and on "The Melancholy of Tailors") to Leigh Hunt's "Reflector," to
the "Gentleman's Magazine," and the "Champion." Eight of these essays
were included in the two volume "Works" of 1818.

It was with the establishment of the "London Magazine" in 1820 that,
as has been said, Lamb's great opportunity came and was greatly
taken. The magazine began, as we have seen, in January, and the editor
soon gathered around him a remarkably brilliant body of contributors.
To their number in August was added "Elia," whose modest
signature--later to become perhaps the most widely-known pen-name in
our literature--was appended to an article on "The South Sea House."
Thenceforward--with the occasional missing of a month here or there,
balanced by other months presenting two--the essays appeared with such
regularity that twenty-eight months later there were twenty-seven of
the twenty-eight essays which were gathered into the volume published
in 1823 as "The Essays of Elia."

The publication of the essays in volume form did not by any means
indicate that the author had worked out his vein; indeed, while the
book was passing through the press he was writing other essays for the
"London," though not with the same regularity; afterwards he
contributed to the "New Monthly" and other magazines. Such of this
later work as he chose to preserve formed "The Last Essays of Elia,"
published ten years after the earlier work.


LETTERS

All through his working life as man of letters Lamb was engaged in
manifesting that side of his genius which whilst known to but few