"EDMONTON, November 21, 1834."


Within five weeks of this date Charles Lamb died. A slight accident
brought on an attack of erysipelas, which proved fatal; his system was not
strong enough for resistance. It is some consolation to add, that, during
his illness, which lasted four days, he suffered no pain, and that his
faculties remained with him to the last. A few words spoken by him the day
before he died showed with what quiet collectedness he was prepared to
meet death.

As an Essayist, Charles Lamb will be remembered, in years to come, with
Rabelais and Montaigne, with Sir Thomas Browne, with Steele, and with
Addison. He unites many of the finest characteristics of these several
writers. He has wisdom and wit of the highest order, exquisite humor, a
genuine and cordial vein of pleasantry, and the most heart-touching
pathos. In the largest acceptation of the word he is a humanist. No one of
the great family of authors past or present has shown in matters the most
important or the most trivial so delicate and extreme a sense of all that
is human. It is the prevalence of this characteristic in his writings
which has subjected him to occasional charges of want of imagination.
This, however, is but half-criticism; for the matter of reproach may in
fact be said to be his triumph. It was with a deep relish of Mr. Lamb's
faculty that a friend of his once said, "He makes the majesties of
imagination seem familiar." It is precisely thus with his own imagination.
It eludes the observation of the ordinary reader in the modesty of its
truth, in its social and familiar air. His fancy as an Essayist is
distinguished by singular delicacy and tenderness; and even his conceits
will generally be found to be, as those of his favorite Fuller often are,
steeped in human feeling and passion. The fondness he entertained for