life, were vacillating. In this respect Lamb was no follower of his
schoolfellow, his own career being steady and unswerving from his entrance
into the India House until the day of his freedom from service--between
thirty and forty years. His literary tastes, indeed, took independently
almost the same tone as those of his friend; and their religious views
(for Coleridge in his early years became a Unitarian) were the same.

When Coleridge left Christ's Hospital he went to the University--to Jesus
College, Cambridge; but came back occasionally to London, where the
intimacy between him and Lamb was cemented. Their meetings at the smoky
little public house in the neighborhood of Smithfield--the "Salutation and
Cat"--consecrated by pipes and tobacco (Orinoco), by egg-hot and Welsh
rabbits, and metaphysics and poetry, are exultingly referred to in Lamb's
letters. Lamb entertained for Coleridge's genius the greatest respect,
until death dissolved their friendship. In his earliest verses (so dear to
a young poet) he used to submit his thoughts to Coleridge's amendments or
critical suggestions; and on one occasion was obliged to cry out, "Spare
my ewe lambs: they are the reflected images of my own feelings."

It was at a very tender age that Charles Lamb entered the "work-a-day"
world. His elder brother, John, had at that time a clerkship in the South
Sea House, and Charles passed a short time there under his brother's care
or control, and must thus have gained some knowledge of figures. The
precise nature of his occupation in this deserted place, however (where
some forms of business were kept up, "though the soul be long since fled,"
and where the directors met mainly "to declare a dead dividend"), is not
stated in the charming paper of "The South Sea House." Charles remained in
this office only until the 5th April, 1792, when he obtained an
appointment (through the influence, I believe, of Mr. Salt) as clerk in
the Accountant's Office of the East India Company. He was then seventeen