It is the prevalence of this characteristic in his writings
which has subjected him to occasional charges of want of imagination.
This, however, is but half-criticism; for the matter of reproach may in
fact be said to be his triumph. It was with a deep relish of Mr. Lamb's
faculty that a friend of his once said, "He makes the majesties of
imagination seem familiar." It is precisely thus with his own imagination.
It eludes the observation of the ordinary reader in the modesty of its
truth, in its social and familiar air. His fancy as an Essayist is
distinguished by singular delicacy and tenderness; and even his conceits
will generally be found to be, as those of his favorite Fuller often are,
steeped in human feeling and passion. The fondness he entertained for
Fuller, for the author of the "Anatomy of Melancholy," and for other
writers of that class, was a pure matter of temperament. His thoughts were
always his own. Even when his words seem cast in the very mould of others,
the perfect originality of his thinking is felt and acknowledged; we may
add, in its superior wisdom, manliness, and unaffected sweetness. Every
sentence in those Essays may be proved to be crammed full of thinking.
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