Charles Lamb: A Memoir | Page 6

times. Fifty years since, I remember, you entered the precinct
through a lowering archway that opened into a gloomy passage--Inner
Temple Lane. On the east side rose the church; and on the west was a
dark line of chambers, since pulled down and rebuilt, and now called
Johnson's Buildings. At some distance westward was an open court, in
which was a sun-dial, and, in the midst, a solitary fountain, that sent its
silvery voice into the air above, the murmur of which, descending,
seemed to render the place more lonely. Midway, between the Inner
Temple Lane and the Thames, was, and I believe still is, a range of
substantial chambers (overlooking the gardens and the busy river),
called Crown Office Row. In one of these chambers, on the 18th day of
February, 1775, Charles Lamb was born.
He was the son of John and Elizabeth Lamb; and he and his brother
John and his sister Mary (both of whom were considerably older than
himself) were the only children of their parents. John was twelve years,
and Mary (properly Mary Anne) was ten years older than Charles.
Their father held the post of clerk to Mr. Samuel Salt, a barrister, one of
the benchers of the Inner Temple; a mild, amiable man, very indolent,
very shy, and, as I imagine, not much known in what is called "the
profession."
Lamb sprang, paternally, from a humble stock, which had its root in the
county of Lincoln. At one time of his life his father appears to have
dwelt at Stamford. In his imaginary ascent from plain Charles Lamb to
Pope Innocent, one of the gradations is Lord Stamford. His mother's
family came from Hertfordshire, where his grandmother was a
housekeeper in the Plumer family, and where several of his cousins
long resided. He did not attempt to trace his ancestry (of which he
wisely made no secret) beyond two or three generations. In an
agreeable sonnet, entitled "The Family Name," he speaks of his sire's
sire, but no further: "We trace our stream no higher." Then he runs into

some pleasant conjectures as to his possible progenitors, of whom he
knew nothing.
"Perhaps some shepherd on Lincolnian plains,"
he says, first received the name; perhaps some martial lord, returned
from "holy Salem;" and then he concludes with a resolve,--
"No deed of mine shall shame thee, gentle Name,"
which he kept religiously throughout his life.
When Charles was between seven and eight years of age, he became a
scholar in Christ's Hospital, a presentation having been given to his
father, for the son's benefit. He entered that celebrated school on the 9th
of October, 1782, and remained there until the 23d November, 1789,
being then between fourteen and fifteen years old. The records of his
boyhood are very scanty. He was always a grave, inquisitive boy. Once,
when walking with his sister through some churchyard, he inquired
anxiously, "Where do the naughty people lie?" the unqualified
panegyrics which he encountered on the tombstones doubtless
suggesting the inquiry. Mr. Samuel Le Grice (his schoolfellow) states
that he was an amiable, gentle youth, very sensible, and keenly
observing; that "his complexion was clear brown, his countenance mild,
his eyes differing in color, and that he had a slow and peculiar walk."
He adds that he was never mentioned without the addition of his
Christian name, Charles, implying a general feeling of kindness
towards him. His delicate frame and difficulty of utterance, it is said,
unfitted him for joining in any boisterous sports.
After he left Christ's Hospital, he returned home, where he had access
to the large miscellaneous library of Mr. Salt. He and his sister were (to
use his own words) "tumbled into a spacious closet of good old English
reading, and browsed at will on that fair and wholesome pasturage."
This, however, could not have lasted long, for it was the destiny of
Charles Lamb to be compelled to labor almost from, his boyhood. He
was able to read Greek, and had acquired great facility in Latin
composition, when he left the Hospital; but an unconquerable
impediment in his speech deprived him of an "exhibition" in the school,
and, as a consequence, of the benefit of a college education.
The state of Christ's Hospital, at the time when Lamb was a scholar
there, may be ascertained with tolerable correctness from his two
essays, entitled "Recollections of Christ's Hospital" and "Christ's

Hospital five and thirty years ago." These papers when read together
show the different (favorable and unfavorable) points of this great
establishment. They leave no doubt as to its extensive utility. Although,
strictly speaking, it was a charitable home for the sustenance and
education of boys, slenderly provided, or unprovided, with the means
of learning, they were neither lifted up beyond their own family