The Lambs. By William Carew Hazlitt. (E. Mathews.)—Mr. Hazlitt has
taken a world of pains in hunting out the "new particulars and new material" which have been collected in this volume. We can easily imagine that the search has been a great pleasure. Such work is Mr. Hazlitt's delight, and he follows it with success. When we come to consider the intrinsic value of what has been discovered, we cannot speak so confidently. We do not feel that we know much more than before of Charles Lamb and his sister. It is a negative pleasure not to find a syllable that lowers our opinion of him. The thing that, after going through the volume, remained most impressed on the mind was the Philistinism of the dignified official in the East India House, who could not understand why people should make such a fuss about a man who never rose to receive more than .5500 a year.
We would not be understood as disparaging Mr. Hazlitt's labours.
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