For years I have been hopefully and patiently waiting for somebody to collect and publish these scattered and all but forgotten articles of Lamb’s; but at last, seeing no likelihood of its being done at present, if ever in my day, and fearing that I might else never have an opportunity of perusing these strangely neglected writings of my favorite author, I commenced the task of searching out and discovering them myself for mine own delectation.  And after a deal of fruitless and aimless labor, (for, unlike Johannes Scotus Erigena, in his quest of a treatise of Aristotle, I had no oracle to consult,) after spending as many days in turning over the leaves of I know not how many volumes of old, dusty, musty, fusty periodicals as Mr. Vernon ran miles after a butterfly, I was amply rewarded for all my pains.  For I not only found all of Lamb’s uncollected writings that are spoken of in his “Life and Letters,” but a goodly number of articles from his pen which neither he nor his biographer has ever alluded to.  As I read these (to me) new essays of Elia, I could not but feel somewhat indignant that such excellent productions of such an excellent writer should have been “underkept and down supprest” so long.  I was as much ravished with these new-found essays of Lamb’s as good old Nicholas Gerbelius (see Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy,” Partition II., Section 2, Member 4) was with a few Greek authors restored to light.  If I had had one or two loving, enthusiastic admirers of Charles Lamb to enjoy with me the delight of perusing these uncollected Elias, I should have been “all felicity up to the brim.”  For with me, as with Michael de Montaigne and Hans Andersen, there is no pleasure without communication.

And therefore, partly to please myself, and partly to please the admirers of Charles Lamb, I herewith publish a part of Elia’s uncollected essays and sketches.  To ninety-nine hundredths of their author’s readers they will be as good as MSS.  And not only will they be new to most readers, but they will be found to be not wholly unworthy of him who wrote the immortal dissertation on “Roast Pig.”  Albeit not to be compared with Elia’s best and most finished productions, these articles contain some of the best qualities and peculiarities of his genius.  Without doubt, all genuine admirers, all true lovers of the gentle, genial, delightful Elia, will be mightily pleased with these productions of his inimitable pen.

Those who were so fortunate as to be personally acquainted with Charles Lamb are lavish in their praise of his conversational powers.  Hazlitt says that no one ever stammered out such fine, piquant, deep, eloquent things in a half-dozen half-sentences as he did.  “He always made the best pun and the best remark in the course of the evening.”  Lamb was undoubtedly “matchless as a fireside companion,” inimitable as a table-talker, “great at the midnight hour.”  The “wit-combats” at his Wednesday-evening parties were waged with scarcely