nd
passed the first seven years of my life in the Temple. Its gardens, its
halls, its fountain, its river... these are my oldest recollections." He
was the son of a poor clerk, or rather servant, of one of the barristers,
and was the youngest of seven children, only three of whom survived
infancy. Of these three, John, the elder, was apparently a selfish
creature, who took no part in the heroic struggle of his brother and
sister. At seven years, Charles was sent to the famous "Bluecoat" charity
school of Christ's Hospital. Here he remained seven years; and here he
formed his lifelong friendship for another poor, neglected boy, whom the
world remembers as Coleridge.[230]

When only fourteen years old, Lamb left the charity school and was soon at
work as a clerk in the South Sea House. Two years later he became a clerk
in the famous India House, where he worked steadily for thirty-three years,
with the exception of six weeks, in the winter of 1795-1796, spent within
the walls of an asylum. In 1796 Lamb's sister Mary, who was as talented and
remarkable as Lamb himself, went violently insane and killed her own
mother. For a long time after this appalling tragedy she was in an asylum
at Hoxton; then Lamb, in 1797, brought her to his own little house, and for
the remainder of his life cared for her with a tenderness and devotion
which furnishes one of the most beautiful pages in our literary history. At
times the malady would return to Mary, giving sure warning of its terrible
approach; and then brother and sister might be seen walking silently, hand
in hand, to the gates of the asylum, their cheeks wet with tears. One must
remember this, as well as Lamb's humble lodgings and the drudgery of his
daily work in the-big commercial house, if he would appreciate the pathos
of "The Old Familiar Faces," or the heroism which shines through the most
human and the most delightful essays in our language.

When Lamb was fifty years of age the East India Company, led partly by his
literary fame following his first _Essays of Elia_, and partly by his
thirty-three years of faithful service, granted him a comfortable pension;
and happy as a boy turned loose from school he left India House forever to
give himself up to literary work.[231] He wrote to Wordsworth, in April,
1825, "I came home _forever_ on Tuesday of last week--it was like passing
from life into eternity." Curiously enough Lamb seems to lose power after
his release from drudgery