tion, perhaps to the number of intervening days) may have carried you away from the place; he sought to benefit by no luck of that kind; for he was, with his limited income and I say it deliberately positively the most hospitable man I have known in this world. That night, the same night, I was to come and spend the evening with him. I had gone to the India House with the express purpose of accepting whatever invitation he should give me; and, therefore, I accepted this, took my leave, and left Lamb in the act of resuming his aerial position.

It is for ever to be regretted that so many of Lamb's jests, repartees, and pointed sayings, should have perished irrecoverably; and from their fugitive brilliancy, which, (as Sergeant Talfourd remarks,) often dazzled too much to allow of the memory coolly retracing them some hours afterwards; it is also to be regretted that many have been improperly reported. One, for instance, which had been but half told to his biographer, was more circumstantially and more effectually related thus, in my hearing, at Professor Wilson's, by Dr. Bowring, soon after the occasion. It occurred at Mr. Coleridge's weekly party at Highgate. Somebody had happened to mention that letter of Dr. Pococke, upon the Arabic translation of Grotius de Veritate Fidei Christ., in which he exposes the want of authority for the trite legend of Mahomet's pigeon, and justly insists upon the necessity of expunging a fable so certain to disgust learned Mussulmans, before the books were circulated in the East. This occasioned a conversation generally, upon the Mahometan creed, theology, and morals; in the course of which, some young man, in

troduced by Edward Irving, had thought fit to pronounce a splendid declamatory eulogium upon Mahomet and all his doctrines. This, as a pleasant extravagance. had amused all present. Some hours after, when the party came to separate, this philo-Mahometan missed his hat, upon which, whilst a general search for it was going on, Lamb, turning to the stranger, said—"Hat, sir!- your hat! Don't you think you came in a turban?" The fact that the hat was missing, which could not have been anticipated by Lamb, shows his readiness, and so far improves the Sergeant's version of the story.

Finally, without attempting, in this place, any elaborate analysis of Lamb's merits, (which would be no easy task,) one word or two may be said generally, about the position he is entitled to hold in our literature, and, comparatively, in European literature. His biographer thinks that Lamb had more points of resemblance to Professor Wilson, than to any other eminent person of the day. It would be presumptuous to dismiss too hastily any opinion put forward by the author of "Ion; " otherwise, I confess, that, for my own part, knowing both parties most intimately, I cannot perceive much closer resemblance than what must always be found between two men of genius; whilst the differences seem to me radical. To notice only two points, Professor Wilson's mind is, in its movement and style of feeling, eminently diffusive - Lamb's discontinuous and abrupt. Professor Wilson's humor is broad, overwhelming, riotously opulent-Lamb's is minute, delicate, and scintillating. In one feature, though otherwise as different as possible, Lamb resembles Sir Walter Scott - viz. in the dramatic character of his mind and taste. Both of

them recoiled from the high ideality of such a mind as Milton's; both loved the mixed standards of the world as it is the dramatic standards in which good and evil are intermingled; in short, that class of composition in which a human character is predominant. Hence, also, in the great national movements, and the revolutionary struggles, which, in our times, have gone on in so many interesting parts of the world, neither Sir Walter Scott nor Lamb much sympathized, nor much affected to sympathize, with the aspirations after some exaltation for human nature by means of liberty, or the purification of legal codes or of religious creeds. They were content with things as they are; and, in the dramatic interest attached to these old realities, they found sufficient gratification for all their sensibilities. In one thing, upon consideration, there does strike me, some resemblance between Lamb and Professor Wilson - viz. in the absence of affectation, and the courageous sincerity which belong to both; and also, perhaps, as Serjeant Talfourd has remarked, in the comprehensiveness of their liberality towards all, however opposed to themselves, who have any intellectual distinctions to recom mend them.

But, recurring to the question I have suggested of Lamb's general place in literature, I shall content myself with indicating my own views of that point, without however, pausing to defend them. In the literature of every nation, we are naturally disposed to place in the highest rank those who have produced some great and colossal work-a "Paradise Lost," a "Hamlet," a "Novum Organum," which presupposes an effort of intellect, a comprehensive grasp, and a sustaining power, for its

original conception, corresponding in grandeur to that effort, different in kind, which must preside in its execution. But, after this highest class, in which the power to conceive and the power to execute are upon the same scale of grandeur, there comes a second, in which brilliant powers of execution, applied to conceptions of a very inferior range, are allowed to establish a classical rank. Every literature possesses, besides its great national gallery, a cabinet of minor pieces, not less perfect in their polish, possibly more so. In reality, the characteristic of this class is elaborate perfection - the point of inferiority is not in the finishing, but in the compass and power of the original creation, which (however exquisite in its class) moves within a smaller sphere. To this class belong, for example, "The Rape of the Lock," that finished jewel of English literature; "The Dunciad," (a still more exquisite gem ;) "The Vicar of Wakefield," (in its earlier part;) in German, the "Luise" of Voss; in French-what? Omitting some others that might be named, above all others, the Fables of La Fontaine. He is the pet and darling, as it were, of the French literature. Now, I affirm that Charles Lamb occupies a corresponding station to his own literature. I am not speaking (it will be observed) of kinds, but of degrees in literary merit; and Lamb I hold to be, as with respect to English literature, that which La Fontaine is with respect to French. For, though there may be little resemblance otherwise, in this, they agree, that both were wayward and eccentric humorists; both confined their efforts to short flights; and both, according to the standards of their several countries, were, occasionally, and, in a lower key, poets.

SIR HUMPHRY DAVY.

SIR HUMPHRY DAVY, of all those whom I have just mentioned - nay, of all the eminent persons whom I have ever seen even by a casual glimpse—was the most agreeable to know on the terms of a slight acquaintance. What he might have proved upon a closer intimacy, I cannot say; not having had the honor of any such connection with him. My acquaintance had never gone far enough to pass the barrier of strangership, and the protection which lies in that consciousness, reciprocally felt; for, if friendship and confidential intimacy have the power to confer privileges, there are other privileges which they take away; and many times it is better to be privileged as the "stranger" of a family than as its friend. Some I have known who, therefore, only called a man their friend, that they might have a license for taking liberties with him. Sir Humphry, I have no reason to believe, would have altered for the worse on a closer connection. But for myself I know him only within ceremonious bounds; and I must say that nowhere, before or since, have I seen a man who had so felicitously caught the fascinating tone of high-bred urbanity which distinguishes the best part of the British nobility. The first time of my seeing him was at the Courier office, in a drawing-room then occupied by Mr. Coleridge, and as a guest of that gentleman this must have been either in 1808 or 1809. Sir Humphry (I forget whether then a baronet, but I