itself nor was puffed up. And as we watch its daily manifestations, never asking for the world's recognition, never thinking it had done enough, or could do enough, for its beloved object, we may well reckon it large enough to cover a greater multitude of frailties than those we are able to detect in the life of Charles Lamb.

HOW I TRACED CHARLES LAMB IN

HERTFORDSHIRE

SINCE the day, in 1882, when I published my first memoir of Lamb in the "Men of Letters" Series, I have had many invitations to speak of him. But, especially after editing Lamb's writings, with the many prefaces and notes thereto appropriate, I have always felt and pleaded that, for better or worse, I had said my say about Lamb, and that those who loved that most lovable of writers knew by this time. all that I thought and felt about him, and that in a lecture I should be only going over old ground. But when this latest application came to me, made in the most flattering terms, I bethought me of one very interesting day in my life, connected with the work which Mr. John Morley first encouraged me to undertake for the Series he edited-a day, the details of which I had never yet imparted in print or in lecturethe day on which I first visited that village and its surroundings in "pleasant Hertfordshire" with which Lamb's childhood, and indeed his youth

and early manhood, were so closely bound up— and, visiting them, was thrown into most unexpected touch with persons not remotely connected with Lamb's early history. Now there are many characters in literature concerning whom I should hesitate to confess my enthusiasm for such details as I am going to communicate this evening. But it is otherwise with Charles Lamb. In the first place, you invited me to speak about him, and this in itself tells me that there is an audience in this neighbourhood interested to hear even something more about him than I have necessarily supplied in annotating his works. In the next place, I have noticed (and it is an almost unique bond uniting the readers of Charles Lamb) that those who love him do not love him (as the saying goes) "by halves," but are content to be fanatical in their attachment, and not to be ashamed of it! And in that light I propose to regard you this evening as sharers in this fanaticism with myself so that I shall not fear your scorn at the end for having been a "chronicler" of too "small beer"; or your contemptuous criticism that "little things are great to little men." What I may indeed feel that I have to fear is a charge of egotism; for, from the nature of the case, I shall have to tell you a good deal about myself. But I know I shall have, in any case, your kind indulgence.

When first I was asked to contribute the

volume on Lamb to the " Men of Letters" Series, it was because (I may be allowed to say) that writer was known to be a favourite of mine, and that the labour would indeed be a labour of love. I had indeed read and delighted in him from my childhood almost, long before, of course, I could appreciate a tithe of his humour and his critical power. When I thus became intimate with him, the sole guide and clue to his career and character, apart from his own writings, was in the well-known Memoirs by Talfourd, the Life and Letters, and the Final Memorials that followed. And when I had undertaken the task of telling Lamb's story afresh, it became my duty to endeavour to supplement Talfourd's work by any and every fresh light that I could discover upon portions of Lamb's history which Talfourd had passed lightly over. And such portions belonged to the childhood and youth of Lamb. From the time he came of age his history is told for us by himself-in his letters and in his essays— with a fulness that leaves little for the acute

reader to seek elsewhere. I say advisedly the acute reader, for Lamb's love of practical joking and of gratuitous mystification have often put the seeker upon wrong scents. The first anxiety, then, that I had was to arrive at facts. about Lamb's earlier years, and especially his connection with Hertfordshire. As to his school days at Christ's Hospital-he has himself, in

two famous essays, told us everything; but as to his holiday seasons, which he spent with his grandmother in the country; as to the countryhouse which he denominated "Blakesmoor"; as to the allusions scattered through his writings to a certain fair-haired maid whom he had loved in those youthful days-loved, but failed to winover all this there hung a mist of uncertainty and perplexity which Talfourd had not the will or the means to disperse. Doubtless he had not the means; for when he made Lamb's acquaintance he was young, and Lamb was not one who cared to discuss with his friends a past that was to him full of sorrows. Hence one looks in vain in Talfourd's pages for any definite information about the incidents of Lamb's life, or about his family relationships, other than those which were to be found in letters and essays. He tells us indeed that Lamb's grandmother was housekeeper to the Plumers in Hertfordshire, but does not mention where the house was; he mentions briefly "a youthful passion" of Lamb's which inspired a few sonnets of delicate feeling, but that is all. To find out if possible, therefore, something more about Lamb in Hertfordshire became my immediate duty.

Now if Talfourd had been the only available source of information, it is likely that I might have followed up the clues he supplies very quickly, and to a successful issue. The family of the Plumers, the name Blakesmoor, any