No one ever so finely commingled poetry and humour as Charles Lamb. In his transparent crystal you are always seeing one colour through another, and he was conscious of the charm of such combinations, for he commends Andrew Marvell for such refinement. His early poems printed with those of Coleridge, his schoolfellow at Christ's Hospital, abounded with pure and tender sentiment, but never arrested the attention of the public. We can find in them no promise of the brilliancy for which he was afterwards so distinguished, except perhaps in his "Farewell to Tobacco," where for a moment he allowed his Pegasus to take a more fantastic flight. "Scent, to match thy rich perfume, Chemic art did ne'er presume, Through her quaint alembic strain, None so sovereign to the brain; Nature that did in thee excel, Framed again no second smell, Roses, violets, but toys For the smaller sort of boys, Or for greener damsels meant, Thou art the only manly scent." But although forbidden to smoke, he still hopes he may be allowed to enjoy a little of the delicious fragrance at a respectful distance-- "And a seat too 'mongst the joys Of the blest Tobacco Boys; Where though I, by sour physician, Am debarred the full fruition Of thy favours, I may catch Some collateral sweets, and snatch Sidelong odours that give life- Like glances from a neighbour's wife, And still live in thee by places And the suburbs of thy graces; And in thy borders take delight, An unconquered Canaanite." His early years brought forth another kind of humour which led to his being appointed jester to the "Morning Post." He was paid at the rate of sixpence a joke, furnished six a day, and depended upon this remuneration for his supplementary livelihood--everything beyond mere bread and cheese. As humour, like wisdom, is found of those who seek her not, we may suppose the quality of these productions was not very good. He thus bemoans his irksome task, which he performed generally before breakfast-- "No Egyptian task-master ever devised a slavery like to that, our slavery. No fractious operants ever turned out for half the tyranny, which this necessity exercised upon us. Half-a-dozen jests in a day, (bating Sundays too,) why, it seems nothing! We make twice the number every day in our lives as a matter of course, and claim no Sabbatical exemptions. But then they come into our head. But when the head has to go out to them--when the mountain must go to Mahomet. Readers, try it for once, only for some short twelvemonth." Lamb, however, only obtained this undesirable appointment by a coincidence he thus relates,--