Mr. Bickerstaff, we remember,—­though I fear that in these days the pleasant and profitable pages of “The Father” are hardly more known to the generality of readers than the lost books of Livy or the missing cantos of the “Faerie Queene,”—­possibly we may remember, I say, that the wise, witty, learned, eloquent, delightful Mr. Bickerstaff, in order to raise the requisite sum to purchase a ticket in the (then) newly erected lottery, sold off a couple of globes and a telescope (the venerable Isaac was a Professor of Palmistry and Astrology, as well as Censor of Great Britain); and finding by a learned calculation that it was but a hundred and fifty thousand to one against his being worth one thousand pounds for thirty-two years, he spent many days and nights in preparing his mind for this change of fortune.

And albeit I do not believe that Lamb, in his poorest and most needy days, was ever tempted by any Alnaschar-dreams of wealth to exchange the raggedest and least valuable of his “midnight darlings” for the wherewithal to purchase lottery-tickets, I dare say the money which Elia had saved for the purchase of some choice and long-coveted old folio or other went into the coffers of the lottery-dealers.  Though Lamb drew nothing but blanks, “or those more vexatious tantalizers of the spirit, denominated small prizes,” yet he held himself largely indebted to the Lottery, and, upon its abolition in England in 1825, he wrote a long, eloquent, pathetic discourse on the great departed.  It appeared in Colburn’s “New Monthly Magazine,” and is, I think, a very pleasant, entertaining paper, worthy of its subject, and not unworthy of the pen of Charles Lamb.  I take great pleasure in introducing the article to the readers of the “Atlantic.”

* * * * *

THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEFUNCT.[F]

    “Nought but a blank remains, a dead void space,
    A step of life that promised such a race.”

    —­Dryden.

Napoleon has now sent us back from the grave sufficient echoes of his living renown:  the twilight of posthumous fame has lingered long enough over the spot where the sun of his glory set; and his name must at length repose in the silence, if not in the darkness of night.  In this busy and evanescent scene, other spirits of the age are rapidly snatched away, claiming our undivided sympathies and regrets, until in turn they yield to some newer and more absorbing grief.  Another name is now added to the list of the mighty departed,—­a name whose influence upon the hopes and fears, the fates and fortunes of our countrymen, has rivalled, and perhaps eclipsed, that of the defunct “child and champion of Jacobinism,” while it is associated with all the sanctions of legitimate government, all the sacred authorities of social order and our most holy religion.  We speak of one, indeed, under whose warrant heavy and incessant contributions were imposed upon our fellow-citizens, but who exacted