s blent with deep seriousness, of the night terrors of
imaginative childhood; Elia showed how a picture in an old time Bible
history had shaped his fears and made his nights hideous for several
years of his early childhood, though he holds that "It is not book, or
picture, or the stories of foolish servants, which create these
terrors in children. They can at most but give them direction." He
suggests that the kind of fear is purely spiritual, and incidentally
gives a characteristically quaint turn in "My night-fancies have long
ceased to be afflictive. I confess an occasional nightmare; but I do
not, as in early youth, keep a stud of them."

In "My Relations" we have an excellent instance of Lamb's veiled
autobiography; he begins by saying that he has no brother or sister
and at once proceeds to a close and analytical portrait of his
"cousin," James Elia, that supposed personage being Charles Lamb's own
brother John, who died in November, 1821, a few months after the
original appearance of this essay. "Mackery End in Hertfordshire,"
continues the theme of relations with another striking piece of
portraiture in another supposed cousin of Elia's, Bridget (really Mary
Lamb). In limning his sister he was of course hampered somewhat by her
terrible affliction, but wonderfully has he surmounted it, and
delightful indeed it is to follow the narrative of the "cousins'"
visit to unknown cousins at the old place in "the green plains of
pleasant Hertfordshire."

Dealing with the subject of "Modern Gallantry" Elia shows how it is
wanting in the true spirit of gallantry which should consist not in
compliments to youth and beauty but in reverence to sex.

"The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple" is one of the essays richest at
once in personal recollections, in wonderful portraiture, and in those
subtle literary touches which impart their peculiar flavour to the
whole. A sketch of the author's father as Lovel was quoted from this
essay in the opening chapter. Elia's observation, his felicity of
expression, his originality of thought, a hint of his playfulness, may
all be recognized in the very commencement of this delicious essay:

I was born, and passed the first seven years of my life in
the Temple. Its church, its halls, its gardens, its
fountain, its river, I had almost said--for in those young
years, what was this king of rivers to me but a stream that
watered our pleasant places?--these are my oldest