CHARLES LAMB. (Born 1775-Died 1834). THE author of "Elia" was the son of JOHN LAMB, a scrivener, and was born in the Inner Temple, London, on the eighteenth of February, 1775. In 1782 he was admitted to the school of Christ's Hospital, where he remained until he had entered into his fifteenth year, from which time he was employed in the South-Sea House, under his elder brother, until 1792, when he obtained an appointment in the office of the accountant-general of the East India Company. He was in the Indiahouse thirty-five years, rarely absent from his post a single day, and fulfilling his duties with most exact fidelity. He lived meantime with his "gentle sister Mary"-neither of them being ever married-and had at all times a circle of ardent friends, embracing some of the most eminent persons of the country, as Coleridge, who was his schoolfellow, WORDSWORTH, HAZLITT, SOUTHEY, and Sergeant TALFOURD, his biographer. He continued nearly all his life in London, regarding it, with a sort of Chinese exclusiveness, as the only scene in which existence could be enjoyed, until within two or three years of his death, when he wrote to a friend that the town, with all his native hankering after it, was not what it had been in his earlier life. "The streets, the shops," he says, “are left, but all old friends are gone: I was frightfully convinced of this as I passed houses and places, empty caskets now. I have ceased to care almost about anybody; the bodies I cared for are in graves, or dispersed; my old chums that lived so long and flourished so steadily, are crumbled away." LAMB's favourite reading was chiefly in the early English authors, and some of its results appeared in his 66 Selections from Dramatists contemporary with Shakspeare," and in his essays on Shakspeare's Tragedies, on the works of George Wither, &c. His first appearance as an author, however, was at the age of twenty-two, when he published in connection with COLERIDGE and CHARLES LLOYD, a volume of verses, not particularly deserving of admiration, and in the next year, "Rosamund Gray," a story after the manner of MACKENZIE, which was more popular. In 1807 appeared "John Woodvil, a Tragedy;" in 1808 "The Adventures of Ulysses," and at intervals came out his "Essays of Elia," the most remarkable of his compositions, which established his reputation on good and lasting grounds. Besides the works already mentioned, LAMB wrote a farce entitled "Mr. H," which was acted at Drury Lane. Though ELLISTON personated the hero, it was for some reason unsuccessful. In America, however, it afterward had a great run, and was performed by Mr. WOOD, in Philadelphia, as many nights, perhaps, as any piece of its nature ever brought out by that excellent comedian. LAMB's poems, excepting the tragedy which we have named, are few and brief, and of less merit than his prose writings. "John Woodvil," however, contains passages which would not have done dishonour to the great dramatists of SHAKSPEARE'S golden age; and "The Farewell to Tobacco," in these pages, is such a piece of verse as one might imagine "Elia" would write. His letters and his essays belong to that small and slowly increasing body of works constituting the standard literature of the English language. Their bonhomie, exquisite humour, and tenderness, will make them as great favourites with successive generations of readers, as the living CHARLES LAMB was with his personal friends. Speaking of the "Farewell to Tobacco," reminds us of the most melancholy subject in LAMB's history-his intemperance. So far as we know, it was his only frailty, and it was one which he shared with COLERIDGE, the most intimate, as well as the greatest of his friends. Such infirmities of genius warn us of the necessity of preserving every guard to virtue, and teach the duty of charity and forbearance. Mr. LAMB died suddenly at Edmonton, on the 27th of December, 1834, in the sixtieth year of his age. FAREWELL TO TOBACCO. MAY the Babylonish curse Strait confound my stammering verse, If I can a passage see Half my love, or half my hate : 'Gainst women: thou thy siege dost lay Thou in such a cloud dost bind us, While each man, thro' thy heightening steam, Thou through such a mist dost show us, Bacchus we know, and we allow Brother of Bacchus, later born, Or judge of thee meant: only thou His true Indian conquest art; Scent to match thy rich perfume Stinking'st of the stinking kind, Nay, rather Plant divine, of rarest virtue; Or, as men, constrain'd to part For I must (nor let it grieve thee, But, as she, who once hath been A king's consort, is a queen Ever after, nor will bate Some collateral sweets, and snatch HESTER. WHEN maidens such as Hester die, Their place ye may not well supply, Though ye among a thousand try. With vain endeavour. A month or more hath she been dead, A springy motion in her gait, I know not by what name beside Her parents held the Quaker rule, Which doth the human feeling cool, But she was train'd in nature's school, Nature had blest her. A waking eye, a prying mind, My sprightly neighbour, gone before To that unknown and silent shore, Shall we not meet, as heretofore, Some summer morning, When from thy cheerful eyes a ray THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES. I HAVE had playmates, I have had companions, I have been laughing, I have been carousing, I loved a love once, fairest among women! I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man; Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood. Earth seem'd a desert I was bound to traverse, Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, How some they have died, and some they have left me, And some are taken from me; all are departed; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. THE FAMILY NAME. WHAT reason first imposed thee, gentle name, Name that my father bore, and his sire's sire, Without reproach? we trace our stream no higher; And I, a childless man, may end the same. Perchance some shepherd on Lincolnian plains, In manners guileless as his own sweet flocks, Received thee first amid the merry mocks And arch-allusions of his fellow swains. Perchance from Salem's holier fields return'd, With glory gotten on the heads abhorr'd Of faithless Saracens, some martial lord Took his meek title, in whose zeal he burn'd. Whate'er the fount whence thy beginnings came, No deed of mine shall shame thee, gentle name. SONNET. WE were two pretty babes, the youngest she, Time was, we two had wept to have been apart. Defiling with the world my virgin heart- Beloved, who shall tell me where thou art- THOMAS CAMPBELL. (Born 1777-Died 1844). THOMAS CAMPBELL was born on the twentyseventh of September, 1777, in Glasgow, where his father was a retired merchant. When twelve years old he entered the university of his native city, and in the following year gained a prize for a translation from ARISTOPHANES, after a hard contest, over a competitor of nearly twice his age. He was here seven years, in all which time he had scarcely a rival in classical learning; and the Greek professor, when bestowing on him a medal for one of his versions, announced that it was the best ever produced in the university. He made equal proficiency in other branches of education, and, on completing his academical course, studied medicine and law. He quitted Glasgow to remove into Argyleshire, whence he went to Edinburgh, where he was for several years a private tutor. At the early age of twenty-one he finished The Pleasures of Hope, which placed him in the front rank of contemporary poets. In the spring of 1800, he left Scotland for the Continent. While at Hamburgh he wrote the Exile of Erin, from an impression made upon his mind by the condition of some Irish exiles in the vicinity of that city; and, with the Danish war in prospect, his famous naval lyric, Ye Mariners of England. He travelled over the most interesting portions of Germany and Prussia, visited their universities, and formed friendships with the SCHLEGELS, KLOPSTOCK, and other scholars and men of genius. From the walls of a convent he saw the charge of KLENAU upon the French at Hohenlinden, which he has so vividly described in his celebrated ode upon that battle. Soon after his return to Scotland, in 1801, he received a token of the royal admiration of his Pleasures of Hope, in a pension of two hundred pounds; and, after a short residence at Edinburgh, married Miss MATILDA SINCLAIR, and settled at Sydenham, near London, where he remained many years, and wrote Gertrude of Wyoming, Lord Ullin's Daughter, and several of his minor poems. In 1820 he became editor of the New Monthly Magazine, which he conducted with a spirit and ability worthy of his reputation, for ten years, at the end of which time the death of his wife induced its abandonment. In this period he took an active interest in the causes of Greece and Poland; was three times elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow; discharged the duties of Professor of Poetry in the Royal Institution; and laid the foundation of the London University. For several years before his death, Mr. CAMPBELL produced nothing of much excellence. The Pilgrim of Glencoe and other Poems, which appeared in 1842, owed all their little reputation to his name. He died at Boulougne, on the fifteenth of June, 1844, and his remains were interred in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey on the third of the following month. verse. CAMPBELL'S poetry has little need of critical illustration. His chief merit is rhetorical. There is no vagueness or mysticism in his The scenes and feelings he delineates are common to human beings in general, and the impressive style with which these are unfolded, owes its charm to vigour of language and forcible clearness of epithet. Many of his lines ring with a harmonious energy, and seem the offspring of the noblest enthusiasm. This is especially true of his martial lyrics, which in their way are unsurpassed. The Pleasures of Hope, his earliest work, is one of the few standard heroic poems in our language. Poetic taste has undergone many remarkable changes since it appeared, but its ardent numbers are constantly resorted to by those who love the fire of the muse as well as her more delicate tracery. Though more generally read, it is by no means equal to Gertrude of Wyoming, a Pennsylvania Tale, written in the full maturity of his powers, and characterized by remarkable taste, feeling and tenderness. Nearly all CAMPBELL's earlier writings are popular, and although a more transcendental school of poetry is at present in vogue, admirers of felicity of expression can never fail to recognise the stamp of true genius in one who has sung in such thrilling numbers of patriotism and affection. |