tion, words are used in their legitimate office. They are so grouped as to give the best picture of the actual state of the writer. True, when one writes to a distant friend the news may become stale and the facts untrue by the time the letter reaches the correspondent, yet the epistle still remains a correct exponent of the state of things at its date, which no changes in after times can render false. Years after the writer is dead, when the reader finds his letters in the biography, he welcomes them as just as correct and timely intelligence from his hero, as if the slow mails had brought him an epistle a little out of due time.

Lamb as a letter-writer might be made the subject of a long article. His letters were not written as drudgery, nor were they tortured from him by a conscience upbraiding him for the long time suffered to elapse since his correspondent's last favor. They were the expressions of a heart seeking after sympathy-of a mind aspiring after appropriate companionship. His business threw him into the society of persons with whom he could not sympathize, "I have not," said he in an early letter," one truly elevated character among my acquaintance, not one but undervalues Christianity. I gain nothing by being with such myself. We encourage one another in mediocrity." At another time he wrote of himself: "Slow of speech, and reserved of manner, no one seeks or cares for my society, and I am left alone."

He found relief in correspondence with Coleridge. Gradually other names were added to the list of correspondents, which comprised such men as Southey, Wordsworth, and Hazlitt. This correspondence presents a pleasing literary history of the times, and is deeply interesting, as giving a view behind the scenes, where were held the rehearsals for those great productions which have won the attention of the world.

Lamb had other correspondents of less note, whose chief honor in the literary world is that of being named as the recipients of such excellent letters. The epistles addressed to these are, if possible, more interesting than those to his more celebrated friends. There is the same depth of good feeling, the same brilliancy of thought, the same playfulness of humor, with more direct address, and more liberty of speech. To Mr. Manning he writes thus:

"While I think of it let me tell you we are moved. Don't come any more to Mitre-Court Buildings. We are at 34 Southampton Buildings, Chancerylane, and shall be here till about the end of May, then we remove to No. 4 Inner Temple-lane, where I mean to live and die; for I have such a horror of moving that I would not take a benefice from a king if I was not indulged with nonresidence. What a dislocation of comfort is comprised in that word moving! Such a heap of little nasty things after you think all is got into the cart; old FOURTH SERIES, VOL. X.-38

dredging-boxes, worn-out brushes, gallipots, vials, things that it is impossible the most necessitous person can ever want, but which the women, who preside on these occasions, will not leave behind if it was to save your soul; they'd keep the cart ten minutes to store in dirty pipes and broken matches to show their economy. Then you can find nothing you want for many days after you get into your new lodgings. You must comb your hair with your fingers, wash your hands without soap, go about in dirty gaiters. Was I Diogenes, I would not move out of a kilderkin into a hogshead, though the first had nothing but small beer in it, and the second reeked claret!"

Lamb's letters are free from formality and affectation. They are far from being formed on the models found in the "Complete LetterWriter." The circumstances of the moment, the taste of the writer, and the character of the correspondent, determined the form and style of the letter. Lamb had no stereotype plates for his letters, and on this account they are more worthy of such apparatus now that their author will make no more changes in them, now that they are attracting the attention of readers in both hemispheres, who will repeatedly call for new editions.

Lamb wrote poetry, but his poems are neither numerous nor widely known. He was not endowed with the highest order of poetic genius. In the power of invention and execution he was inferior to his correspondent the author of the "Ancient Mariner." He had no Byronic fury in his style. He fully sympathized with his friends the "Lake Poets," but never aspired to a name among them. He wrote no poem that at once found access to the hearts of men, becoming an indispensable part of the world's current literature. The subjects on which Lamb wrote poetry were trivial. They are seldom of any public interest. He had an abhorrence for Albums, and did not hesitate to express it, yet he could not refuse his fair friends. Album verses occupy a large part of the table

of contents.

Lamb published his first poems in a small volume with those of his friends Coleridge and Lloyd. His motive was thus expressed:

"I want them printed to get rid of them; for while they stick, bur-like, to my memory, they tempt me to go on with the idle trade of versifying, which I long, most sincerely I speak it, I long to leave off, for it is unprofitable to my soul; I feel it is; and these questions about words, and debates about alterations, take me off, I am conscious, from the proper business of my life."

A peculiarity of these poems is brought to view in the following extract from one of his letters:

"Cultivate simplicity, Coleridge, or rather, I should say, banish elaborateness, for simplicity springs spontaneous from the heart, and carries into daylight with its own modest buds, and genuine sweet and clear flowers of expression. I allow no hotbeds in the garden of Parnassus."

Many of Lamb's poems are very touching and effective. They

steal quietly into the heart, fix the attention, and enlist the sympathies. The following, which are the closing lines of a little poem on the death of a young Quakeress, never fail to arrest the reader's attention. He stops to read them again and again, and dwell on their singular sweetness:

"My sprightly neighbour, gone before

To that unknown and silent shore,
Shall we not meet, as heretofore,
Some summer morning,

"When from thy cheerful eyes a ray
Hath struck a bliss upon the day,
A bliss that would not go away,

A sweet forewarning?"

Sometimes in his sonnets the reader finds a broad, deep thought expressed with great felicity, as the following:

"Tis man's worst deed

To let the things that have been' run to waste

And in the unmeaning present sink the past.”

Lamb's greatest and best productions are his Essays, written with the celebrated signature of " Elia." Here he has distinguishing excellence. The style is evidently formed on that of the old authors, yet it has all the originality and freshness necessary to the time in which he wrote. The author passes and repasses over all the steps from deep sadness to the utmost gayety. The humorous predominates, yet no buffoon ever makes his appearance on the stage. We see only the good-natured man, with eyes open to behold all things passing about him, with a word of encouragement to the unappreciated good, with a tear of sympathy for the afflicted, a smile of approbation for the well-doing, and a good-humored laugh for whatever fault or folly deserves such salutation. How delicately are pleasantry and pity commingled in the extract we give from "A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars in the Metropolis!"

"Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the beggar's robes, and graceful insignia of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the suit in which he is expected to show himself in public. He is never out of fashion, or limpeth awkwardly behind it. He is not required to put on court mourning. He weareth all colors, fearing none. His costume has undergone less change than the Quaker's. He is the only man in the universe who is not obliged to study appearances. The ups and downs of the world concern him no longer. He alone continueth in one stay. The price of stock or land affecteth him not. The fluctuations of agricultural or commercial prosperity touch him not, or at worst but change his customers. He is not expected to become bail or surety for any one. No man troubleth him with questioning his religion or politics. He is the only free man in the universe."

Lamb is apparent in all he wrote as having no sympathy with hypocrisy and falsehood. When a little boy, as he and his sister

were wandering through the churchyard, reading the eulogistic epitaphs, he stopped suddenly and asked, "Where do the naughty people lie?" This question contained a pointed criticism on the insincerity of indiscriminate praise. The same spirit obtained wider and more emphatic utterance in after years when he wielded the essayist's pen. He did not set himself up as the censor of society; he was by no means a cynic or a grumbler, yet he never feared to speak manfully and freely in favor of the truth.

Lamb did not draw so largely on the field of imagination as on that of experience, over which thoughts were led by a sprightly fancy. There is practical philosophy as well as frankly expressed personal experience in this:

"Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, never feels practically that he is mortal. He knows it, indeed, and if need were, could preach a homily on the fragility of life; but he brings it not home to himself, any more than in a hot June we can appropriate to our imaginations the freezing days of December. But now, shall I confess a truth? I feel these audits but too powerfully. I begin to count the probabilities of my duration, and to grudge at the expenditure of moments and shortest periods, like miser's farthings. In proportion as the years both lessen and shorten, I set more count upon their periods, and would fain lay my ineffectual finger upon the spoke of the great wheel. I am not content to pass away like a weaver's shuttle.' Those metaphors solace me not, nor sweeten the unpalatable draught of mortality. I care not to be carried with the tide that smoothly bears human life to eternity; and reluct at the inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with this green earth; the face of town and country; the unspeakable rural solitudes, and the sweet security of streets. I would set up my tabernacle here; I am content to stand still at the age to which I am arrived-I and my friends: to be no younger, no richer, no handsomer. Any alteration on this earth of mine, in diet or in lodging, puzzles and discomposes me. My household gods plant a terrible fixed foot, and are not rooted up without blood. They do not willingly leave Lavinian shores."

Lamb had no profound religious experience. In their youth he and Coleridge were zealous Unitarians, and ardent admirers of Dr. Priestley. In later years they grew up to a perception of their error, and embraced the great and fundamental doctrine of the Trinity.

Coleridge having written to his friend, "You are a temporary sharer in human misery that you may be an eternal partaker in the Divine nature," Lamb gently expostulated with him, and wrote thus:

"Man, full of imperfections at best, and subject to wants that momentarily remind him of dependence; man, a weak and ignorant being, 'servile ' from his birth to all the 'skiey influences,' with eyes sometimes open to discern the right path, but a head generally too dizzy to pursue it; man, in the pride of speculation, forgetting his nature, and hailing himself the future God, must make the angels laugh. Be not angry with me, Coleridge, I only wish to remind you of that humility which best becometh the Christian character."

Lamb's humility arose from a careful and correct view of himself and his failings. Here he was almost a Christian. A step further would have admitted him to the richest experiences of Christianity. "My former calamities," said he in an early letter, "have produced in me a spirit of humility and a spirit of prayer. I want more religion." He did not, however, make those attainments in Christian life for which such sentiments gave grounds to hope. The reason may be discovered in his lack of religious society. None of those with whom his circumstances brought him in daily contact, were spiritually minded. He wrote thus to Coleridge: "Wesley, (have you read his life?) was he not an elevated character? Wesley has said, 'Religion is not a solitary thing.' Alas! it is necessarily so with me, or next to solitary."

When Christians cause their religion to have so small a place in their daily business and conversation, it cannot be urged seriously against the essayist that he does not directly inculcate religion. It seems obtaining a good result if not a word is written which can be construed against the great cause of Christ.

The secular press, and merely literary men, take no lead in the ways of religion. Their status in this respect is determined by the condition of society. In times of indifference and infidelity the literary essay carefully excludes all words that would betray a Gallilean origin, if it goes not with Peter to the length of denying all knowledge of Christ. When society is careless the political newspaper has no room for religious intelligence; but when the minds of all are aroused on the momentous question, and there is a spirit of revival throughout the land, column after column is devoted to "The Great Awakening."

As society takes step after step in the great work of purification and transformation, polite literature, as well as all arts and sciences, will become more spiritual, and will stand forth as handmaids to Christianity.

ART. VI.-WYOMING.

Wyoming; its History, Stirring Incidents, and Romantic Adventures. By GEORGE PECK, D.D. With Illustrations. 12mo., pp. 430. New-York: Harper &

Brothers. 1858.

WYOMING is the Arcadia of America. It sustains almost as classic a relation to these Northern States as that pastoral province did to the ancient Peloponessus. A more profoundly interesting spot is scarcely to be found on the face of the whole land. The name is understood