In the sketch of Lamb we said that his character was very strongly reflected in his writings, and this essay shows the fact wonderfully well. Imagine the man, lonely, heartbroken, weary from the awful task he had set himself, sitting in his bachelor armchair by the fire, dreaming his evening away. Who are the people that come to him in his dreams and what are the incidents? First his grandmother Field, with whom he had spent a great deal of his childhood; then his sweetheart Alice, now married to another, with children of her own; then his brother, by no means a pleasing character, but a lazy and selfish man who, however, in the rich, loving heart of his brother stands out as handsome, affectionate, noble and brave. How keenly he feels the bitter loss which comes to him with tenfold severity when he awakens, and which he makes the closing thought in the essay! Lastly, the faithful Mary, unchanged, appears at his side,--his waking companion, his greatest burden and his greatest joy. Besides these evidences of his devoted and affectionate disposition, we find proof of his vivid imagination when as a child he gazes _upon the old busts of the twelve Cæsars that had been emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them_. In his _busy-idle_ amusements at the great house he shows the innocence and simplicity of his pleasures, and in the delicate way in which he reproves Alice and John, his genial, sympathetic disposition as well as his abundant good humor. How much finer it was to say, "_and such-like common baits of children_" than to have said, "John, put the grapes back on the plate." FOOTNOTES: [335-1] Lamb's grandmother, Mary Field, was for a long time housekeeper in one of the great English country houses, but not in the county alluded to in the text. [335-2] This means that the incidents had but lately become familiar to the children. The story is the old one of the _Babes in the Wood_, as it is sometimes called. [335-3] One of Lamb's fancies; the chimney-carving in the real house represented stag and boar hunts. [336-4] Westminster Abbey. [336-5] An imaginary person with a cheap, showy drawing-room. [336-7] The Book of Psalms, or such a portion of it as is used in the services of the English Church. [336-8] New Testament. [338-9] The trees were planted on the south side of the walls, which protected them from the north wind and ripened them by reflected warmth. [338-10] The foliage of the yews is very dark, and because these trees are so often planted about cemeteries they give a hint of sadness to every one. [338-11] The glass house which protected the trees in the winter and hastened the ripening of the fruit in summer. [338-12] A small fish resembling our chub--usually seen in schools in still waters.