"Charles Lamb, born in the Inner Temple, 10th February, 1775; educated
in Christ's Hospital; afterwards a clerk in the Accountants' Office,
East-India House; pensioned off from that service, 1825, after
thirty-three years' service; is now a gentleman at large;--can remember
few specialties in his life worth noting, except that he once caught a
swallow flying (_teste suâ manu_). Below the middle stature; cast of
face slightly Jewish, with no Judaic tinge in his complexional religion;
stammers abominably, and is therefore more apt to discharge his
occasional conversation in a quaint aphorism or a poor quibble than in
set and edifying speeches; has consequently been libelled as a person
always aiming at wit, which, as he told a dull fellow that charged him
with it, is at least as good as aiming at dulness. A small eater,
but not drinker; confesses a partiality for the production of the
juniper-berry; was a fierce smoker of tobacco, but may be resembled to
a volcano burnt out, emitting only now and then a casual puff. Has been
guilty of obtruding upon the public a tale in prose, called 'Rosamund
Gray,'--a dramatic sketch, named 'John Woodvil,'--a 'Farewell Ode to
Tobacco,'--with sundry other poems, and light prose matter, collected in
two slight crown octavos, and pompously christened his works, though in
fact they were his recreations, and his true works may be found on the
shelves of Leadenhall Street, filling some hundred folios. He is also
the true Elia, whose essays are extant in a little volume, published
a year or two since, and rather better known from that name without a
meaning than from anything he has done, or can hope to do, in his own.
He also was the first to draw the public attention to the old English
dramatists, in a work called 'Specimens of English Dramatic Writers
who lived about the Time of Shakspeare,' published about fifteen years
since. In short, all his merits and demerits to set forth would take to
the end of Mr. Upcott's book, and then not be told truly.
"He died _____ 18__, much lamented.[A]
Witness his hand,
CHARLES LAMB.
"18th April, 1827."
[Footnote A: "_To Anybody_--Please to fill up these blanks."]
Lamb, if he did not find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
and sermons in stones, found good in everything. The soul of goodness in
things evil was visible to him. He had thought, felt, and suffered
so much, that, as Leigh Hunt says, he literally had intolerance for
nothing. Though he could see but little religion in many professing
Christians, he nevertheless saw that the motley players, "made up of
mimic laughter and tears, passing from the extremes of joy or woe at the
prompter's call," were not so godless and impious as the world believed
them to be.
Writing to Bernard Barton in the spring of 1826, Lamb says, speaking
of his literary projects,--"A little thing without name will also be
printed on the Religion of the Actors, but it is out of your way; so I
recommend you, with true author's hypocrisy, to skip it." I wonder if
"good B.B." read the article, and, if he did, how he liked it. Quaker
though he was, he could not but have been pleased with it. Should you
like to read the "Religion of the Actors," reader? You will not find it
in any edition of Charles Lamb's writings. Here it is.