vi INTRODUCTION.
volumes in the fifth number of the Etonian, in 1821, does not hesitate to declare that "Charles Lamb writes the best, the purest, and most genuine English of any man living," and adds the following acute remark:—"For genuine Anglicism, which amongst all other essentials of excellence in our native literature, is now recovering itself from the leaden mace of the Rambler, he is quite a study; his prose is absolutely perfect, it conveys thought, without smothering it in blankets." Lamb was indeed to do more than any man of his time to remove the Johnsonian incubus from our periodical literature. But the full scope of the writer's powers was not known, perhaps even to himself, till the opportunity afforded him by the establishment of the London Magazine in 1820. It did credit to the discernment of the editors of that publication, that no control seems to have been exercised over the matter or manner of Lamb's contributions. The writer had not to see all that made the individuality of his style disappear under the editor's hand, as his review of the Excursion in the Quarterly had suffered under Gifford's. To "wander at its own sweet will" was the first necessity of Lamb's genius. And this miscellaneousness of subject and treatment is the first surprise and delight felt by the reader of Lamb. It seems as if the choice of subject came to him almost at haphazard,—as if, like Shakspeare, he found the first plot that came to hand suitable, because the hand that was to deal with it was absolutely secure of its power to transmute the most unpromising material into gold. Roast Pig, The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers, A Bachelor's Complaint of the Conduct of Married People, Grace before Meat—the incongruity of the titles at once declares the humorist's confidence in the certainty of his touch. To have been commonplace on such topics would have been certain failure.
In the Character of the late Elia, by a Friend, which Lamb wrote in the interval between the publication of the first and second series of essays, he hits off
