Ebook The Works of Charles Lamb

The share of the editor, in these volumes can scarcely be regarded too slightly. The successive publications of Lamb's works form almost the only events of his life which can be recorded; and upon these criticism has been nearly exhausted. Little, therefore, was necessary to accompany the letters, except such thread of narrative as might connect them together, and such explanations as might render their allusions generally understood. The reader's gratitude for the pleasure which he will derive from these memorials of one of the most delightful of English writers, is wholly due to his correspondents, who have kindly intrusted the precious relics'to the care of the editor, and have ermittedthem to be given to the world; and to Mr. Nfoxon, by whose interest and zeal they have been chie?y collected. He may be allowed to express his personal sense of the honour which he has re ceived in such trust from men, some of whom are among the greatest of England's living authors to Wordsworth, Southey, Mannin Barton, Procter, Gilman, Patmore, 'walter Wilson, Field, Robinson, Dyer, Carey, Ains worth, to Mr. Green, the executor of Coleridge, and to the surviving relatives of Hazlitt. He is also most grate ful to Lamb's esteemed schoolfellow, Mr. Le Grice, for supplying an interesting part of his history, and to Mr. Montague and Miss Beetham for the remembered sr atches of his conversation which accompany the closing chapter. Of the few additional facts of Lamb's history, the chief have been supplied by Mr. Moxon, in whose welfare he took a most affectionate interest to the close of his life, and who has devoted some beautiful sonnets to his memory.