her own. A cry of joy issued from her breast, when at length she saw the mother open her eyes. Nor had Adele contented herself with gazing idly on this picture of misery. No sooner had she heard the plaintive cry of the hungry little boy, than she fetched from the barrow the earthen jar and a loaf of bread, and told the boy to lay some pieces of wood on the fire. Johnny had scarcely seen the loaf, when his eyes grew fixed upon it, and he once more asked for a slice of bread and butter. And such was the emotion of Adele, who in the morning had exhibited so lively an aversion to poor people, that she took herself the loaf from the table, and put it against her breast and her fine clothes, in order to cut for the little fellow the much longed-for slice, which she forthwith buttered. "Here, my boy," she said, "eat as you like, you shall no longer suffer from hunger!"

Johnny, in the delight of his heart, seized the slice of bread, kissed his hand to express his thanks, and looked at Adele with such a sweet expression, that she was obliged to turn away, in order to conceal her emotion. At the same time the mother had opened her eyes, and fixed them with inexpressible delight on her eating child. She was about to give vent to her feelings of gratitude towards her benefactress, when the return of her husband interrupted her. When, contrary to all his expectations, he found his wife alive, he hastily placed his bottle on the table, and flew to her neck, covering her with his kisses amidst a flood of tears; he held her locked in his arms, as if afraid to lose her again, and cried in an ecstacy, "Theresa, my dear wife, are you still alive? Oh, then, all is well! I have got the money for our barrow, we may eat now, so be of good cheer, my love! Heaven! in all our misery I am still as happy as an angel! Yes, my dear Theresa, so I am; for I never thought that I should see you again alive!"

Anna approached with a cup of wine, and put it to the lips of the suffering woman. Whilst she was sipping the cordial, the man threw a glance, full of astonishment, on Anna, and her friend who was standing with Johnny near the fireplace, holding the two hands of the child towards the fire, and saying, "Just warm your poor frozen paws, my fine little fellow, and eat quickly your bread, and I'll give you another piece."

The man seemed to awake from a dream; it was as if he remarked the presence of the two strangers for the first time: "Ladies," he said, with a faltering voice, "I beg your pardon, that I have not yet thanked you for the assistance which you have bestowed upon my poor wife. It is certainly very kind of you to come to the house of such poor people, and I offer you a thousand thanks for it." "My good people," said Anna, raising her voice, we

are well aware how much you have suffered from hunger and cold, and what grief it would give you if you were reduced to the necessity of begging; since, like honest, hard-working people, you would rather earn your bread by the sweat of your brow. Such principles must be rewarded; you shall suffer no privations."

Here she laid down a handful of money on the table, and continued: "Here is money; at the door there are potatoes, fuel, and bread; all this is yours. Nor has your handbarrow been sold; it is still your property; use it to gain a living; continue honest and do not beg. But if hunger and cold should again press upon you, here is my name and address written on this paper; you will always find a friend and supporter in me."

Whilst Anna spoke, such was the silence that not a breath was to be heard in the chamber; but a flood of tears burst forth from the eyes of the workman and his wife. He was unable to utter a word, and only threw a gaze of astonishment upon the young ladies by turns, as if he would not believe what he heard. When Anna had ceased speaking, the mother, overcome by her feelings, dropped down from her seat, crept weeping on her knees to Anna, seized her hand, and wetting it with her tears exclaimed: "Oh! madam, you shall assuredly die a happy death; the Lord will reward you for having entered our house as guardian angels, and saved us from death!" "Are you happy now, mother?" asked Anna. "Oh, yes, my good lady, now we are happy; don't you see our Johnny jumping for joy near the fire, poor boy! and if that innocent lamb which lies here dying was able to speak, it would certainly thank you and bless you!"

At these words Anna ran to the child, and perceiving that the poor little thing, too, was near the tomb from want, she beckoned to Adele to depart. The latter delighted with the raptures of the little boy, took him up, kissed his cheek, and then joined her friend. Whilst departing Anna again said, “Be at ease, my good people, we shall presently send a doctor to the suffering babe, and I hope, mother, you will see her growing up a joy and comfort to you!" A happy smile beamed at these words on the features of the parents. Both of them attended their charitable visitors as far as the door, and a gush of thanks and blessings poured from their lips until they lost sight of their benefactresses.

Anna and Adele walked on for some time without speaking a word. Their hearts were too full for them to give expression to their feelings. At last, after having silently traversed a few streets, Anna asked: “Now, dear Adele, tell me, do you still find the poor people as repulsive and disgusting as they are generally thought to be?"

“Oh! no!" said Anna, "I am exceedingly glad at having met you to-day. I feel as if some sacred impulse had elevated my heart, and it beats with an emotion hitherto unknown to me. I am no longer shocked with poverty; didn't you see how I took the little boy on my lap and kissed him? What a nice, dear child!"

"Poor Johnny, the tears gushed from his eyes when he saw you leaving. Well, my love, tell me, is there a greater happiness upon earth than that we now feel? Those good people were starving, they raised their hands to heaven and cried to the Lord. We came to them as messengers of divine mercy; they knelt before us as before angels who announced to them that their prayers had been heard, and whilst thanking us they praised and blessed their Heavenly Father. Oh! Adele, even if our lives had hitherto been useless and vain, the tears of gratitude shed by these poor people might wash away many of our sins!"

66.

Say no more," Adele eagerly interrupted her; "I quite understand you. I shall henceforth accompany you every day in your visits to the poor, and share in the exercise of your charity. Yes; for this is the first day of my life that I knew the happiness of heaven on earth, å foretaste of eternal joy. Blessed charity! how unhappy are the rich who do not know thee!-What sweet emotion, what delightful rapture are lost to them."

At this moment they turned round the corner of the market-place, and disappeared.

[As intimated in last number, the above is taken from

of the pleasures of the wilderness, nor frightened by its dangers, so, with his companion named Stewart, he continued to hunt as before, only using greater caution to avoid the Indians. They were soon joined by his brother, Squire Boone, and another man, and had commenced their winter campaign against the wild beasts, when Stewart was killed by the Indians, which so frightened Squire Boone's companion, that he returned to Carolina, leaving the two brothers alone in the forests of Kentucky.

DANIEL BOONE AND THE PIONEERS OF KENTUCKY.

BETWEEN the Southern windings of the Ohio, and the western slopes of the Alleghanies, lie the richly wooded and romantic valleys of Tennessee and Kentucky. Even in the middle of last century, not a white man's foot had ever disturbed their lone recesses; the axe was yet unheard in their forest wilds, and the rifle of the hunter had not driven the buffalo and elk from their favourite haunts by the salt-springs. Even the Indians had no fixed dwellings in these forests, but met in them only to chase the bison, or to engage in deadly combat.

In 1767, one John Finley having crossed the mountains by the Cumberland gap, turned north by the Warrior's road, which led through the centre of the hunting ground to the mouth of the Scioto. He traded with the Indians for the peltry of the game taken in this wild land, and returned to the colony well satisfied with his profits. He brought back with him wondrous tales of the game that crowded these unknown regions, and thus excited a great sensation among the hunters on the eastern side of the mountains. Among these was Daniel Boone, born in 1732, and at that time about thirty-six years of age. Daniel was born a hunter, and preferred to roam the mountain, and to sleep in a solitary cave, or by the forest fire, to tilling his farm, or resting in his own quiet bed. As might be expected, he was thus a poor man, but strong and active in body, cautious, bold, and prompt in mind, with many of the qualities of the Indian ingrafted on those of the Boone heard the rumours of the new hunting ground, and his heart burned to partake of its enjoyments. He found out Finley, and learned that of a truth there was a land where buffaloes swarmed like flies in summer, and deer and wild turkeys were to be found under every tree. The temptation was too strong to resist, so in May 1749, when Finley was about to renew his visit, Boone took leave of his wife and children, shouldered his rifle, and started with five comrades for the country of Kentucky.

white man.

For five weeks they toiled through the woods and mountain valleys amidst incessant rain. But in the beginning of June, Finley told them they had reached the land of promise, and the herds of buffalo confirmed the joyous news. So they built them a hut by a forest stream, cleaned their rifles, and prepared for the wild campaign. From June to December they hunted with great success, but on the 22d of the latter month, Boone and a companion were taken prisoners by the Indians, and their four comrades retired to the settlements as speedily as possible. After a week's captivity, Boone and his neighbour escaped, and returning to their camp,

There they remained together for more than a year, except in May and June 1770, when the squire visited the colonies for a supply of powder and shot, while Daniel, without even a dog for company, hunted, travelled, ate, slept, meditated, and enjoyed his leisure. Every day he changed his position, every night he slept in a new place, constantly in danger, and constantly on his guard, with nothing to repay him for his trials, toils, and watchfulness, but freedom, the love of nature, and the excitement of peril. It seems wonderful how he escaped the bands of roaming savages; but his biographers explain it in a curious manner. The forests of Kentucky were then filled with a species of nettle which long retained any impression made on it. This weed Boone never touched, while the Indians, numerous and fearless, took no pains to avoid it, and he had thus a sure means of tracing the number, situation, and motions of his enemies, without betraying his own. The surface of the country was as if covered with snow for the feet of his foes, but naked for his own. His favourite resort seems to have been the country near Lexington, then covered with a turf like that of an English park, shaded by tall and stately trees, with clear springs gushing from every hill, and brooks singing along every valley. Another resort was the salt springs of the Blue Licks, now a fashionable watering-place, but then frequented by immense herds of elk and buffalo, from ten to twenty thousand of the latter being sometimes gathered round the salt-springs. The ground around was trodden bare by the numerous herds, and their forest crossed in all directions by the buffalo-tracts, the only roads then known.

Though game was plenty in this quarter, yet it had to be sought with caution, as the hills around were bare and open, and Indian bands frequent in the vicinity. Yet Boone had enough of the skill and courage of the hunter to brave its dangers as the following anecdote proves. On one occasion he had approached the Licking from the west, at the same time that Simon Kenton, another pioneer, reached the valley from the east. Each paused to reconnoitre before leaving the shelter of the woods, and each ascertained that he was not the only visitor. Then began a trial of skill who should discover the character of the other, whether a white man and friend, or an Indian and foe, which continued for forty-eight hours, before it terminated to their mutual satisfaction. Near this spring he was found by his brother, and with him wandered south, returning home in March 1771.

From that time till 1773, Boone remained at home, but on the 25th September of the latter year, he set out with a band for the far west, where many backwoods-men had already preceded him. He sold his farm, and, with his wife and children, was far on his way to his destination with five families of his neighbours, and forty men who had joined on the march, when they were assailed by a band of Indians. The savages were soon repulsed, but six of the white men, among them Boone's eldest son,