INTRODUCTION
been taken at his own valuation, but it is certain that his self-depreciation and extraordinary modesty do him scant justice. W. S. Landor wrote of him early in their acquaintance, in 1831: "He was a barrister, and notwithstanding, both honest and modest—a character I never heard of before," and this genuine humility is apparent in his estimates of himself. To take two examples as typical of many. His Diary is written in a simple, unassuming, direct style which at first may lead the unwary to ignore this narrative power and unusual gift for reporting conversation, and thereby revealing the character of the speakers. He does not understand Blake; he thinks him indubitably mad. But H. C. R.'s account of his interviews with Blake are the most revealing contemporary interpretations we possess of the mystic poet-painter and his personality. Many people have written well of Lamb, whose lovable self is an inspiration to his critics. But who has said more in a single sentence than H. C. R. has included in the following comment: "Lamb, who needs very little indulgence for himself, is very indulgent towards others"? (June 15, 1815). What force of judgment there is in all his criticisms, and some of these are adverse, on the character of Wordsworth, whom he worshipped this side idolatry as much as any; how well he depicts Coleridge in those "innings-for-one that he called conversation." These character sketches—and the Diary bristles with them, great men and small, poets, statesmen, revolutionaries, criminals in the dock, lawyers on circuit, judges on the bench, chance acquaintances picked up on the road—these are not mere lucky flukes. "True ease in writing comes from art, not chance," and there is the genuine art, which conceals itself,
pursuit of either truth or taste. This he wrote in 1812 — but in 1816 he wrote, after coming to town, that he was convinced that I was not a clever man — the word ' clever ' he had struck out, and softened his remark by substituting the word first-rate. I know myself not to be even a second or third-rate man — I also know that I have neither the wit nor [a] great deal of humour which in 1812 he thought I had."
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