family circle, was laid to rest.

Lamb's mother, Elizabeth Field, is--for obvious reasons--the only
member of the immediate family circle whom we do not meet in his
writings. His maternal grandmother--the grandame who is to be met in
his verses and in some of his essays--was for over half a century
housekeeper at Blakesware in Hertfordshire, and with her, as a small
boy, Charles spent pleasant holidays.

Little Charles Lamb was sent for a time to "a humble day-school, at
which reading and writing were taught to us boys in the morning, and
the same slender erudition was communicated to the girls, our sisters,
etc., in the evening." In a letter to Coleridge (5th July, 1796) we
have a hint that Lamb may have had yet earlier teaching in an infant
school in the Temple for he writes: "Mr. Chambers lived in the Temple;
Mrs. Reynolds, his daughter, was my schoolmistress"; though it may be
that the lady referred to was employed in Mr. Bird's school. This
school, kept by William Bird "in the passage leading from Fetter Lane
into Bartlett's Buildings," was the one to which Mary Lamb appears to
have owed her regular training; but Samuel Salt had a goodly
collection of old books in his chambers, and among these the brother
and sister browsed most profitably, to use his own expressive word,
acquiring an early liking for good literature and learning to take
their best recreation in things of the mind. But if from the "school
room looking into a discoloured dingy garden" Mary Lamb was presumed
to be able to acquire a sufficiency of knowledge, it was seen that her
younger brother needed something more than Mr. Bird could give to fit
him for a life in which he would have to take an early place as
bread-winner. John Lamb's friendly employer--whom lovers of Lamb can
never recall but to honour--secured a nomination for the boy to