"Confessions of a Drunkard" and "Popular Fallacies" complete the tale of the "Essays of Elia" that were collected into volume form as such. The first-named essay had been issued originally in 1813. It is an attempt to set forth from a drunkard's point of view the evils of drunkenness, and was first published in a periodical with a purpose over twenty years before its inclusion in the second edition of the "Last Essays of Elia." To accentuate the fact that it was purely a literary performance--an attempt to project himself into the mind of a drunkard willing to allow others to profit by his example--Lamb reprinted it in the "London Magazine" as one of his ordinary contributions. There have not been wanting matter-of-fact people (with whom our Elia has recorded his imperfect sympathy) who have accepted this essay as pure biography; because details tally with the author's life they think the whole must do so. We have but to follow the story of Lamb's life with understanding to realize how wrong is this impression. The closing dozen of essays in brief, grouped under the title of "Popular Fallacies," discuss certain familiar axioms and show them--in the light of fun and fancy--to be wholly fallacious. Such is the variety of those two volumes which by common consent--by popular appreciation and by critical judgement--have their place as Lamb's most characteristic work. Throughout both series we find delicate unconventionality, the same choice of subjects from among the simplest suggestions of everyday life, lifted by his method of treatment, his manner of looking at and treating things, out of the sphere of every day into that of all days. However simple may be the subject chosen it is always made peculiarly his own. HIS STYLE