"To 'Indagator,' 'Investigator, 'Incertus,' and the rest of the pack,
that are so importunate about the true localities of his birth,--as if,
forsooth, Elia were presently about to be passed to his parish,--to all
such church-warden critics he answereth, that, any explanation here
given notwithstanding, he hath not so fixed his nativity (like a rusty
vane) to one dull spot, but that, if he seeth occasion, or the argument
shall demand it, he will be born again, in future papers, in whatever
place, and at whatever period, shall seem good unto him,--

"'Modò me Thebis, modò Athenis.'

"ELIA."

* * * * *

Lamb excels as a critic. His article on Hogarth is a masterly specimen
of acute and subtile criticism. Hazlitt says it ought to be read by
every lover of Hogarth and English genius. His paper on "The Tragedies
of Shakspeare, considered with Reference to their Fitness for
Stage-Representation," is, in the opinion of good judges, the noblest
criticism ever written. The brief, "matterful" notes to his Specimens of
the Old English Dramatists are the very quintessence of criticism,--the
flower and fruit of years of thoughtful reading of the old English
drama. Nay, even his incidental allusions to his favorite old poets and
prose-writers are worth whole pages of ordinary criticism.

Therefore I do not see what reason or excuse Talfourd could have for not
publishing the critical paper on De Foe's Secondary Novels, which Lamb
contributed to Walter Wilson's Life of De Foe. The author of "Robinson