CHARLES LAMB.—­This distinguished writer, although not a novelist like Dickens and Thackeray, in the sense of having produced extensive works of fiction, was, like them, a humorist and a satirist, and has left miscellaneous works of rare merit.  He was born in London, and was the son of a servant to one of the Benches of the Inner Temple; he was educated at Christ’s Hospital, where he became the warm friend of Coleridge.  In 1792 he received an appointment as clerk in the South Sea House, which he retained until 1825, when, owing to the distinction he had obtained in the world of letters, he was permitted to retire with a pension of L450.  He describes his feelings on this happy release from business, in his essay on The Superannuated Man.  He was an eccentric man, a serio-comic character, whose sad life is singularly contrasted with his irrepressible humor.  His sister, whom he has so tenderly described as Bridget Elia, in a fit of insanity killed their mother with a carving-knife, and Lamb devoted himself to her care.

He was a poet, and left quaint and beautiful album verses and minor pieces.  As a dramatist, he is known by his tragedy John Woodvil, and the farce Mr. H——­, neither of which was a success.  But he has given us in his Specimens of Old English Dramatists the result of great reading and rare criticism.

But it is chiefly as a writer of essays and short stories that he is distinguished.  The Essays of Elia, in their vein, mark an era in the literature; they are light, racy, seemingly dashed off, but really full of his reading of the older English authors.  Indeed, he is so quaint in thought and style, that he seems an anachronism—­a writer of the Elizabethan period returned to life in this century.  He bubbles over with puns, jests, and repartees; and although not popular in the sense of reaching the multitude, he is the friend and companion of congenial readers.  Among his essays, we may mention the stories of Rosamund Gray and Old Blind Margaret. Dream Children and The Child Angel are those of greatest power; but every one he has written is charming.  His sly hits at existing abuses are designed to laugh them away.  He was the favorite of his literary circle, and as a talker had no superior.  After a life of care, not unmingled with pleasures, he died in 1834.  Lamb’s letters are racy, witty, idiomatic, and unlabored; and, as most of them are to colleagues in literature and on subjects of social and literary interest, they are important aids in studying the history of his period.

THOMAS HOOD.—­The greatest humorist, the best punster, and the ablest satirist of his age, Hood attacked the social evils around him with such skill and power that he stands forth as a philanthropist.  He was born in London in 1798, and, after a limited education, he began to learn the art of engraving; but his pen was more powerful than his burin.  He soon began to contribute to the London Magazine