Charles Lamb had much respect for some of the modern authors. In particular, he admired (to the full extent of his capacity for liking) Coleridge, and Wordsworth, and Burns. But with these exceptions his affections rested mainly on writers who had lived before him; on _some_ of them; for there were "things in books' clothing" from which he turned away loathing. He was not a worshipper of the customs and manners of old times, so much as of the tangible objects that old times have bequeathed to us; the volumes tinged with decay, the buildings (the Temple, Christ's Hospital, &c.) colored and enriched by the hand of age. Apart from these, he clung to the time present; for if he hated anything in the extreme degree, he hated change. He clung to life, although life had bestowed upon him no magnificent gifts; none, indeed, beyond books, and friends (a "ragged regiment"), and an affectionate, contented mind. He had, he confesses, "an intolerable disinclination to dying;" which beset him especially in the winter months. "I am not content to pass away like a weaver's shuttle. Any alteration in this earth of mine discomposes me. My household gods plant a terrible fixed foot, and are not rooted up without blood." He seems never to have looked into the Future. His eyes were on the present or (oftener) on the past. It was always thus from his boyhood. His first readings were principally Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Isaac Walton, &c. "I gather myself up" (he writes) "unto the old things." He has indeed extracted the beauty and innermost value of Antiquity, whenever he has pressed it into his service. CHAPTER II. _Birth and Parentage.--Christ's Hospital.--South Sea House and India House.--Condition of Family.--Death of Mother.--Mary in Asylum.--John Lamb.--Charles's Means of Living.--His Home.--Despondency.--Alice W.-- Brother and Sister._