ile--peradventure the very names, which I have
summoned up before thee, are fantastic--insubstantial--like Henry
Pimpernel and old John Naps of Greece; be satisfied that something
answering to them has had a being. Their importance is from the past."
The names may have been mostly fantastic--in one case we know that it
was not, for "Henry Man, the wit, the polished man of letters" is
known to delvers among dead books--the types are immortal. In this
first essay we find in such sentences as "their sums in triple
columniations, set down with formal superfluity of cyphers," an
illustration of Lamb's wonderful use of what an antipathetic critic
might term an informal superfluity of syllables.

The next essay, reflecting the atmosphere of "Oxford in the Vacation,"
was written presumably during a holiday visit to the University of
Cambridge, though Elia touching upon matters concerning church
holidays breaks off with--

... but I am wading out of my depths. I am not the man to
decide the limits of civil and ecclesiastical authority--I
am plain Elia--no Selden, nor Archbishop Usher--though at
present in the thick of their books here in the heart of
learning, under the shadow of mighty Bodley.

Then follows a passage eminently characteristic of Elia's happy manner
of playing with a theme:

I can here play the gentleman, enact the student To such a
one as myself, who has been defrauded in his young years of
the sweet food of academic institution, nowhere is so
pleasant to while away a few idle weeks at one or other
of the universities. Their vacation, too, at this time of
the year, falls in pat with _ours_. Here I can take my walks
unmolested, and fancy myself of what degree of standing I
please. I seem admitted _ad eundem_. I fetch up past
opportunities. I can rise at the chapel-bell, and dream that
it rings for _me_. In moods of humility I can be a Sizar, or
a Servitor. When the peacock vein rises, I strut a Gentleman
Commoner. In graver moments, I proceed Master of Arts.
Indeed I do not think I am much unlike that respectable
character. I have seen your dim-eyed vergers, and bed-makers
in spectacles drop a bow or curtsey as I pass, wisely
mistaking me for something of the sort. I go about in black,
which favours the notion. Only in Christ Church reverend
quadrangle I can be content to pass for nothing short