The Dramatic Essays of Charles Lamb. With a Preface by
Brander Matthews. (Chatto and Windus.)—Mr. Matthews has a good appreciation of Lamb. and expresses it neatly and well. We do not see so much similarity as he seems to do between Lamb's humour and the American type of that faculty. But as this is the highest praise which Mr. Matthews can devise for a writer whom he admires, we need not quarrel with it. Be adds some interesting particulars about the dramatic history of Mr. H—. Brought out here in December, 1806, and, as every one knows, most unequivocally damned, it was produced in New York in the March of the following year, and again at Philadelphia in 1812. Mr. W. B. Wood, who acted the principal part, says in his "Personal Recollections" (published in 1854) : "Charles Lamb's excellent farce of Mr. H. met with extraordinary success, and was acted an unusual number of nights." It is a curious thing that no one ever thought it worth while to inform the author of the event. Possibly our friends on the other side were not then quite as hardened in the matter of literary " conveyance " as they afterwards became, and were positively ashamed.
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