riends at the
time, and has not been considered as entirely inexcusable by posterity.
That he smoked much and drank hard, even for that day, may be true; but
it can scarcely justify the bitter sneers of Carlyle, or the holding of
him up as an awful warning without putting in any plea in mitigation, as
is sometimes done by severe moralists in our own day. He abased himself
in awful shame over it many a time in life, and suffered in his own
person all the fearful retribution which such habits bring in their
train. Let this be sufficient for us, and let us but pity and pass on.
One of the most beautiful things in his later life was his fatherly
tenderness toward a friendless young girl whom he and Mary had
befriended and finally adopted,--Emma Isola, who was afterwards married
to Moxon, the publisher. He was extremely fond of her, and she
brightened his home much in the later years, although she married before
his death. It is sad to think that he should have died before his
sister. He had often prayed that this might not be. But he provided for
her tenderly, and gave her to the care of his friends.

Lamb is described as having a face of "quivering sweetness, nervous,
tremulous, and so slight of frame that he looked only fit for the most
placid fortune."

Fit or not, he had to contend with the hardest thing a man can have in
life,--he had to live a life-long witness of the sufferings of one he
dearly loved, and whom he was entirely powerless to help, the daily and
hourly pathos of whose sufferings he was fitted to appreciate keenly,
and for whom in all this wide weltering chaos of a world there was no
hope. He renounced everything else in life to try to mitigate this
dreadful lot. His kindness was unceasing, his pity was both fatherly and
motherly; it was more,--Godlike; and yet it was of small avail. He
toiled physically that she might live at ease. He exerted his mind
constantly when in her presence, that she might be cheerful. He watched
over her with the tenderness of both brother and lover; and this shall
be his justification, if he needs one: he loved much.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHRISTOPHER NORTH.

Hazlitt has a long paper "On Persons One would Wish to have Seen." And
surely, if he had lived at this time, he would have added genial and
lovable Kit North to the list of those thus honored. There are few of
those who belonged to his day and generation to whom we should have a
stronger wish to