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CHARLES LAMB.

[Born in the Temple, London, February 10, 1775; was educated at Christ's Hospital, with Coleridge for a school-fellow; became clerk in the India House, 1792; retired on a pension, 1825; died December 27, 1834. His poetry is as follows:-Poems by S. T. Coleridge, second edition, to which are now added Poems by Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd, 1797. Blank Verse, by Charles Lloyd and Charles Lamb, 1798. Poetry for Children, entirely original ; by the Author of Mrs. Leicester's School, 1809. Poems in The Works of Charles Lamb, 1818. Album Verses, with a few others, by Charles Lamb, 1830.]

Charles Lamb's nosegay of verse may be held by the small hand of a maiden, and there is not in it one flaunting, gallant flower; it is, however, fragrant with the charities of home, like blossoms gathered in some old cottage croft. To know his varying subtleties, his play of intellect, his lambent humour, one must turn to his prose writings; but the gentle heart, the unworldly temper, the fine courtesy, betray themselves in every utterance of Lamb. It was in early manhood and in snatches of time that his first verses were written; he speaks of them as creatures of the fancy and the feeling in life's more vacant hours, as derivatives from the poetry of Coleridge. And certainly there is less in them of Lamb's own favourite, Burns, than of Bowles, whom Coleridge at one time idolised. In Coleridge's volume they modestly made their appearance. 'My friend Lloyd and myself came into our first battle under cover of the greater Ajax.' The larger number of his poems are occasional; a few are interesting as records of a love in idleness that gave unusual charm to the memory of some months in Lamb's prime of youth. From the India House desk it was pleasant to wander in fancy along some forest-glade by the side of fair-haired Anna. But after all, his dear sister, even his good and pious grandame, was closer to Lamb than

any beloved mild-eyed maid.' And did there not remain to console him that life-long comrade, his pipe, the parting from which for a season he celebrates in a piece of mirthful fantasy that would readily run from verse into the quaint prose of Elia? For less pensive companionship he had now and again little Hartley Coleridge, or Thornton Hunt, a guileless traitor enduring imprisonment with his father when Lamb addressed him in verse. Nor in those innocent days of albums was Elia unacquainted with maiden-petitioners - Edith Southey, Dora Wordsworth, Lucy Barton-bashful yet intent to acquire the autograph. Lamb's deeper and sadder heart lay for the most part in quiet concealment; but once at least, in the mournful music of his Old Familiar Faces, its monody is heard.

EDWARD DOWDEN.

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,
Yet cannot I by force be led
To think upon the wormy bed,
And her together.

A springy motion in her gait,
A rising step, did indicate
Of pride and joy no common rate,
That flushed her spirit.

I know not by what name beside
I shall it call:-if 'twas not pride,
It was a joy to that allied,
She did inherit.

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,

A heart that stirs, is hard to bind,
A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind,
Ye could not Hester.

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
Hath struck a bliss upon the day,
A bliss that would not go away,
A sweet fore-warning?

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES.

I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a love once, fairest among women;
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her-
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man ;
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood,
Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse,
Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces-

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 GRANDAME.

On the green hill top,

Hard by the house of prayer, a modest roof,
And not distinguished from its neighbour-barn,
Save by a slender-tapering length of spire,
The Grandame sleeps. A plain stone barely tells
The name and date to the chance passenger.

For lowly born was she, and long had eat,
Well-earned, the bread of service :-hers was else
A mounting spirit, one that entertained
Scorn of base action, deed dishonourable,
Or aught unseemly. I remember well
Her reverend image: I remember, too,

With what a zeal she served her master's house:
And how the prattling tongue of garrulous age
Delighted to recount the oft-told tale
Or anecdote domestic. Wise she was,
And wondrous skilled in genealogies,
And could in apt and voluble terms discourse
Of births, of titles, and alliances;
Of marriages, and intermarriages;
Relationship remote, or near of kin ;
Of friends offended, family disgraced-
Maiden high-born, but wayward, disobeying
Parental strict injunction, and regardless
Of unmixed blood, and ancestry remote,
Stooping to wed with one of low degree.
But these are not thy praises; and I wrong
Thy honoured memory, recording chiefly
Things light or trivial.

Better 'twere to tell,

How with a nobler zeal, and warmer love,

She served her heavenly master. I have seen
That reverend form bent down with age and pain,
And rankling malady. Yet not for this
Ceased she to praise her Maker, or withdrew
Her trust in him, her faith, and humble hope-
So meekly had she learned to bear her cress-
For she had studied patience in the school
Of Christ, much comfort she had thence derived,
And was a follower of the Nazarene.

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