ll his half-pretended grumbling, that it would not be wise to rely on
his pen for a livelihood. He once remonstrated with the poetical
Quaker, Bernard Barton, who proposed to give up a bank-clerkship, in
this wise: "Trust not the public; I bless every star that Providence,
not seeing good to make me independent, has seen it next good to
settle me down on the stable foundation of Leadenhall.... Henceforth
I retract all my fond complaints of mercantile employments; look upon
them as lovers' quarrels. I was but half in earnest. Welcome, dead
timber of a desk that makes me live! a little grumbling is a wholesome
medicine for the spleen; but in my inner heart do I improve and
embrace this our close but unharassing way of life."

That his work was no sinecure can be gathered from this letter of
about 1815: "On Friday I was at office from ten in the morning (two
hours dinner excepted) to eleven at night; last night till nine. My
business and office business in general have increased so; I don't
mean I am there every night, but I must expect a great deal of it. I
never leave till four, and do not keep a holiday now once in ten
times, where I used to keep all red-letter days and some five days
besides, which I used to dub nature's holidays.... I had formerly
little to do.... Hard work and thinking about it taints even the
leisure hours--stains Sunday with workday contemplations."

After thirty-three years of service he was granted by his company a
pension of 450 pounds. On the minutes of the Court of Directors can be
found the following resolution: "that the resignation of Mr. Charles
Lamb, of the accountant-general's office, on account of certified
ill-health be accepted, and it appearing that he has served the
company faithfully for thirty-three years ... he be allowed a pension
of 450 pounds annually."

When the resolution was communicated to him he went home to enjoy one
long holiday of leisure and literary study and authorship. "I am
Retired Leisure.... I have worked task work, and have the rest of the
day to myself." But his day did not last many years. "Lamb was but
fifty when he quitted the service of the company; yet less than ten
years of life were left to him. Not only so, but the happiness he had
expected to find proved more and more elusive. The increasing
frequency of his sister's aberration was a heavy burden for a back
which grew daily less able to bear the strain. The leisure to which he
had looked forward so