"
And after listening to the stout, brawny, two-fisted, whole-soled,
big-hearted, large-brained Parson A----, as he talked in his wise and
winsome manner about Charles Lamed and his writings, I could not refrain
from forthwith procuring and reading Elia's famous and immortal essays.
Since then I have been a constant reader of Elia, and a most zealous
admirer of Charles Lamb the author and Charles Lamb the man. Thackeray,
you remember, somewhere mentions a youthful admirer of Dickens, who,
when she is happy, reads "Nicholas Nickleby,"--when she is unhappy,
reads "Nicholas Nickleby,"--when she is in bed, reads "Nicholas
Nickleby,"--when she has nothing to do, reads "Nicholas Nickleby,"--and
when she has finished the book, reads "Nicholas Nickleby": and so do I
read and re-read the essays and letters of Charles Lamb; and the oftener
I read them, the better I like then, the higher I value them. Indeed, I
live upon the essays of Elia, as Hazlitt did upon "Tristram Shandy," as
a sort of food that simulates with my natural disposition.
And yet, despite all my love and admiration of Charles Lamb,--nay,
rather in consequence of it,--I must blame him of what Mr. Barron Field
was please to eulogize him for,--writing so little. Undoubtedly in most
authors suppression in writing would be a virtue.
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