Here surely we have the right stuff.  Terse, pregnant sentences; few words, but going to the very heart of the matter.  That Lamb was justly proud of his pioneer work in this field of literary research is certain, for in a short autobiography which he prepared for a friend’s album—­in what has been called “the briefest, and perhaps the wittiest and most truthful autobiography in the language”—­he wrote as follows: 

He also was the first to draw the Public attention to the old English Dramatists, in a work called “Specimens of English Dramatic Writers who lived about the Time of Shakspeare,” published about fifteen years since.

Of Lamb’s work in this field the elder Disraeli admirably said, “He carries us on through whole scenes by a true, unerring motion.  His was a poetical mind, labouring in poetry.”  Within the century that has elapsed since Lamb was engaged in exploring the forgotten old tomes in which lay buried so much excellent literature, the study which he started has taken its place as one of the most important of its kind, and a large library might be formed of the books and reprints which may be looked upon as direct descendants of that modest single octavo volume of 1808.  During his later years Lamb devised something in the nature of a supplement when he prepared further extracts from the Garrick collection of plays in the British Museum for Hone’s “Table Book” (1827), and these extracts are now generally bound up with the earlier ones in a single work.

ESSAYS

In giving this summary account of Lamb’s writings it has been thought best only to keep to a very roughly chronological method, leaving his letters to be touched upon last.  Finding earliest expression in poetry, he then turned to the drama, fully equipped with knowledge and a fine enthusiasm, but lacking some of the most vitally essential qualities necessary to success; he then passed more or less by force of circumstance—­the need of making money and the desire to help his sister in her newly-found work—­to the writing of prose and verse for children; and later he began to make wider use of the fine critical instinct of which he had given early indications in his correspondence.  All of these were to be in a measure overshadowed by his achievement as essayist.  That work as essayist was chiefly the product of his prime—­of the days of the “London Magazine”—­but he had made several notable contributions of this character during the preceding twenty years; essays which are now to be found in different posthumous collections of his writings—­“Eliana,” “Critical Essays,” “Essays and Sketches,” “Miscellaneous Prose,” and so on.  When, thanks to the kindly offices of Coleridge, Lamb became a contributor to the “Morning Post,” he proposed to furnish some imitations of Burton, the