Christian gardens," then told of Time, and where the still living fountain
sends up its song into the listening air.

Of the Essays of "Elia," [1] written originally for the London Magazine, I
feel it difficult to speak. They are the best amongst the good--his best.
I see that they are genial, delicate, terse, full of thought and full of
humor; that they are delightfully personal; and when he speaks of himself
you cannot hear too much; that they are not imitations, but adoptions. We
encounter his likings and fears, his fancies (his nature) in all. The
words have an import never known before: the syllables have expanded their
meaning, like opened flowers; the goodness of others is heightened by his
own tenderness; and what is in nature hard and bad is qualified
(qualified, not concealed) by the tender light of pity, which always
intermingles with his own vision. Gravity and laughter, fact and fiction,
are heaped together, leavened in each case by charity and toleration; and
all are marked by a wise humanity. Lamb's humor, I imagine, often
reflected (sometimes, I hope, relieved) the load of pain that always
weighed on his own heart.

The first of the Essays ("The South Sea House") appeared in the month of
August, 1820; the last ("Captain Jackson") in November, 1824. Lamb's
literary prosperity during this period was at the highest; yet he was
always loath to show himself too much before the world. After the first
series of Essays had been published (for they are divided into two parts)
he feigned that he was dead, and caused the second series to be printed as
by "a friend of the late Elia." These were written somewhat reluctantly.
His words are, "To say the truth, it is time he [Elia] were gone. The
humor of the thing, if ever there were much humor in it, was pretty well
exhausted; and a two years-and-a-half existence has been a tolerable
duration for a phantom." It is thus modestly that he speaks of essays