PERSONAL

Grace Aguilar was extremely fond of music; she had been taught the piano from infancy; and, in 1831, commenced the harp. She sang pleasingly, preferred English songs, invariably selecting them for the beauty or sentiment of the words. She was also passionately fond of dancing; and her cheerful, lively manners, in the society of her young friends, would scarcely have led any to imagine how deeply she felt and pondered the serious and solemn subjects

which afterwards formed the labour of her life. She enjoyed all that was innocent; but the sacred feeling of duty always regulated her conduct.-HALE,SARAH JOSEPHA, 1852, Woman's Record, p. 162.

She was a "woman of Israel," truthful, upright, charitable, just and true. We echo the sentiment we read many years ago on her monument: "Let her own works praise her in the gates."-HALL, SAMUEL CARTER, 1883, Retrospect of a Long Life, p. 414.

In person she was not at all the typical Jewess. She had soft but expressive grey eyes, and that brown hair which only wants a touch of gold to make it almost auburn. Above the middle height, she was slender to a degree, imparting an air of fragility -with regular features, and an oval face that easily lighted up. Her voice was clear-toned, though gentle, and her manners were essentially what is understood by ladylike. She was devoted to her parents, and proud of having been entirely educated by them, save for an interval in early childhood, too brief to be worth recording. She was proud, too, of being descended from philosophers, physicians, and statesmen of Spain, although they existed under conditions, difficult to realize or wholly to excuse. Indeed, in

remembering Grace Aguilar, I always think more of her moral elevation than of her genius; so tender was her conscience, so charitable were her judgments, and so

generous her sympathies.- CROSLAND, MRS. NEWTON (CAMILLA TOULMIN), 1893, Landmarks of a Literary Life, pp. 171, 175.

GENERAL

All of these works are highly creditable to the literary taste and talents of the writer; and they have a value beyond what the highest genius could give the stamp of truth, piety, and love, and an earnest desire to do good to her fellowbeings.-HALE, SARAH JOSEPHA, 1852, Woman's Record, p. 162.

All her novels are of a highly sentimental character, and mainly deal with the ordinary incidents of domestic life. Like the rest of her writings, they evince an intensely religious temperament, but one free from sectarian prejudice.— LEE, SIDNEY, 1885, Dictionary of Natural Biography, vol. I, p. 180.

Her "Days of Bruce" is a wonderful production for a girl of little more than twenty; and her romance, "The Martyr, shows how well she was versed in Spanish history. CROSLAND, MRS. NEWTON (CAMILLA TOULMIN), 1893, Landmarks of a Literary Life, p. 173.

In her religious writings Miss Aguilar's attitude was defensive. Despite her almost exclusive intercourse with Christians and her utter lack of prejudice, her purpose, apparently, was to equip English Jewesses with arguments against conversionists. She inveighed against formalism, and laid stress upon knowledge of Jewish history and the Hebrew language. In view of the neglect of the latter by women (to whom she modestly confined her expostulations), she constantly pleaded for the reading of the Scriptures in the English version. Her interest in the reform movement was deep; yet, despite her attitude toward tradition, she observed ritual ordinances punctiliously. Her last work was a sketch of the "History of the Jews in England," written for "Chambers's Miscellany." In

point of style it is the most finished of her productions, free from the exuberances and redundancies that disfigure the tales-published, for the most part,

posthumously by her mother. The defects of her style are mainly chargeable to youth. SZOLD, HENRIETTA, 1901, The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 1, p. 275.

PERSONAL

I knew him in his later years, and found him full of literary information, and as eager to communicate as I was to receive it. He was small in stature, with a countenance expressive of much firmness, and a profusion of gray hair.-MACKENZIE, R. SHELTON, 1854, ed. Noctes Ambrosiana, vol. I, p. 214, note.

At the Roxburghe sale the edition of Boccaccio printed by Valdarfer sold for the enormous sum of 2,2601., and to commemorate this Dibdin proposed that several of the leading bibliophiles should dine together on the day. Eighteen met at the St. Alban's Tavern, in St. Alban's Street (now Waterloo Place), on 17 June 1812, with Lord Spencer as president, and Dibdin as vice-president. This was the beginning of the existence of the Roxburghe Club. The number of members was ultimately increased to thirty-one, and each member was expected to produce a reprint of some rare volume of English literature. In spite of the worthless character of some of the early publications (of which it was said that when they were unique there was already one copy too many in existence), and of the ridicule thrown on the club by the publication of Haslewood's "Roxburghe Revels," this was the parent of the publishing societies established in this country, which have done so much for English history and antiquities, to say nothing of other branches of literature; and Dibdin must be credited with being the originator of the proposal.-LUARD, REV. H. R., 1888, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xv, p. 7.

GENERAL

Mr. Dibdin has now been for many years employed in composing and compiling some of the most expensive, thickest, largest and heaviest octavos which have ever issued from the press. The volume which is now before us, not the last we presume, is certainly not the least of the Dibdin family. The "Bibliotheca Spenceriana" beats in breadth-the "Bibliographical Decameron" and "Bibliographical Tour" in height, or, as he would say, in tallness, but, for thickness and specific gravity, the intellectual, as well as material, pound weight, we will back "The Library Companion" against any of them. In all his long, many and weighty labours, Mr. Dibdin seems to have had but one object in view, and that neither a very good-natured nor in him a very gracious one: his ambition has been to raise a laugh at the expense of a very innocent, but not very wise, body of men,-the collectors of scarce and black-letter books. Under the masque of a more than common zeal in their pursuit, and of affectionate regard for their persons, he has bestowed much complimentary sarcasm upon the one, and placed the other with great gravity in exceedingly ludicrous situations.-DISRAELI, ISAAC, 1825, Quarterly Review, vol. 32, 152.

p.

Was the prince of bibliographers. By his writings and publications in this line he contributed largely to the extensive bibliomania which prevailed in England in the early part of the present century. HART, JOHN S., 1872, A Manual of English Literature, p. 494.

507

ness.

PERSONAL

Bridget Elia has been my housekeeper for many a long year. I have obligations to Bridget, extending beyond the period of memory. We house together, old bachelor and old maid, in a sort of double singleWe agree pretty well in our tastes and habits-yet so, as "with a difference." We are generally in harmony, with occasional bickerings, -as it should be among near relations. Our sympathies are rather understood, than expressed; and once, upon my dissembling a tone in my voice more kind than ordinary, my cousin burst into tears, and complained that I was altered. We are both great readers in different directions. While I am hanging over (for the thousandth time) some passage in old Burton, or one of his strange contemporaries, she is abstracted in some modern tale, or adventure, whereof our common reading-table is daily fed with assiduously fresh supplies. We are both of us inclined to be a little too positive; and I have observed the result of our disputes to be almost uniformly this-that in matters of fact, dates, and circumstances, it turns out that I was in the right, and my cousin in the wrong. But where we have differed upon moral points, upon something proper to be done, or let alone; whatever heat of opposition, or steadiness of conviction I set out with, I am sure always in the long run, to be brought over to her way of thinking. I must touch upon the foibles of my kinswoman with a gentle hand, for Bridget does not like to be told of her faults. She hath an awkward trick (to say no worse of it) of reading in company; at which times she will answer yes or no to a

question, without fully understanding its purport-which is provoking, and derogatory in the highest degree to the dignity of the putter of the said question. Her presence of mind is equal to the most pressing trials of life, but will sometimes desert her upon trifling occasions. When the purpose requires it, and is a thing of moment, she can speak to it greatly; but in the matters which are not stuff of the conscience, she hath been known sometimes to let slip a word less seasonably.

. . In a season of distress, she is the truest comforter; but in the teasing accidents, and minor perplexities, which do not call out the will to meet them, she sometimes maketh matters worse by an excess of participation. If she does not always divide your trouble, upon the pleasanter occasions of life, she is sure always to treble your satisfaction. LAMB, CHARLES, 1825, Mackery End in Hertfordshire, Essays of Elia.

His sister, whose literary reputation is closely associated with her brother's, and who, as the original of "Bridget Elia," is a kind of object for literary affection, came in after him. She is a small, bent figure, evidently a victim to illness, and hears with difficulty. Her face has been, I should think, a fine and handsome one, and her bright, gray eye is still full of intelligence and fire.-WILLIS, NATHANIEL, PARKER, 1835, Pencillings by the Way, Letter cxvii.

Yesterday was a painfully interesting day. I attended the funeral of Mary Lamb. At nine a coach fetched me. We drove to her dwelling at St. John's Wood, from whence two coaches accompanied the body to Edmonton across a pretty country, but

the heat of the day rendered the drive oppressive. We took refreshment at the house where dear Charles Lamb died, and were then driven towards our homes. There was no sadness assumed by the attendants, but we all talked together with warm affection of dear Mary Lamb, and that most delightful of creatures, her brother Charles; of all the men of genius I ever knew, the one the most intensely and universally to be loved.-ROBINSON, HENRY CRABB, 1847, Diary, May 29.

I see that Mary Lamb is dead. She departed, eighty-two years old, on the 20th of May. She had survived her mind in great measure, but much of the heart remained. Miss Lamb had a very fine feeling for literature, and was refined in mind, though homely, almost coarse, in personal habits. Her departure is an escape out of prison, to her sweet, good soul. COLERIDGE, SARA, 1847, Letter to Miss Fenwick, July 6; Memoir and Letters, ed. her Daughter, p. 315.

The constant impendency of this giant sorrow saddened to "the Lambs" even their holidays; as the journey which they both regarded as the relief and charm of the year was frequently followed by a seizure. . . . Miss Lamb experienced, and full well understood, the premonitory symptoms of the attack, in restlessness, low fever, and the inability to sleep; and, as gently as possible, prepared her brother for the duty he must soon perform; and thus, unless he could stave off the terrible separation till Sunday, obliged him to ask leave of absence from the office as if for a day's pleasure a bitter mockery! On one occasion Mr. Charles Lloyd met them, slowly pacing together a little footpath in Hoxton Fields, both weeping bitterly, and found, on joining them, that they were taking their solemn way to the accustomed Asylum. Miss Lamb would have been remarkable for the sweetness of her disposition, the clearness of her understanding, and the gentle wisdom of all her acts and words, even if these qualities had not been presented in marvellous contrast with the distractions under which she suffered for weeks, latterly for months in every year. There was no tinge of insanity discernible in her manner to the most observant eye. Hazlitt used

to say that he never met with a woman who could reason and had met with only

one thoroughly reasonable-the sole exception being Mary Lamb. She did not wish, however, to be made an exception, to the general disparagement of her sex; for in all her thoughts and feelings she was most womanly-keeping under, ever in due subordination to her notion of a woman's province, an intellect of rare excellence which flashed out when the restraints of gentle habit and humble manner were withdrawn by the terrible force of disease. Though her conversation in sanity was never marked by smartness or repartee; seldom rising beyond that of a sensible, quiet gentlewoman, appreciating and enjoying the talents of her friends, it was otherwise in her madness. ramblings often sparkled with brilliant description and shattered beauty.-TALFOURD, THOMAS NOON, 1848, Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, pp. 289, 298, 299.

Her

Her relapses were not dependent on the seasons; they came in hot summers and with the freezing winters. The only remedy seems to have been extreme quiet, when any slight symptom of uneasiness was apparent. Charles (poor fellow) had to live, day and night, in the society of a person who was mad! If any exciting talk occurred he had to dismiss his friend, with a whisper. If any stupor or extraordinary silence was observed, then he had to rouse her instantly.-PROCTER, BRYAN WALLER (BARRY CORNWALL), 1866, Charles Lamb; A Memoir, p. 113.

Mary Lamb was altogether worthy of her brother's love. In addition to that bond of affection which bound them together through affliction, she was a woman of great mental attractions. She was a continual reader. When in the asylum, Charles took care to furnish her with plenty of books, for they were like her daily bread. She was a delightful writer. Hazlitt held her to be the only woman he had met who could reason. "Were I to give way to my feelings," says Wordsworth, in the note to his poem on Charles Lamb, "I should dwell not only on her genius and intellectual powers, but upon the delicacy and refinement of manner which she maintained inviolable under most trying circumstances. She was loved and honoured by all her brother's friends." -MASSEY, GERALD, 1867, Charles Lamb, Fraser's Magazine, vol. 75, p. 662.

She had a speaking-voice, gentle and

persuasive; and her smile was her brother's own-winning in the extreme. There was a certain catch, or emotional breathingness, in her utterance, which gave an inexpressible charm to her reading of poetry, and which lent a captivating earnestness to her mode of speech when addressing those she liked. This slight check, with

its yearning, eager effect in her voice, had something softenedly akin to her brother Charles's impediment of articulation: in him it scarcely amounted to a stammer, in her it merely imparted additional stress to the fine-sensed suggestions she made to those whom she counselled or consoled.

There was a certain old-world fashion in Mary Lamb's diction which gave it a most natural and quaintly pleasant effect, and which heightened rather than detracted from the more heartfelt or important things she uttered.-CLARKE, CHARLES AND MARY COWDEN, 1878, Recollections of Writers, pp. 177, 183.

Seldom is the name of Mary Lamb seen without that of her brother. "The Lambs" still walk hand-in-hand in our mention, as they were wont to walk on pleasant holidays to Enfield, and Potter's Bar, and Waltham; when Mary "used to deposit in the little hand-basket the day's fare of savory cold meat and salad," and Charles "to pry about at noon-tide for some decent house where they might go in and produce their store, only paying for the ale that he must call for. Still they pass linked together through our thoughts, as on that sadder day when Charles Lloyd met them, crossing the fields to Hoxtonhand-in-hand, and weeping. It is an act of severance against which the conscience somewhat protests, to present Mary alone to the consideration of the reader. It is like removing her from the protection of his presence who stood so faithfully and long between her and the world. --CONE, HELEN GRAY, AND GILDER, JEANETTE L., 1887, Pen-Portraits of Literary Women, vol. I, p. 131.

GENERAL

Mary is just stuck fast in "All's Well that Ends Well." She complains of having to set forth so many female characters in boys' clothes. She begins to think Shakespeare must have wanted-Imagination. I, to encourage her, for she often faints in the prosecution of her great work, flatter her with telling her how well such a play

and such a play is done. But she is stuck fast.-LAMB, CHARLES, 1806, Letter to Wordsworth, Final Memorials by T. N. Talfourd.

I am in good spirits just at this present time, for Charles has been reading over the tale I told you plagued me so much, and he thinks it one of the very best: it is "All's Well that Ends Well.' You must not mind the many wretchedly dull letters I have sent you: for, indeed, I cannot help it, my mind is so dry always after poring over my work all day. But it will soon be over. I am cooking a shoulder of lamb (Hazlitt dines with us); it will be ready at two o'clock, if you can, pop in and eat a bit with us.-LAMB, MARY, 1806, Letter to Sarah Stoddart, July; Mary and Charles Lamb by Hazlitt, p. 61.

It is now several days since I read the book you recommended to me, "Mrs. Leicester's School;" and I feel as if I owed a debt in deferring to thank you for many hours of exquisite delight. Never have I read any thing in prose so many times over, within so short a space of time, as "The Father's Wedding-day." Most people, I understand, prefer the first tale

in truth a very admirable one-but others could have written it. Show me the man or woman, modern or ancient, who could have written this one sentence: "When I was dressed in my new frock, I wished poor mamma was alive to see how fine I was on papa's wedding-day; and I ran to my favorite station at her bedroom door." How natural, in a little girl, is this incongruity, this impossibility! . . A fresh source of the pathetic bursts out before us, and not a bitter one.

The story is admirable throughout-incomparable, inimitable.-LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE, 1831, To H. C. Robinson, Apr.; Robinson's Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence.

It is not generally known, perhaps, that, previously to their circulation in a collective shape, Godwin, the publisher and proprietor of the copyright, offered them to his juvenile patrons and patronesses at No. 41 Skinner Street, in sixpenny books, with the plates (by Blake) "beautifully coloured."-HAZLITT, W. CAREW, 1874, Mary and Charles Lamb, p. 170.

The first edition ["Mrs. Leicester's School"] sold out immediately, and four more were called for in the course of five