3 kindest of boys and men, since Co-grammar-master (and inseparable companion) with Dr. Te.1 What an edifying spectacle did this brace of friends present to those who remembered the anti-socialities of their predecessors! - You never met the one by chance in the street without a wonder, which was quickly dissipated by the almost immediate sub-appearance of the other. Generally arm in arm, these kindly coadjutors lightened for each other the toilsome duties of their profession, and when, in advanced age, one found it convenient to retire, the other was not long in discovering that it suited him to lay down the fasces 2 also. Oh, it is pleasant, as it is rare, to find the same arm linked in yours at forty, which at thirteen helped it to turn over the Cicero De Amicitia, or some tale of Antique Friendship, which the young heart even then was burning to anticipate! - Co-Grecian with S. was Th, who has since executed with ability various diplomatic functions at the Northern courts. Th― was a tall, dark, saturnine youth, sparing of speech, with raven locks. Thomas Fanshaw Middleton followed him (now Bishop of Calcutta), a scholar and a gentleman in his teens. He has the reputation of an excellent critic; and is author (besides the Country Spectator) of a Treatise on the Greek Article, against Sharpe. M. is said to bear his mitre high in India, where the regni novitas 1 (I dare say) sufficiently justifies the bearing. A humility quite as primitive as that of Jewel or Hooker 5 might not be exactly fitted to impress the minds of those AngloAsiatic diocesans with a reverence for home institutions, and the church which those fathers watered. The manners of M. at school, though firm, were mild and unassuming. — Next to M. (if not senior to him) was Richards, author of the "Aboriginal Britons," the most spirited of the Oxford Prize Poems; a pale, studious Grecian. Then followed poor S―, illfated M- !6 of these the Muse is silent. ↑ Trollope. 4 Finding some of Edward's race 2 Symbol of office. Newness of the reign. (Vergil.) 3 Thornton. 5 A bishop of the sixteenth century. The key notes: "Scott, died in Bedlam " [the insane asylum]; "Maunder, dismissed School." Adapted from a poem of Prior's. Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the dayspring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before thee - the dark pillar not yet turned-Samuel Taylor Coleridge Logician, Metaphysician, Bard! - How have I seen the casual passer through the Cloisters stand still, entranced with admiration (while he weighed the disproportion between the speech and the garb of the young Mirandola 1), to hear thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of Jamblichus or Plotinus 2 (for even in those years thou waxedst not pale at such philosophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek, or Pindar while the walls of the old Grey Friars reechoed to the accents of the inspired charity-boy! Many were the "wit-combats" (to dally awhile with the words of old Fuller) between him and C. V. Le G3 "which two I beG- " hold like a Spanish great galleon, and an English man-of-war; Master Coleridge, like the former, was built far higher in learning, solid, but slow in his performances. C. V. L., with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention." 4 Nor shalt thou, their compeer, be quickly forgotten, Allen, with the cordial smile, and still more cordial laugh, with which thou wert wont to make the old Cloisters shake, in thy cognition of some poignant jest of theirs; or the anticipation of some more material, and, peradventure, practical one, of thine own. Extinct are those smiles, with that beautiful countenance, with which (for thou wert the Nireus formosus 5 of the school), in the days of thy maturer waggery, thou didst disarm the wrath of infuriated town-damsel, who, incensed by provoking pinch, turning tigress-like round, suddenly converted by thy angellook, exchanged the half-formed terrible "bl for a gentler greeting - "Bless thy handsome face!" Next follow two who ought to be now alive, and the friends of Elia 6 the junior Le G and F, who, impelled, 1 Pico Mirandola was a leading Italian philosopher of the fifteenth century. 2 "Neo-platonist" philosophers of the fourth and third centuries. 3 Le Grice. Adapted from Fuller's account of the conversations of Ben Jonson and Shake speare. 5 Beautiful Nireus (a character in the Iliad). Favelle. the former by a roving temper, the latter by too quick a sense of neglect―ill capable of enduring the slights poor sizars1 are sometimes subject to in our seats of learning - exchanged their Alma Mater for the camp; perishing, one by climate, and one on the plains of Salamanca: Le G, sanguine, volatile, sweet-natured; F—, dogged, faithful, anticipative of insult, warm-hearted, with something of the old Roman height about him. - Fine, frank-hearted Fr, the present Master of Hertford, with Marmaduke T-,2 mildest of missionaries - - and both my good friends still close the catalogue of Grecians in my time. MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE 1821 [Published in the July number of the London Magazine. "Bridget Elia" is Lamb's sister Mary. The other names (Bruton, Gladman, Field) are real ones, and the Mackery End farmhouse was the home of Lamb's grandmother's sister, Mrs. Gladman.] BRIDGET ELIA has been my housekeeper for many a long year. I have obligations to Bridget, extending beyond the period of memory. We house together, old bachelor and maid, in a sort of double singleness; with such tolerable comfort, upon the whole, that I, for one, find in myself no sort of disposition to go out upon the mountains, with the rash king's offspring," to bewail my celibacy. We agree pretty well in our tastes and habits - yet so as "with a difference." We are generally in harmony, with occasional bickerings as it should be among near relations. Our sympathies are rather understood than expressed; and once, upon my dissembling a tone in my voice more kind than ordinary, my cousin burst into tears, and complained that I was altered. We are both great readers in different directions. While I am hanging over (for the thousandth time) some passage in old Burton, or one of his strange contemporaries, she is abstracted in some modern tale or 1 Poor students, of whom some menial labor was expected. 2 Thompson. Jephthah's daughter; see Judges 11: 38. adventure, whereof our common reading-table is daily fed with assiduously fresh supplies. Narrative teases me. I have little concern in the progress of events. She must have a story — well, ill, or indifferently told - so there be life stirring in it, and plenty of good or evil accidents. The fluctuations of fortune in fiction and almost in real life have ceased to interest, or operate but dully upon me. Out-of-the-way humours and opinions - heads with some diverting twist in them the oddities of authorship please me most. My cousin has a native disrelish of anything that sounds odd or bizarre. Nothing goes down with her, that is quaint, irregular, or out of the road of common sympathy. She "holds Nature more clever." I can pardon her blindness to the beautiful obliquities of the Religio Medici,1 but she must apologize to me for certain disrespectful insinuations, which she has been pleased to throw out latterly, touching the intellectuals of a dear favourite of mine, of the last century but one - the thrice noble, chaste, and virtuous, but again somewhat fantastical and original-brain'd, generous Margaret Newcastle.2 It has been the lot of my cousin, oftener perhaps than I could have wished, to have had for her associates and mine, freethinkers - leaders and disciples of novel philosophics and systems; but she neither wrangles with, nor accepts, their opinions. That which was good and venerable to her, when a child, retains its authority over her mind still. She never juggles or plays tricks with her understanding. We are both of us inclined to be a little too positive; and I have observed the result of our disputes to be almost uniformly this that in matters of fact, dates, and circumstances, it turns out that I was in the right, and my cousin in the wrong. But where we have differed upon moral points, upon something proper to be done, or let alone, — whatever heat of opposition, or steadiness of conviction, I set out with, I am sure always, in the long run, to be brought over to her way of thinking. I must touch upon the foibles of my kinswoman with a gentle hand, for Bridget does not like to be told of her faults. She 1 By Sir Thomas Browne (see page 159). 2 The Duchess of Newcastle (died 1674); see page 85. hath an awkward trick (to say no worse of it) of reading in company: at which times she will answer yes or no to a question without fully understanding its purport- which is provoking, and derogatory in the highest degree to the dignity of the putter of the said question. Her presence of mind is equal to the most pressing trials of life, but will sometimes desert her upon trifling occasions. When the purpose requires it, and is a thing of moment, she can speak to it greatly; but in matters which are not stuff of the conscience, she hath been known sometimes to let slip a word less seasonably. Her education in youth was not much attended to; and she happily missed all that train of female garniture, which passeth by the name of accomplishments. She was tumbled early, by accident or design, into a spacious closet of good old English reading, without much selection or prohibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage. Had I twenty girls, they should be brought up exactly in this fashion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock might not be diminished by it; but I can answer for it, that it makes (if the worst come to the worst) most incomparable old maids. In a season of distress, she is the truest comforter; but in the teasing accidents, and minor perplexities, which do not call out the will to meet them, she sometimes maketh matters worse by an excess of participation. If she does not always divide your trouble, upon the pleasanter occasions of life she is sure always to treble your satisfaction. She is excellent to be at a play with, or upon a visit; but best, when she goes a journey with you. We made an excursion together a few summers since, into Hertfordshire, to beat up the quarters of some of our lessknown relations in that fine corn country. The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End; or Mackarel End, as it is spelt, perhaps more properly, in some old maps of Hertfordshire; a farm-house, - delightfully situated within a gentle walk from Wheathampstead. I can just remember hav ing been there, on a visit to a great-aunt, when I was a child, under the care of Bridget; who, as I have said, is older than myself by some ten years. I wish that I could throw into a heap the remainder of our joint existences, that we might share them in equal division. But that is impossible. The house was at that |