The boy's education began at Christ's Hospital, where he met Coleridge and entered with him into a lifelong friendship. At fifteen he left school to help support his family; and for the next thirty-three years he was a clerk, first in the South Sea House, then in the East India Company. Rather late in life he began to write, his prime object being to earn a little extra money, which he sadly needed. Then the Company, influenced partly by his faithful service and partly by his growing reputation, retired him on a pension. Most eagerly, like a boy out of school, he welcomed his release, intending to do great things with his pen; but curiously enough he wrote less, and less excellently, than before. His decline began with his hour of liberty. For a time, in order that his invalid sister might have quiet, he lived outside the city, at Islington and Enfield; but he missed the work, the street, the crowd, and especially did he miss his old habits. He had no feeling for nature, nor for any art except that which he found in old books. "I hate the country," he wrote; and the cause of his dislike was that, not knowing what to do with himself, he grew weary of a day that was "all day long." [Illustration: EAST INDIA HOUSE, LONDON Where Charles Lamb worked for many years. From an engraving by M. Tombleson, after a drawing made by Thomas H Shepherd in 1829] The earlier works of Lamb (some poems, a romance and a drama) are of little interest except to critics. The first book that brought him any considerable recognition was the _Tales from Shakespeare_. This was a summary of the stories used by Shakespeare in his plays, and was largely the work of Mary Lamb, who had a talent for writing children's books. The charm of the _Tales_ lies in the fact that the Lambs were so familiar with old literature that they reproduced the stories in a style which might have done credit to a writer in the days of Elizabeth. The book is still widely read, and is as good as any other if one wants that kind of book. But the chief thing in _Macbeth_ or _The Tempest_ is the poetry, not the tale or the plot; and even if one wants only the story, why not get it from Shakespeare himself? Another and better book by Lamb of the same general kind is _Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Contemporary with Shakespeare_. In this book he saves us a deal of unprofitable reading by gathering together the best of the Elizabethan dramas, to which he adds some admirable notes of criticism or interpretation. [Illustration: MARY LAMB After the portrait by F. S. Cary] [Sidenote: ESSAYS OF ELIA]