Mr. Lamb's personal appearance was remarkable. It quite realized the expectations of those who think that an author and a wit should have a distinct air, a separate costume, a particular cloth, something positive and singular about him. Such unquestionably had Mr. Lamb. Once he rejoiced in snuff-color, but latterly his costume was inveterately black—with gaiters which seemed longing for something more substantial to close in. His legs were remarkably slight; so indeed was his whole body, which was of short stature, but surmounted by a head of amazing fineness. His face was deeply marked and full of noble lines—traces of sensibility, imagination, suffering, and much thought. His wit was in his eye, luminous, quick, and restless. The smile that played about his mouth was ever cordial and good-humored; and the most cordial and delightful of its smiles were those with which he accompanied his affectionate talk with his sister, or his jokes against her.
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TALFOURD.
[From Talfourd's "Memorials of C. Lamb," pp. 337-8, 342-3.]
Except to the few who were acquainted with the tragical occurrences of Lamb's early life, some of his peculiarities seemed strange,—to be forgiven, indeed, to the excellences of his nature and the delicacy of his genius,—but still, in themselves, as much to be wondered at as deplored. The sweetness of his character, breathed through his writings, was felt even by strangers; but its heroic aspect was unguessed even by many of his friends. Let them now consider it, and ask if the annals of self-sacrifice can show anything in human action and endurance more lovely than its self- devotion exhibits! It was not merely that he saw through the ensanguined cloud of misfortune which had fallen upon his family, the unstained excellence of his sister, whose madness had caused it; that he was ready to take her to his own home with reverential affection, and cherish her through life; that he gave up, for her sake, all meaner and more selfish love, and all the hopes which youth blends with the passion which disturbs and ennobles it; not even that he did all this cheerfully, and without pluming himself upon his brotherly nobleness as a virtue, or seeking to repay himself (as some uneasy martyrs do) by small instalments of long repining,—but that he carried the spirit of the hour in which he first knew and took his course, to his last. So far from thinking that his sacrifice of youth and love to his sister gave him a license to follow his own caprice at the expense of her feelings, even in the lightest matters, he always wrote and spoke of her as his wiser self, his generous benefactress, of whose protecting care he was scarcely worthy. How his pen almost grew wanton in her praise, even when she was a prisoner in the Asylum after the fatal attack of lunacy, his letters of the time to Coleridge show; but that might have been a mere temporary exaltation—the attendant fervor of a great exigency and a great resolution. It was not so.
Nervous, tremulous, as he seemed—so light of frame that he looked only fit for the most placid fortune—when the dismal emergencies which checkered his life arose, he acted with as much promptitude and vigor as if he had never penned a stanza nor taken a glass too much, or was strung with herculean sinews. None of those temptations, in which misery is the most potent, to hazard a lavish expenditure for an enjoyment to be secured against fate and fortune, ever tempted him to exceed his income, when scantiest, by a shilling. He had always a reserve for poor Mary's periods of seclusion, and something in hand besides for a friend in need; and on his retirement from the India House, he had amassed, by annual savings, a sufficient sum (invested, after the prudent and classical taste of Lord Stowell, in "the elegant simplicity of the Three per Cents.") to secure comfort to Miss Lamb, when his pension should cease with him, even if the India Company, his great employers, had not acted nobly by the memory of their inspired clerk—as they did—and gave her the annuity to which a wife would have been entitled—but of which he could not feel assured. Living among literary men, some less distinguished and less discreet than those whom we have mentioned, he was constantly importuned to relieve distresses which an improvident speculation in literature produces, and which the recklessness attendant on the empty vanity of self-exaggerated talent renders desperate and merciless—and to the importunities of such hopeless petitioners he gave too largely—though he used sometimes to express a painful sense that he was diminishing his own store without conferring any real benefit. "Heaven," he used to say, "does not owe me sixpence for all I have given, or lent (as they call it) to such importunity; I only gave it because I could not bear to refuse it; and I have done good by my weakness."
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[B. W. P. "Athenaeum," January 24, 1835.]
I was acquainted with Mr. Lamb for about seventeen or eighteen years. I saw him first (I think, for my recollection is here imperfect) at one of Hazlitt's lectures, or at one of Coleridge's dissertations on Shakespeare, where the metaphysician sucked oranges and said a hundred wonderful things. They were all three extraordinary men. Hazlitt had more of the speculative and philosophical faculty, and more observation (_circum_spection) than Lamb; whilst Coleridge was more subtle and ingenious than either. Lamb's qualities were a sincere, generous, and tender nature, wit (at command), humor, fancy, and—if the creation of character be a test of imagination, as I apprehend it is—imagination also. Some of his phantasms—the people of the South Sea House, Mrs. Battle, the Benchers of the Middle Temple, &c. (all of them ideal), might be grouped into comedies. His sketches are always (to quote his own eulogy on Marvell) full of "a witty delicacy," and, if properly brought out and marshalled, would do honor to the stage.
When I first became acquainted with Mr. Lamb, he lived, I think, in the Temple; but I did not visit him then, and could scarcely, therefore, be said to know him, until he took up his residence in Russell Street, Covent Garden. He had a first floor there, over a brazier's shop,—since converted into a bookseller's,—wherein he frequently entertained his friends. On certain evenings (Thursdays) one might reckon upon encountering at his rooms from six to a dozen unaffected people, including two or three men of letters. A game at whist and a cold supper, followed by a cheerful glass (glasses!) and "good talk," were the standing dishes upon those occasions. If you came late, you encountered a perfume of the "GREAT PLANT." The pipe, hid in smoke (the violet amongst its leaves),—a squadron of tumblers, fuming with various odors, and a score of quick intelligent glances, saluted you. There you might see Godwin, Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, Coleridge (though rarely), Mr. Robinson, Serjeant Talfourd, Mr. Ayrton, Mr. Alsager, Mr. Manning,—sometimes Miss Kelly, or Liston,— Admiral Burney, Charles Lloyd, Mr. Alsop, and various others; and if Wordsworth was in town, you might stumble upon him also. Our friend's brother, John Lamb, was occasionally there; and his sister (his excellent sister) invariably presided.