of his past calling _spiritualized_, rather than from any accurate acquaintance with the Hebrew text, in which report speaks him but a raw scholar. Mr. Elliston, from all that we can learn, has his religion yet to choose; though some think him a Muggletonian." * * * * * Willis, in his "Pencillings by the Way," describing his interview with Charles and Mary Lamb, says,--"Nothing could be more delightful than the kindness and affection between the brother and the sister, though Lamb was continually taking advantage of her deafness to mystify her with the most singular gravity upon every topic that was started. 'Poor Mary!' said he, 'she hears all of an epigram but the point.' 'What are you saying of me, Charles?' she asked. 'Mr. Willis,' said he, raising his voice, 'admires _your_ "Confessions of a Drunkard" very much, and I was saying it was no merit of yours that you understood the subject.' We had been speaking of this admirable essay (which is his own) half an hour before." That essay has been strangely and purposely misunderstood. Elia, albeit he loved the cheerful glass, was not a drunkard. The "poor nameless egotist" of the Confessions is not Charles Lamb. In printing the article in the "London Magazine," (it was originally contributed to a collection of tracts published by Basil Montagu,) Elia introduced it to the readers of that periodical in the following explanatory paragraphs. They should be printed in all editions of Elia as a note to the article they explain and comment on. For many persons, like a writer in the London "Quarterly Review" for July, 1822, believe, or profess to believe, that this "fearful picture of the consequences of intemperance" is a true tale. "How far it was from actual truth," says Talfourd, "the essays of Elia, the production of a later day, in which the maturity of his feeling, humor, and reason is exhibited, may sufficiently show." ELIA ON HIS "CONFESSIONS OF A DRUNKARD."