We know, at all events, that he had an open heart, and that the
heart is a fountain which never fails.
The earliest productions of Lamb which have come down to us, namely,
verses, and criticism, and letters, are all in a grave and thoughtful
tone. The letters, at first, are on melancholy subjects, but afterwards
stray into criticism or into details of his readings, or an account of his
predilections for books and authors. At one or two and twenty, he had read
and formed opinions on Shakespeare, on Beaumont and Fletchcr, on
Massinger, Milton, Cowley, Isaac Walton, Burns, Collins, and others; some
of these, be it observed, lying much out of the ordinary course of a young
man's reading. He was also acquainted with the writings of Priestley and
Wesley, and Jonathan Edwards; for the first of whom he entertained the
deepest respect.
Lamb's verses were always good, steady, and firm, and void of those
magniloquent commonplaces which so clearly betray the immature writer.
They were at no time misty nor inconsequent, but contained proof that he
had reasoned out his idea. From the age of twenty-one to the age of fifty-
nine, when he died, he hated fine words and flourishes of rhetoric.
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