The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-12-10
UNIQUE PERSONALITY
or THE Il UTHoR OF THE "ESSA Us
or ELT1.D

by Critics-His Peculiaa Literary
ography.
Friday night in College Street Hal
Professor c. T. Winchester, Of Wesley
an university, delivered his lecture or
"Charles Lamb the second in his
course of lectures on "Essayists Of the
Nineteenth Century.
Professor Winchester disclaimed at
the outset any purpose of writing a
critical lecture on Lamb. For Charles
Lamb belongs to that little group of
authors for whom we cherish a kindly
personal feeling which forbids a cool
critical estimate. They are our COM
panions-our friends.
Moreover" continued the speaker,
'the critic, if he be student of lltera-
ry history with an itch for explaining
things, is likely to be put about by
Lamb. Because Lamb isn't to be ac-
counted for He doesn't fit any theory.
In describing the course of literary ten
denotes you don't know where to put
lliiiis iAC liisolil tto NSit NiS'NS NV ~ -
the early part of the nineteenth-in
fact after five o'clock in the afternoon
he did live in the seventeenth century.
Some of his intimates We're very rigid
conservatives; some were doctrinaire
reyolutionists but he neither contested
their opinions nor adopted them. In
himself the elements were so mixed as
to make personality quite unique, not
to be classified or mapped neatly out in
an essay.
1--WE all know the story of his life; its
varying scenes, pictures of pathos and
of mirth, rise unbidden to our recollec-
ton as if we too had been of the circle
of his old familiar friends. One can see
him now, that slight figure clad in
black-T take it. he said, TO be the
proper costume of an author hurrying
down Fleet street of a morning, on
fragile legs-those 'immaterial legs,
Tom Hood called them--to his days
work at the desk of the India House.
Getting there little late sometimes,
though usually very punctual man;
but if late I'll m-make up for that he
said, by ggoing away early Or per-
haps it is on one of the Wednesday
evenings in the little room up three
flights in the Temple building, with his
circle of intimates about him-Hazlitt,
and Burney, and Goodwin, and Man
ming, and Hunt and the rest; or perhaps
one likes best to think of him at home
alone with Mary in halo of smoke-he
is going to leave off tobacco next week
surey-reading some tall old folio first
edition he has just brought home with
the feeling of proud recklessness that
accompanies a reckless purchase.
1T is in the Ella Essays that we see
the inmost part of him. There are fifty
of the Ella Essays; and of this number
thirty-three are pure autobiography,
concerned entirely with the record of
Lambs own habits, or friendships or
memories. They are all in the first per-
sen, and most of them, like the Mack
cry End or the Recollections of
Christ's Hospital look backward and
linger in a half-pathetic mood over the
charm of things gone by. And without
any ostentation, without any pride in
his interesting self, there is in them all
q tone Of ingenious confession, conf
dence in the sympathy of the reader
Only an honest and kindly nature could
unbosom itself so frankly.
lambs literary style is unique.
You will never find another like 1t. To
attempt any imitation of it would be to
fall into intolerable preciosity. His
peculiar archaic manner is due of
course very largely to the influence of
his favorite seventeenth century men
pGr,pnia 11Iy In q
Browne. Not that he initiated these
men; but he had stepped himself in
their writing till their manner seemed
second mature to his This seventeenth
century manner often produces a sub
tly humorous effect by emphasizing the
contrast between the stately and the
familiar upon which humor so often de-
ponds. But Lamb never allows his llu-
NOR to degenerate into feeble bur-
eSque. His large utterance seems not |
only natural to him, but in some way |
fitted to his theme. In such essays as /
Oxford in Vacation or "A Quaker's |
Meeting is a wonderful play of imagi-
nation. His thought is constantly con-
,reting itself in illustration, and every
inc blossoms into some odd or graceful |
'ancy. Though the writing is so rich .
hat, like some gorgeous stuffs it will .
Utmost stand alone; there is no idle YER
)iage. Every epithet is a flash of vi
ion. I have sometimes thought-if
,ou will pardon the clumsy phrase
hat there is more imagination to the
quare inch in Lambs writing than in
my other modern prose / know
'But we come back to the statement
hat the charm of Lambs work and of
is character is unique. Every trait of
is character was delicate, elusive; his
lumor, tenderness, imagination, his
ense of beauty and his sense of oddly
they We're all peculiar in quality, and
1ore subtly combined than in ordinary
len."
Professor Winchester closed by read
lg part of that perfect essay
Dream Children" There is no truer
icture of the man; and the English in
hitch the little story is told, for purity
idiom, chaste simplicity and grace of
Movement is unsurpassed Nobody
lse in Lambs time wrote such Eng
sh; and to find anything as perfect
on must probably go back to the best
assages of the English Bible.
p. O. S. of A.