by seizures like those of Turner and Morland. On one occasion he
remained in a state of drunkenness for six weeks; and it is a wonder
that his marvellous mind retained its freshness at all after the poison
had passed from amid the delicate tissues of the brain. He conquered
himself at last; but I fear that his health was impaired by his few mad
outbursts. Charles Lamb, who is dear to us all, reduced himself to a
pitiable state by giving way to outbreaks of alcoholic craving. When
Carlyle saw him, the unhappy essayist was semi-imbecile from the effects
of drink; and the savage Scotsman wrote some cruel words which will
unfortunately cleave to Lamb's cherished memory for long. Lamb fought
against his failing; he suffered agonies of remorse; he bitterly blamed
himself for "buying days of misery by nights of madness;" but the sweet
soul was enchained, and no struggles availed to work a blessed
transformation. Read his "Confessions of a Drunkard." It is the most
awful chapter in English literature, for it is written out of the agony
of a pure and well-meaning mind, and its tortured phrases seem to cry
out from the page that holds their misery. We are placed face to face
with a dread aspect of life, and the remorseless artist paints his own
pitiable case as though he longed to save his fellow-creatures even at
the expense of his own self-abasement. All these afflicted creatures
sought the wrong remedy for the exhaustion and the nameless craving that
beset them when they were spent with toil. The periodic drinker takes
his dive into the sensual mud-bath just at the times when eager exertion
has brought on lassitude of body and mind. He begins by timidly drinking
a little of the deleterious stuff, and he finds that his mental images
grow bright and pleasant. A moment comes to him when he would not change
places with the princes of the earth, and he endeavours to make that
moment last long. He fails, and only succeeds in dropping into
drunkenness. On the morning after his first day he feels depressed; but
his biliary processes are undisturbed, and he is able to begin again