I do not know a pleasure more affecting than to range at will over the deserted apartments of some fine old family mansion.  The traces of extinct grandeur admit of a better passion than envy; and contemplations on the great and good, whom we fancy in succession to have been its inhabitants, weave for us illusions, incompatible with the bustle of modern occupancy, and vanities of foolish present aristocracy.  The same difference of feeling, I think, attends us between entering an empty and a crowded church.  In the latter it is chance but some present human frailty—­an act of inattention on the part of some of the auditory—­or a trait of affectation, or worse, vain-glory on that of the preacher—­puts us by our best thoughts, disharmonizing the place and the occasion.  But wouldst thou know the beauty of holiness? go alone on some week-day, borrowing the keys of good Master Sexton, traverse the cool aisles of some country church:  think of the piety that has kneeled there—­the congregations, old and young, that have found consolation there—­the meek pastor, the docile parishioner.  With no disturbing emotions, no cross conflicting comparisons, drink in the tranquillity of the place, till thou thyself become as fixed and motionless as the marble effigies that kneel and weep around thee.

“Poor Relations” is a beautiful example of humour—­provoking to smiles while touching to tears—­with a wonderful introductory piling up of definitions:  “A Poor Relation—­is the most irrelevant thing in nature,—­a piece of impertinent correspondency,—­a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of your prosperity,—­an unwelcome remembrancer,” and so on.  “This theme of poor relations is replete with so much matter for tragic as well as comic associations that it is difficult to keep the account distinct without blending.”  The essay includes three or four admirable examples of Elia’s felicity in drawing typical characters with just that touch of oddity that makes them live as individuals.  The theatre which we have seen always made its triple appeal to Lamb—­from the study, from the front, and from the boards—­inspired the next three essays, “Stage Illusions,” “To the Shade of Elliston,” and “Ellistoniana.”  The first is an example of subtle criticism showing how it is that we get enjoyment out of unlovely attributes on the stage, thanks to the “exquisite art of the actor in a perpetual sub-insinuation to us,” that things are not altogether what they seem to be.  In the two essays on Elliston we have at once an eloquent tribute to a stage-magnate of his day and a fine character portrait.

“Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading,” might be cited as one of the most characteristic of the essays of Elia.  It illustrates the writer’s happiest style, and indicates his taste.  In its opening passages are words and phrases which have become quotations “familiar in the mouth as household words” to all book-lovers.  Lamb takes as his text a remark made by Lord Foppington in Vanbrugh’s “Relapse”:  “To mind the inside of a book is to entertain one’s self with the forced products of another man’s brain.  Now I think a man of quality and breeding may be much amused with the natural sprouts of his own.”