man infirmity. Then there is no one who has so sure an ear
for "the chimes at midnight," not even excepting Mr. Justice Shallow; nor
could Master Silence himself take his "cheese and pippins" with a more
significant and satisfactory air. With what a gusto Mr. Lamb describes the
inns and courts of law, the Temple and Gray's-Inn, as if he had been a
student there for the last two hundred years, and had been as well
acquainted with the person of Sir Francis Bacon as he is with his portrait
or writings! It is hard to say whether St. John's Gate is connected with
more intense and authentic associations in his mind, as a part of old
London Wall, or as the frontispiece (time out of mind) of the Gentleman's
Magazine. He haunts Watling-street like a gentle spirit; the avenues to
the play-houses are thick with panting recollections, and
Christ's-Hospital still breathes the balmy breath of infancy in his
description of it! Whittington and his Cat are a fine hallucination for
Mr. Lamb's historic Muse, and we believe he never heartily forgave a
certain writer who took the subject of Guy Faux out of his hands. The
streets of London are his fairy-land, teeming with wonder, with life and
interest to his retrospective glance, as it did to the eager eye of
childhood; he has contrived to weave its tritest traditions into a bright
and endless romance!

Mr. Lamb's taste in books is also fine, and it is peculiar. It is not the
worse for a little _idiosyncrasy_. He does not go deep into the Scotch
novels, but he is at home in Smollett or Fielding. He is little read in
Junius or Gibbon, but no man can give a better account of Burton's Anatomy
of Melancholy, or Sir Thomas Brown's Urn-Burial, or Fuller's Worthies, or
John Bunyan's Holy War. No one is more unimpressible to a specious
declamation: no one relishes a recondite beauty more. His admiration of
Shakspeare and Milton does not make him despise Pope; and he can read
Parnell with patience, and Gay with delight. His taste in French and
German literature is somewhat defective; nor has he made much progress in
the science of Political Economy or other abstruse studies, though he has
read vast folios of controversial divinity, merely for the sake of the
intricacy of style, and to save himself the pain of thinking. Mr. Lamb is
a good judge of prints and pictures. His admiration of Hogarth does credit
to both, particularly when it is considered that Leonardo da Vinci is his
next greatest favourite