the grave is not the end, was asked to consider the promises of the Christian faith, and finally was offered a glimpse of some of the friends he would meet in heaven—­among them Ulysses, Shakespeare and Alice W——­n.  Taylor, the publisher and editor of the magazine, sent Lamb a copy.  He replied, acknowledging the kindness of the author, and adding:—­“Poor Elia ... does not pretend to so very clear revelations of a future state of being as ‘Olen’ seems gifted with.  He stumbles about dark mountains at best; but he knows at least how to be thankful for this life, and is too thankful, indeed, for certain relationships lent him here, not to tremble for a possible resumption of the gift.  He is too apt to express himself lightly, and cannot be sorry for the present occasion, as it has called forth a reproof so Christian-like.”

Lamb thought the poet to be James Montgomery, but it was in reality Charles Abraham Elton.  The poem was reprinted in a volume entitled Boyhood and other Poems, in 1835.

It is conceivable that Lamb was reasoned with privately upon the sentiments expressed in this essay; and perhaps we may take the following sonnet which he contributed over his own name to, the London Magazine for April, 1821, as a kind of defiant postscript thereto, a further challenge to those who reproached him for his remarks concerning death, and who suggested that he did not really mean them:—­

They talk of time, and of time’s galling yoke, That like a millstone on man’s mind doth press, Which only works and business can redress:  Of divine Leisure such foul lies are spoke, Wounding her fair gifts with calumnious stroke.  But might I, fed with silent meditation, Assoiled live from that fiend Occupation—­ Improbus labor, which my spirits hath broke—­ I’d drink of time’s rich cup, and never surfeit—­ Fling in more days than went to make the gem That crowned the white top of Methusalem—­ Yea on my weak neck take, and never forfeit, Like Atlas bearing up the dainty sky, The heaven-sweet burthen of eternity.

It was also probably the present essay which led to Lamb’s difference with Southey and the famous letter of remonstrance.  Southey accused Elia of wanting “a sounder religious feeling,” and Lamb suggests in his reply that “New Year’s Eve” was the chief offender.  See Vol.  I. for Lamb’s amplification of one of its passages.

It may be interesting here to quote Coleridge’s description of Lamb as “one hovering between heaven and earth, neither hoping much nor fearing anything.”

Page 31, line 10 from foot. Bells.  The music of bells seems always to have exerted fascination over Lamb.  See the reference in the story of the “First Going to Church,” in Mrs. Leicester’s School, Vol.  III.; in his poem “Sabbath Bells,” Vol.  IV.; and his “John Woodvil,” Vol.  IV.