Less confident critics than those mentioned at the beginning of this section may yet readily recognize the general individuality of the style in which Elia revealed himself through the medium of his pen. To his lifelong habit of browsing among old books, his especial fondness for the writers of the sixteenth century, he owed no small part of the richness of his vocabulary, which enabled him frequently to use with fine effect happy old words in place of current makeshifts. In one of his early letters to Coleridge where he mentions having just finished reading Chapman's Homer, Lamb, seizing upon a phrase in that translation, says with gusto, "what endless egression of phrases the dog commands." The word arrided him (to employ another, the use of which he recovered for us), and he could not forbear making a note of it. He had, indeed, something of an instinctive genius for finding words that had passed more or less into desuetude, and a happy way of re-introducing them to enrich the plainer prose of his day. He did it naturally, even as though inevitably, and without any such air of coxcombical affectation as would have destroyed the flavour of the whole. Lamb was so thoroughly imbued with the thought and modes of expression of the rich Elizabethan and Stuart periods that his use of obsolescent words was probably more often than not quite unconscious.
The egotism of Elia's style in addressing his readers has been said to be founded on that of Sir Thomas Browne, and in a measure there can be little doubt that it was so—but only in a measure, for it is something the same egotism as that of Montaigne, is, indeed, the natural attitude of the familiar essayist who must be egotistic, not from self-consciousness but from the lack of it. In putting his opinions and experiences in the first person, we feel that Lamb did so almost unconsciously, because it was for him the easiest way of expressing himself. It was not, in fact, egotism at all in the commonly accepted sense of meaning, too frequent or self-laudatory use of the personal pronoun.
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS
Those books with an asterisk against their date were only in part the work of Charles Lamb.
| *1796. | Poems on Various Subjects, by S. T. Coleridge (included four sonnets signed C. L., described in the preface as by "Mr. Charles Lamb of the India House"). |
| *1796. | Poems on the Death of Priscilla Farmer, by her grandson, Charles Lloyd (included "The Grandame," by Lamb). |
| *1797. | Poems by S. T. Coleridge, second edition, to which are now added Poems by Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd. |
| *1798. | Blank Verse by Charles Lloyd and Charles Lamb. |
| 1798. | A Tale of Rosamund Gray and Old Blind Margaret (afterwards simply entitled "Rosamund Gray"). |
| 1802. | John Woodvil, a Tragedy; with Fragments of Burton. |
| 1805. | The King and Queen of Hearts: Showing how notably the Queen made her Tarts and how scurvily the Knave stole them away with other particulars belonging thereunto. |
| *1807. | Tales from Shakespear, designed for the use of young Persons. 2 vols. (By Charles and Mary Lamb, though only the name of the former appeared on the original title-page.) |
| *1807 or 1808 | Mrs. Leicester's School, or the History of several young Ladies related by themselves (by Charles and Mary Lamb). |
| 1808 | The Adventures of Ulysses. |
| 1808 | Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the Time of Shakespeare. |
| *1809 | Poetry for Children. Entirely original. By the author of "Mrs. Leicester's School." |
| 1811 | Prince Dorus; or Flattery put out of Countenance. A Poetical Version of an Ancient Tale. |
| 1811. | [Beauty and the Beast; or a Rough Outside with Gentle Heart. A Poetical Version of an Ancient Tale; credited to Lamb by some authorities but on inconclusive evidence.] |
| 1818. | The Works of Charles Lamb. In 2 vols. |
| 1823. | Elia. Essays which have appeared under that title in the "London Magazine" (now known as "Essays of Elia"): |
The South-Sea House. | |
| Oxford in the Vacation. | |
| Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years ago. | |
| The Two Races of Men. | |
| New Year's Eve. | |
| Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist. | |
| A Chapter on Ears. | |
| All Fools' Day. | |
| A Quakers' Meeting. | |
| The Old and the New Schoolmaster. | |
| Valentine's Day. | |
| Imperfect Sympathies. | |
| Witches and other Night Fears. | |
| My Relations. | |
| Mackery End in Hertfordshire. | |
| Modern Gallantry. | |
| The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple. | |
| Grace before Meat. | |
| My First Play. | |
| Dream-Children: a Reverie. | |
| Distant Correspondents. | |
| The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers. | |
| A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars in the Metropolis. | |
| A Dissertation upon Roast Pig. | |
| A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married People. | |
| On some of the Old Actors. | |
| On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century. | |
| On the Acting of Munden. | |
| 1830. | Album Verses, with a few others. |
| 1831. | Satan in Search of a Wife. |
| 1833. | The Last Essays of Elia. |
Preface. | |
| Blakesmoor in H----shire. | |
| Poor Relations. | |
| Stage Illusion. | |
| To the Shade of Elliston. | |
| Ellistoniana. | |
| Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading. | |
| The Old Margate Hoy. | |
| The Convalescent. | |
| Sanity of True Genius. | |
| Captain Jackson. | |
| The Superannuated Man. | |
| The Genteel Style in Writing. | |
| Barbara S----. | |
| The Tombs in the Abbey. | |
| Amicus Redivivus. | |
| Some Sonnets of Sir Philip Sydney. | |
| Newspapers Thirty-five Years Ago. | |
| Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty in the Productions of Modern Art. | |
| Rejoicings upon the New Year's Coming of Age. | |
| The Wedding. | |
| The Child Angel. | |
| Old China. | |
| Confessions of a Drunkard. | |
| Popular Fallacies. |