ess room than the _apices_ of his regular prose and of
his poetry for that marvellous perfection of style and phrase which is
allowed even by those who complain of a want of substance in him. And
another complaint of his "aloofness" affects them in two ways rather
damagingly. When it is present it cuts at the root of one of the chief
interests of letters, which is intimacy. When it is absent, and Landor
presents himself in his well-known character of an angry baby (as for
instance when he remarked of the Bishop who did not do something he
wanted, that "God alone is great enough for him [Walter Savage Landor]
to ask anything of _twice_") he becomes merely--or perhaps to very
amiable folk rather painfully--ridiculous. De Quincey and Hazlitt
diverted a good deal of what might have been utilised as mere
letter-writing faculty into their very miscellaneous work for
publication. Moore could write very good letters himself: but is perhaps
most noted and notable in connection with the subject as being one of
the earliest and best "Life-and-Letters" craftsmen in regard to Byron.

But none of these restrictions or provisos is requisite, or could for a
moment be thought of, in reference to Charles Lamb. Of him, as of hardly
any other writer of great excellence (perhaps Thackeray is most like him
in this way) it can be said that if we had nothing but his letters we
should almost be able to detect the qualities which he shows in his
regular works. Some of the _Essays of Elia_ and his other miscellanies
are or pretend to be actual letters. Certainly not a few of his letters
would seem not at all strange and by no means unable to hold up their
heads, if they had appeared as Essays of that singularly fortunate
Italian who had his name taken, _not_ in vain but in order to be titular
author of some of the choicest things in literature.

Indeed that unique combination of bookishness and native fancy which
makes the "Eliesque" quality is obviously as well suited to the letter
as to the essay, and would require but a stroke or two of the pen, in
addition or deletion, to produce examples of either. One often feels as
if it must have been, as the saying goes, a toss-up whether the _London
Magazine_ or some personal friend got a particular composition; whether
it was issued to the public direct or waited for Serjeant Talfourd to
collect and edit it. The two English writers whom, on very different
sides of course, Lamb most resembles, and whom