ng the
tragedies and Mary the comedies. In 1808 they wrote, again for children,
_The Adventures of Ulysses_, a version of the _Odyssey, Mrs. Leicester's
School_, and _Poetry for Children_ (1809). About the same time he was
commissioned by Longman to ed. selections from the Elizabethan
dramatists. To the selections were added criticisms, which at once
brought him the reputation of being one of the most subtle and
penetrating critics who had ever touched the subject. Three years later
his extraordinary power in this department was farther exhibited in a
series of papers on Hogarth and Shakespeare, which appeared in Hunt's
_Reflector_. In 1818 his scattered contributions in prose and verse were
_coll._ as _The Works of Charles Lamb_, and the favour with which they
were received led to his being asked to contribute to the _London
Magazine_ the essays on which his fame chiefly rests. The name "Elia"
under which they were written was that of a fellow-clerk in the India
House. They appeared from 1820-25. The first series was printed in 1823,
the second, _The Last Essays of Elia_, in 1833. In 1823 the L.'s had left
London and taken a cottage at Islington, and had practically adopted Emma
Isola, a young orphan, whose presence brightened their lives until her
marriage in 1833 to E. Moxon, the publisher. In 1825 L. retired, and
lived at Enfield and Edmonton. But his health was impaired, and his
sister's attacks of mental alienation were ever becoming more frequent
and of longer duration. During one of his walks he fell, slightly hurting
his face. The wound developed into erysipelas, and he _d._ on December
29, 1834. His sister survived until 1847.

The place of L. as an essayist and critic is the very highest. His only
rival in the former department is Addison, but in depth and tenderness of
feeling, and richness of fancy L. is the superior. In the realms of
criticism there can be no comparison between the two. L. is here at once
profound and subtle, and his work led as much as any other influence to
the revival of interest in and appreciation of our older poetry. His own
writings, which are self-revealing in a quite unusual and always charming
way, and the recollections of his friends, have made the personality of
Lamb more familiar to us than any other in our literature, except that of
Johnson. His weaknesses, his oddities, his charm, his humour, his
stutter, are all as familiar to his readers as if they had known him, and
the t