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He did not require the expedient of the Greek painter, who covered the face of one of his great figures with a mantle, not daring to attempt a portraiture of the intense grief which he represented him as suffering. Lamb endeavored not to express what he did not feel; he wrote not from necessity or policy, but from enthusiasm, from his own gentle, sweet, yet deep enthusiasm. He had a feeling for the art of writing, and therefore he would not make it the hackneyed conventional agent it often is; but ever regarded it as a crystalline mould wherein he could faithfully present the form, hues, and very spirit of his sentiments and speculations.

A striking and delightful consequence of this literary sincerity is, that it preserves and developes the proper humanity of the author. Literati of this class are utterly devoid of pedantry. In society, and the common busi. ness of life, they are as other men, except that a finer sensibility, and more elevated general taste, distinguishes them. In becoming writers, they cease not to be men. Literature is then, indeed, what the English poet would have it," an honorable augmentation" to our arms; it is not exclusively pursued as if it were life's only good, and a human being's sole aim; but it is applied to as a beautiful accomplishment-a poetical recreation amid less humanizing influences. Thus, instead of serving merely as an arena for the display of selfish ambition, or a cell wherein unsocial and barren devotion may find scope, it is valued chiefly as the means of embodying the unforced impressions of our own natures, for the happiness and improvement of our fellow creatures. We say that such

a view must be taken by sincere authors of their vocation, because they cannot but feel that by the very constitution of their natures, literature is only a part of the great whole of the soul's being-a single form of its development, and one among the thousand offices to which the versatile mind is called.

It is needless to prove, in detail, Lamb's sincerity. It is, perhaps, his most prominent characteristic; but in tra. cing out and dwelling upon its influence, we are newly impressed with the truth of Shaftesbury's declaration, that "wisdom is more from the heart than from the head.” We have ever remarked that the most delightful and truly sincere writers are the most suceptible, affectionate, and unaffected men. We have felt, that however intellectually endowed, the feelings of such individuals are the true sources of their power. Sympathy we consider one of the primal principles of efficient genius. It is this truth of feeling which enabled Shakspeare to depict so strongly the various stages of passion, and the depth, growth, and gradations of sentiment. In whom does this primitive readiness to sympathize-to enter into all the moods of the soul-continue beyond early life, so often as in men devoted to imaginative objects? How frequently are we struck with the child-like character of artists and poets! It sometimes seems as if, along with childhood's ready sympathy, many of the other characteristics of that epoch were projected into the more mature stages of being. "There is often," says Madame de Staël, "in true genius a sort of awkwardness, similar, in some respects, to the credulity of sincere and noble souls."

This readiness to catch impressions, this delicacy and warmth of sympathy which belongs to the sincere school of writers, is inestimable. It is said that a musical amateur traversed the whole of Ireland, and gathered from the peasants the delightful airs to which Moore's beautiful Irish melodies were afterwards adapted. How much of the charm of those sweet songs is owing to their associations with the native and simple music thus gleaned from voices to which it had traditionally descended! And it is by their sympathy-their sincere and universal interest in humanity, that the sweetest poets, the most renowned dramatists, and such humble gleaners in the field of letters, as our quaint essayist, are enabled to write in a manner corresponding with the heaven-attuned, unwritten music of the human heart. Sincerity gives them the means of interpreting for their fellow beings-not only the lofty subjects which filled the soul of the "blind bard of Paradise," and the broad range of life upon which the observant mind of the poet of human nature was intent, but those lesser and more unique themes which Elia loved to speculate about, and humorously illustrate.

There is a unity of design in the essays of Elia. Disconnected and fugitive as we should deem them at first sight, an attentive perusal reveals, if not a complete theory yet a definite and pervading spirit which is not devoid of philosophy. After being amused by Lamb's humor, interested by his quaintness, and fascinated by his style, there yet remains a more deep impression upon our minds. We feel that he had a specific object as an essayist; or, at least, that the ideas he suggests tend to a particular result.

What, then, was his aim? As an author, what mission does he fulfil? We think Charles Lamb is to life what Wordsworth is to nature. The latter points out the field flowers, and the meadow rill, the soul's most primal and simple movements, the mind's most single and unsophisticated tendencies; the former indicates the lesser, and scarcely noticed sources of pleasure and annoyance, mirth and reflection, which occur in the beaten track of ordinary life. It was remarked, by an able critic, of the author of the Lyrical Ballads, that, "he may be said to take a personal interest in the universe;" with equal truth Elia may be regarded as taking a personal interest in life. He delighted in designating its every-day, universal, and for that very reason-disregarded experiences. Leaving the delineation of martyrdoms, and the deeper joys of the heart, to more ambitious writers, he preferred to dwell upon the misery of children when left awake in their solitary beds in the dark; to shadow forth the peace destroying phantom of a "poor relation ;" to draw up eloquent bacheloric complaints of the behavior of " married people ;" to describe in touching terms, the agony of one condemned to hear music "without an ear ;" and to lament pathetically the unsocial aspect of a metropolitan Sabbath, and the disturbing, heartless conduct of those who remove old landmarks. He did not sorrow only over minor miseries, but gloried in minor pleasures. To him, "Elysian exemptions" from ordinary toil-a sweet morning's nap— a" sympathetic solitude”—an incidental act or emotion of benevolence, and, especially, those dear "treasures cased in leathern covers," for which he was so thankful that he

assures us that he could say grace before reading them ;-these, and such as these, were to Charles Lamb absolute and recognized blessings. He seems to have broken away from the bondage of custom and to have seen all things new. One would think, to note the freshness of his perceptions in regard to the most familiar objects of London, that in manhood he was for the first time initiated into city life-that he was a new comer in the world at an advanced age. Hogarth found no more delight in his street-pencilings, than Lamb in his by.way speculations. In the voyage of life he seemed to be an ordained cicerone, directing attention to that lesser world of experience to which the mass of men are insensible,-drawing their attention from far-off visions of good, and oppressive reminiscences of grief, to the low green herbage, springing up in their way, and the soft gentle voices breathing at their firesides, and around their daily steps. And there is truth in Elia's philosophy, for,

"If rightly trained and bred,

Humanity is humble,-finds no spot

Her heaven-guided feet refuse to tread."

We never rise from one of his essays without a feeling of contentment. He leads our thoughts to the actual, available springs of enjoyment. He reconciles us to ourselves; causing home-pleasures, and the charms of the wayside, and the mere comforts of existence, to emerge from the shadow into which our indifference has cast them, into the light of fond recognition. The flat dull surface of common life, he causes to rise into beautiful basso-relievo.

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