In such a house, on such a spot, a man might live, and his life be something more than a weary round of food and sleep. His nature would become subdued to what it rested in: the clay would happily take the shape of the mould. I believe more in the influence of dwellings upon human character, than in the influence of authority on matters of opinion. The man may seek the house; or the house may form the man; but in either case the result is the same. A few yards of earth, even on this side of the grave, will make all the difference between life and death. If our dear old friend Charles Lamb was now alive (and we all must wish he was, if only that he might see how every day is bringing him nearer the crown that belongs only to the Prince of British Essayists), there would be something singularly jarring to the human nerves in finding him at Dalston; but not so jarring in finding him a little farther off, at Hackney. He would still have drawn nourishment in the Temple and in Covent Garden; but he must surely have perished if transplanted to New Tyburnia. I cannot imagine him living at Pentonville (I cannot, in my uninquiring ignorance, imagine who Penton was that he should name a _ville_!), but I can see a certain appropriate oddity in his cottage at Colebrook Row, Islington. In the first place, we may agree that this London suburb is very old, without going into the vexed question of whether it was really very “merry.” In the second place, this same Colebrook Row was built a few years before our dear old friend was born—I believe, in seventeen hundred and seventy. In the third place, it was called a “Row,” though “Lane” or “Walk” would have been as old and as good; but “Terrace” or “Crescent” would have rendered it unbearable. The New River flowed calmly past, the cottage walls—as poor George Dyer found to his cost—bringing with it fair memories of Izaak Walton and the last two centuries. The house itself had also certain peculiarities to recommend it. The door was so constructed that it opened into the chief sitting-room; and this, though promising much annoyance, was really a source of fun and enjoyment to our dear old friend. He was never so delighted as when he stood on the hearthrug receiving many congenial visitors, as they came to him on the muddiest-boot, and the wettest-of-umbrella days. His immediate neighbourhood was also peculiar. It was there that weary wanderers came to seek the waters of oblivion. Suicide could pitch upon no spot so favourable for its sacrifices as the gateway leading into the river enclosure before Charles Lamb’s cottage. Waterloo Bridge had not long been built, and was not then a fashionable theatre for self-destruction. The drags were always kept ready in Colebrook Row, and are still so kept at a small tavern a few doors from the cottage. The landlord’s ear, according to his own account, had become so sensitive by repeated practice, that when aroused at night by