of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice call Bartram father, we are nothingless than nothing and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe, millions of ages, before we have existence and a name; and immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my arm-chair-where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget unchanged by my side." Lamb was not deep-thoughted; he would have lost the trail in those meditations and searchings to which Coleridge in his cooler and clearer moments invited and led the way; but there was about him an individuality, a delicacy of thought, a quaint play of airy fancies, a beguiling inconsequence, that have made his path in letters a delightful one for thousands to follow. I cannot leave his name without calling attention to the charming little stories of Mrs. Leicester's School-written by Charles Lamb and his sister jointly. They are—or profess to be the tales told by school children themselves of their memories-whether sorrows or joys; and are so artless in their narrative, so pathetic often, that you cannot help but follow the trend of their simple language as you would follow a story which an older sister might tell you about your own homes and your own father and mother. Those essays of Lamb may sometimes show a liking for things we cannot like; in his dealings with the old dramatists he may pour chirrupy praises where we cannot follow with ours. We may not be won over, though we see Marston through those pitiful eyes and the lens of that always tender heart. And why should we? That criticism is not the best which serves to put us in agreeing herds, and to leash us in a bundled cohesion of opinion; but it is better worth if it stimulate us by putting beside our individuality of outlook the warming or the chafing or the contesting individuality of another mind. There is never a time when Lamb's generous, kindly, witty opinions-whether about men or books, or every-day topics-will not find a great company of delighted readers, if not of ardent sponsors. Then, for style-what is to be said, except that it is so gracious, so winning, we are delighted with its flow, its cadences, its surprises, its charming lapses— like waves on summer beaches-or like an August brook, prattling, babbling, and finding spread and pause in some pellucid, overshadowed pool-where we rest in fulness of summery content. He was never a strong man physically, and his poor thin form vanished from the sight of men in 1834, six months after Coleridge died; and the poor sister—unaware what helplessness and loneliness had fallen on her, lingered for years in blessed ignorance; she then died; and so we turn over that page of English letters on which are scored Elia and the Tales of Shakespeare and pass to others. WORDSWORTH ON the 29th day of June, just half a century ago, upon a beautiful sunny afternoon-most rare in the Lake Counties of England—I had one of the outside places upon an English coach, which was making its daily trip from Kendal, along the borders of Lake Windermere, and on by Grasmere and under the flank of Helvellyn, to Derwent-Water and Keswick. I stopped halfway at the good inn of the "Salutation" in Ambleside, with the blue of Windermere stretching before me; and in the twilight took a row upon the lake-the surface being scarce ruffled, and the shores, with their copses of wood, and their slopes of green lawn, as beautiful as a dream. "I dipped my oars into the silent lake, Went heaving thro' the water like a swan.” The words were Wordsworth's1 own; and this was his country; and he who was counted the King-poet in those College Days which were not then long behind me, was living only a little way off. From different points in the embowered roads I could catch a glimpse of the light in his window, at Rydal Mount. Stratford had been seen indeed, but there were only memories there; and Abbotsford, but Scott and the last of his family were gone; and Olney, but Cowper had been silent a matter of forty years; and here, at last, I was to come into near presence of one of the living magicians of English verse-in his own lair, with his mountains and his lakes around him. But I did not interview him: no thought of such audacity came nigh me; there was more modesty in those days than now. Yet it has 1 William Wordsworth, b. 1770; d. 1850. Evening Walk published 1793; Lyrical Ballads (in conjunction with Coleridge), 1798; Excursion, 1814; White Doe of Rylstone, 1815; first collected edition of poems, 183637; Life by W. H. Myers; a much fuller, but somewhat muddled one, by William Knight, 3 vols., 8vo, 1889. Dowden's edition of Wordsworth's poems (Aldine Series) is latest and best. occurred to me since-with some relentingsthat I might have won a look of benediction from the old man of seventy-five, if I had sought his door, and told him-as I might truthfully have done that within a twelvemonth of their issue his beautiful sextette of "Moxon" volumes were lying, thumb-worn, on my desk, in a far-off New England collegeroom; and that within the month I had wandered up the Valley of the Wye, with his Tintern Abbey pulsing in my thought more stirringly than the ivy-leaves that wrapped the ruin; and that only the week before I had followed lovingly his White Doe of Rylstone along the picturesque borders of Wharfdale, and across the grassy glades of Bolton Priory and among the splintered ledges "Where Rylstone Brook with Wharf is blended." Poets love to know that they have laid such trail for even the youngest of followers; and though the personal benedictions were missed, I did go around next morning-being Sunday -to the little chapel on the heights of Rydal, where he was to worship; and from my seat saw him enter; knowing him on the instant; tall (to my seeming), erect, yet with step somewhat shaky; his coat closely buttoned; his air |