It touches the sensitive points in young hearts;
and it was by no means without success--the author's first success. It
sold much better than his poems, and added "a few pounds" to his slender
income.
George Dyer, once a pupil in Christ's Hospital, possessing a good
reputation as a classical scholar, and who had preceded Lamb in the
school, about this time came into the circle of his familiars. Dyer was
one of the simplest and most inoffensive men in the world: in his heart
there existed nothing but what was altogether pure and unsophisticated. He
seemed never to have outgrown the innocence of childhood; or rather he
appeared to be without those germs or first principles of evil which
sometimes begin to show themselves even in childhood itself. He was not
only without any of the dark passions himself, but he would not perceive
them in others. He looked only on the sunshine. Hazlitt, speaking of him
in his "Conversation of Authors," says, "He lives amongst the old authors,
if he does not enter much into their spirit. He handles the covers, and
turns over the pages, and is familiar with the names and dates. He is busy
and self-involved. He hangs like a film and cobweb upon letters, or is
like the dust upon the outside of knowledge, which should not too rudely
be brushed aside.
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