th and
invention: brothers and sisters he denies, yet admits one sister,
Elizabeth, who died in both their infancies. Lamb had in reality two
sisters named Elizabeth, the former of whom he never knew. She was
born in 1762. The second Elizabeth, his parents' fifth child, was born
in 1768, seven years before Charles. Altogether the Lambs had seven
children, of whom only John (born 1763), Mary Anne (born 1764) and
Charles (born 1775) grew up. Again Lamb confesses to several cousins
in Hertfordshire, and to two others. The two others were fictitious,
but it was true that he had Hertfordshire relations (see the essay
"Mackery End, in Hertfordshire").

John Lamb's character is perhaps sufficiently described in this essay
and in "Dream-Children." He was a well-to-do official in the South-Sea
House, succeeding John Tipp as accountant. Crabb Robinson found him
too bluff and noisy to be bearable; and he once knocked Hazlitt down
in a dispute about painting. He died on October 26, 1821, to his
brother's great grief, leaving Charles everything. He married late in
life a Mrs. Dowden. Probably she had her own money and needed none of
her second husband's. Hence the peculiarity of the will. Mrs. John
Lamb died in 1826.

John Lamb's sympathy with animals led him to write in 1810 a pamphlet
entitled _A Letter to the Right Hon. William Windham, on his
opposition to Lord Erskine's Bill for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals_--Mr. Windham having expressed it as his opinion that the
subject was not one for legislation. Lamb sent the pamphlet to Crabb
Robinson on February 7, 1810, saying:--"My Brother whom you have met
at my rooms (a plump good looking man of seven and forty!) has written
a book about humanity, which I transmit to you herewith. Wilson the
Publisher has put it in his head that you can get it Reviewed for him.
I dare say it is not in the scope of your Review--but if you could
put it into any likely train, he would rejoyce. For alas! our boasted
Humanity partakes of Vanity. As it is, he teazes me to death with
chusing to suppose that I could get it into all the Reviews at a
moment's notice.--I!! who have been set up as a mark for them to throw
at and would willingly consign them all to Hell flames and Megaera's
snaky locks.

"But here's the Book--and don't shew it Mrs. Collier, for I remember
she makes excellent Eel soup, and the leading points of the Book are
directed against that very process."

This is the passage--o