The first
books which he loved to read were volumes of poetry, and essays on serious
and religious themes. The works of all the old poets, the history of
Quakers, the biography of Wesley, the controversial papers of Priestley,
and other books on devout subjects, sank into his mind. From reading he
speedily rose to writing; from being a reader he became an author. His
first writings were entirely serious. These were verses, or letters,
wherein religious thoughts and secular criticisms took their places in
turn; or they were grave dramas, which exhibit and lead to the
contemplation of character, and which nourish those moods out of which
humor ultimately arises.
So much has been already published, that it is needless to encumber this
short narrative with any minute enumeration of the qualities which
constitute his station in literature; but I shall, as a part of my task,
venture to refer to some of those which distinguish him from other
writers.
Lamb's very curious and peculiar humor showed itself early. It was perhaps
born of the solitude in which his childhood passed away; perhaps cherished
by the seeds of madness that were in him, that were in his sister, that
were in the ancestry from which he sprung.
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