conscious imitation, and Lamb was not long in finding his feet and
indicating his peculiar individuality. He had learned much from the
free expressions of the old dramatic poets, and in such pieces as "The
Old Familiar Faces"--a poignant cry from a suffering soul--or in his
unconventional sonnet, "The Gipsy's Malison," written more than
thirty years later, we have some of the most markedly individual of
his poems. He was not a poet, he declared--running counter to the
judgement of some of his later critics--but essentially a prosaic
writer. All that he wrote in verse, apart from the plays, would come
within the compass of a small volume, and perhaps half of that would
be occupied with album verses, slight _vers d'occasion_, such as are
more often the products of prose-writers' leisure than of a poet who
sings because he must. He felt his way to prose through poetry as so
many lesser writers have done, and on the way uttered perhaps a dozen
pieces, which for one reason or another will ever make a lasting
appeal to readers. The sense of tragedy in "The Old Familiar
Faces"--more remarkable in that it was tragedy realized and expressed
at the age of three-and-twenty--the weird imagination of "The Gipsy's
Malison," the sweet portraiture of "Hester," the fancy of "A Farewell
to Tobacco," and the "Ode to the Treadmill," will ensure that portion
of his work to which they belong, sharing the immortality of the
essays of Elia.


THE DRAMA

As an earnest student of dramatic literature Lamb early turned his
attention to the theatre, and was moved with an ambition to write for
the stage. In his twenty-fourth year he started upon a piece to be
entitled "Pride's Cure," and his letters about this time contain many