CHRIST'S HOSPITAL

THE DINING HALL, CHRIST'S HOSPITAL

SKETCH OF CHARLES LAMB AT THE AGE OF 44
_By G. F. Joseph, A.R.A._

HOLOGRAPH LETTER TO JOHN CLARE THE
PEASANT POET, 31 August, 1822




CHARLES LAMB

THE STORY OF HIS LIFE


Charles Lamb's biography should be read at length in his essays and
his letters--from them we get to know not only the facts of his life
but almost insensibly we get a knowledge of the man himself such as
cannot be conveyed in any brief summary. He is as a friend, a loved
friend, whom it seems almost sacrilegious to summarize in the compact
sentences of a biographical dictionary, of whom it would be a wrong to
write if the writing were to be used instead of, rather than as an
introduction to, a literary self-portrait, more striking it may be
believed than any of the canvases in the Uffizi Gallery. When he was
six-and-twenty Charles Lamb wrote thus in reply to an invitation from
Wordsworth to visit him in Cumberland: