e
coined his heart for _jests_," and to have split his brain for fine
distinctions! Mr. Lamb, from the peculiarity of his exterior and address
as an author, would probably never have made his way by detached and
independent efforts; but, fortunately for himself and others, he has
taken advantage of the Periodical Press, where he has been stuck into
notice, and the texture of his compositions is assuredly fine enough to
bear the broadest glare of popularity that has hitherto shone upon them.
Mr. Lamb's literary efforts have procured him civic honours (a thing
unheard of in our times), and he has been invited, in his character of
ELIA, to dine at a select party with the Lord Mayor. We should prefer
this distinction to that of being poet-laureat. We would recommend
to Mr. Waithman's perusal (if Mr. Lamb has not anticipated us) the
_Rosamond Gray_ and the _John Woodvil_ of the same author, as an
agreeable relief to the noise of a city feast, and the heat of city
elections. A friend, a short time ago, quoted some lines[A] from the
last-mentioned of these works, which meeting Mr. Godwin's eye, he was
so struck with the beauty of the passage, and with a consciousness of
having seen it before, that he was uneasy till he could recollect where,
and after hunting in vain for it in Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher,
and other not unlikely places, sent to Mr. Lamb to know if he could help
him to the author!

Mr. Washington Irvine's acquaintance with English literature begins
almost where Mr. Lamb's ends,--with the Spectator, Tom Brown's works,
and the wits of Queen Anne. He is not bottomed in our elder writers, nor
do we think he has tasked his own faculties much, at least on English
ground. Of the merit of his _Knicker-bocker,_ and New York stories,
we cannot pretend to judge. But in his _Sketch-book_ and
_Bracebridge-Hall_ he gives us very good American copies of our British
Essayists and Novelists, which may be very well on the other side of the
water, and as proofs of the capabilities of the national genius, but
which might be dispensed with here, where we have to boast of the
originals. Not only Mr. Irvine's language is with great taste and
felicity modelled on that of Addison, Sterne, Goldsmith, or Mackenzie;
but the thoughts and sentiments are taken at the rebound, and as they
are brought forward at the present period, want both freshness and
probability. Mr. Irvine's writings are literary _anachronisms_. He comes
to England