step citywards. He looked no one in the face for more than
a moment, yet contrived to see everything as he went on.
No one who ever studied the human features could pass him
by without recollecting his countenance; it was full of
sensibility, and it came upon you like new thought, which you
could not help dwelling upon afterwards: it gave rise to
meditation, and did you good. This small, half-clerical man
was--Charles Lamb."

His countenance is thus described by Thomas Hood:

"His was no common face, none of those willow-pattern
ones which Nature turns out by thousands at her potteries,
but more like a chance specimen of the Chinese ware,--one
to the set; unique, antique, quaint, you might have sworn to
it piecemeal,--a separate affidavit to each feature."

Mrs. Charles Mathews, wife of the comedian, who met Lamb at a dinner,
gives an amusing account of him:--

"Mr. Lamb's first appearance was not prepossessing. His
figure was small and mean, and no man was certainly ever
less beholden to his tailor. His 'bran' new suit of black
cloth (in which he affected several times during the day to
take great pride, and to cherish as a novelty that he had
looked for and wanted) was drolly contrasted with his very
rusty silk stockings, shown from his knees, and his much too
large, thick shoes, without polish. His shirt rejoiced in a wide,
ill-plaited frill, and his very small, tight, white neckcloth was
hemmed to a fine point at the ends that formed part of a little