published letters (in 1833) and several in 1834; one of them bearing date
only four days before his death. All these documents afford ample
testimony of his clear good sense and kind heart, some of them, indeed,
being tinged with his usual humor.

Charles Lamb was fifty-nine years old at his death; of the same age as
Cromwell, between whom and himself there was of course no other
similitude. A few years before, when he was about to be released from his
wearisome toil at the India House, he said exultingly, that he was passing
out of Time into Eternity. But now came the true Eternity; the old
Eternity,--without change or limit; in which all men surrender their
leisure, as well as their labor; when their sensations and infirmities
(sometimes harassing enough) cease and are at rest. No more anxiety for
the debtor; no more toil for the worker. The rich man's ambition, the poor
man's pains, at last are over. _Hic Jacet_. That "forlorn" inscription is
the universal epitaph. What a world of moral, what speculations, what
pathetic wishes, and what terrible dreams, lie enshrouded in that one
final issue, which we call--DEATH.

To him who never gave pain to a human being, whose genius yielded nothing
but instruction and delight, was awarded a calm and easy death. No man, it
is my belief, was ever loved or lamented more sincerely than Charles Lamb.
His sister (his elder by a decade) survived him for the space of thirteen
years.

By strict economy, without meanness; with much unpretending hospitality;
with frequent gifts and lendings, and without any borrowing,--he
accumulated, during his thirty-three years of constant labor, the moderate
sum of two thousand pounds. No more. That was the sum, I believe, which
was eventually shared amongst his legatees. His other riches were gathered