de, and with a cheerful "How d'ye do," and one of
the blandest, sweetest smiles that ever brightened a manly
countenance, held out two fingers to the Editor. The two
gentlemen in black soon fell into discourse; and whilst they
conferred the Lavater principle within me set to work upon
the interesting specimen thus presented to its speculations.
It was a striking intellectual face, full of wiry lines,
physiognomical quips and cranks, that gave it great
character. There was much earnestness about the brows, and a
deal of speculation in the eyes, which were brown and
bright, and "quick in turning"; the nose, a decided one,
though of no established order; and there was a handsome
smartness about the mouth. Altogether it was no common
face--none of those _willow-pattern_ ones, which Nature
turns out by thousands at her potteries;--but more like a
chance specimen of the Chinese ware, one to the set--unique,
antique, quaint. No one who had once seen it, could pretend
not to know it again. It was no face to lend its
countenance to any confusion of persons in a Comedy of
Errors. You might have sworn to it piecemeal,--a separate
affidavit for every feature. In short his face was as
original as his figure; his figure as his character; his
character as his writings; his writings the most original of
the age. After the literary business had been settled, the
Editor invited his contributor to dinner, adding "we shall
have a hare"--

"And--and--and--and many friends?"

The hesitation in the speech, and the readiness of the
allusion were alike characteristic of the individual, who
his familiars will perchance have recognized already as the
delightful Essayist, the capital Critic, the pleasant Wit
and Humorist, the delicate-minded and large-hearted Charles
Lamb!

This gives us at once something of a glimpse of Lamb as he appeared to
the eyes of his contemporaries, and an indication of the impression
which his genius had made on another man of genius. With his Elia
essays he may be said to have crowned his achievements in the eyes of
those who knew him, and, in fact, his active work, or that part of it
which counts, may be said to have ended with the production of these
essays, which he wrote at first for the "London," and occasionally
later for other periodicals.

In