e Tudor name ... boy patron of boys," the names that stand
out most prominently are those of the two who were at the school
together--Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It was at that old
"Hospital," recently, alas, demolished, that these men, so different
in genius, so similar in many of their intellectual tastes, began a
memorable friendship that was only to be broken by death more than
half a century later.

A schoolfellow's description of him may help us to visualize the
elusive figure of which we have no early portraits, and the later
portraits of which are understood to be wanting in one regard or
another. His countenance, says this early observer, was mild; his
complexion clear brown, with an expression that might lead you to
think that he was of Jewish descent. His eyes were not each of the
same colour: one was hazel, the other had specks of grey in the iris,
mingled as we see red spots in the bloodstone. His step was
plantigrade, which made his walk slow and peculiar, adding to the
staid appearance of his figure.

[Illustration: CHRIST'S HOSPITAL.]

For seven years--from October 1782 until November 1789--Charles Lamb
remained at Christ's Hospital, and then, close upon fifteen years of
age, returned to his parents in the Temple. His brother John had
obtained an appointment in the South Sea House, probably through the
kindly offices of Samuel Salt, who was a Deputy-Governor, and at some
unascertained date between 1789 and 1792, Charles found employment in
the same office; not, however, for long, for in April of 1792 he was
appointed clerk in the accountant's office of the East India House, at
a commencing salary of L70 per annum. This same year which thus saw
the founding of Charles Lamb's humble fortunes, saw also the beginning
of the break-up of his home, for the immortal old Bencher, Samuel
Salt, died, and the Lamb family was left without its mainstay. John
Lamb the elder was past work, already, we may believe, passing into
senility; and John Lamb the younger, who appears to have been
prospering in the South Sea House, had presumably set up his bachelor
home elsewhere. Salt bequeathed to his clerk and factotum a pension of
L10 a year, and various legacies amounting to about L700. The old
home in the Temple had to be given up, but whither the family first
removed is not known. Four years later they were living in Little
Queen Street--now a portion of Kingsway--off Holborn, in a house on
the west side