of Cherbury, Gibbon, Franklin, and other eminent men, wrote an
autobiography. It is certainly the briefest, and perhaps the wittiest
and most truthful autobiographical sketch in the language. It was
published in the "New Monthly Magazine" a few months after its author's
death, with the following preface or introduction from the pen of some
unknown admirer of Elia:--

"We have been favored, by the kindness of Mr. Upcott, with the following
sketch, written in one of his manuscript collections, by Charles Lamb.
It will be read with deep interest by all, but with the deepest interest
by those who had the honor and the happiness of knowing the writer. It
is so singularly characteristic, that we can scarcely persuade ourselves
we do not hear it, as we read, spoken from his living lips. Slight as
it is, it conveys the most exquisite and perfect notion of the personal
manner and habits of our friend. For the intellectual rest, we lift the
veil of its noble modesty, and can even here discern them. Mark its
humor, crammed into a few thinking words,--its pathetic sensibility in
the midst of contrast,--its wit, truth, and feeling,--and, above all,
its fanciful retreat at the close under a phantom cloud of death."

CHARLES LAMB'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

"Charles Lamb, born in the Inner Temple, 10th February, 1775; educated
in Christ's Hospital; afterwards a clerk in the Accountants' Office,
East-India House; pensioned off from that service, 1825, after
thirty-three years' service; is now a gentleman at large;--can remember
few specialties in his life worth noting, except that he once caught a
swallow flying (_teste suâ manu_). Below the middle stature; cast of
face slightly Jewish, with no Judaic tinge in his complexional religion;
stammers abominably, and is therefore more apt to discharge his