APPENDIX.


In the following pages will be found the opinions of several distinguished
authors on the subject of Charles Lamb's genius and character, and also a
contribution (by himself) to the _Athenaeum_, made in January, 1835. All
the writers were contemporary with Lamb, and were personally intimate with
him. The extracts may be accepted as corroborative, in some degree, of the
opinions set forth in the foregoing Memoir.

HAZLITT.

[_From Hazlitt's "Spirit of the Age." Title, "Elia."_]

Mr. Lamb has the very soul of an antiquarian, as this implies a reflecting
humanity. The film of the past hovers forever before him. He is shy,
sensitive, the reverse of everything coarse, vulgar, obtrusive, and
commonplace. His spirit clothes itself in the garb of elder time;
homelier, but more durable. He is borne along with no pompous paradoxes,
shines in no glittering tinsel of a fashionable phraseology, is neither
fop nor sophist. He has none of the turbulence or froth of new-fangled
opinions. His style runs pure and clear, though it may often take an
underground course, or be conveyed through old-fashioned conduits....
There is a fine tone of chiaro-scuro, a moral perspective in his writings.
He delights to dwell on that which is fresh to the eye of memory; he
yearns after and covets what soothes the frailty of human nature. That
touches him most nearly which is withdrawn to a certain distance, which
verges on the borders of oblivion; that piques and provokes his fancy most