In one of the Elia essays, "The Praise of Chimney-sweepers," Lamb has set
forth some of the merits of his old friend. Undoubtedly Jem White must
have been a thoroughly kind-hearted man, since he could give a dinner
every year, on St. Bartholomew's day, to the little chimney-sweepers of
London; waiting on them, and cheering them up with his jokes and lively
talk; creating at least one happy day annually in each of their poor
lives. At the date of the essay (May, 1822) he had died. In Lamb's words,
"James White is extinct; and with him the suppers have long ceased. He
carried away with him half the fun of the world when he died--of my world,
at least. His old clients look for him among the pens; and, missing him,
reproach the altered feast of St. Bartholomew, and the glory of Smithfield
departed forever."
The great friend and Mentor, however, of Charles Lamb's youth, was (as has
frequently been asserted) Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was a philosopher,
and who was considered, almost universally, to be the greater genius of
the two. It may be so; and there is little doubt that in mere capacity, in
the power of accumulating and disbursing ideas, and in the extent and
variety of his knowledge, he exceeded Lamb, and also most of his other
contemporaries; but the mind of Lamb was quite as original, and more
compact.
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