He is said to have now "on the stocks" another tragedy, which we hope to greet as an emphatic reaction from this scale of descents. May it take precedence as unquestioned of the existing trilogy, as Mr. Justice on the bench does of Mr. Serjeant at the bar.
In his "Vacation Rambles" we find the hearty glee of a fagged counsel at escaping from work, not indeed to take his ease at his inn, but to bustle about guiltless of horsehair coronal and defiant of common law—steaming from Havre to Rouen, whizzing along the St. Germain Railway, playing the gourmand at Meurice's, and the critic at the Parisian theatres and the galleries of the Louvre, pilgrimising to Geneva and the Alps—Mont Blanc reminding him, as he saw it, of "nothing so much in nature or art as a gigantic twelfth-cake, which a scapegrace of Titan's 'enormous brood,' or 'younger Saturn,' had cut out and slashed with wild irregularity." His frank expression of so unsentimental a thought, is one characteristic of this book of rambles; another is, the zest with which he so frequently records his appreciation of creature-comforts—such as the "we sat down to an excellent breakfast," on "a large cold roast fowl, broiled ham, eggs, excellent coffee, and a bottle of good Rhenish," followed "about two o'clock" by an "admirably dressed little dinner," made up of "a thin beefsteak, thoroughly broiled (or fried, as the case might be), with a sauce of parsley and butter, and a cold cream-chicken-salad, &c., &c.," "accompanied by a bottle of Asmanshauser wine." Even in the family bivouac at the Grands Mulets, we are conducted through the details of the dinner, joyously protracted "till it merged in supper"—though the Head of the Family feelingly says, "I regret to confess that I could not eat much myself; but I looked with a pleasure akin to that with which the French king watched the breakfast of Quentin Durward, on the activity of my younger friends"—who with Homeric intensity tore asunder the devoted chickens, and left the bones there, to be matter of speculation to aspiring geologists and scientific associations in future ages.
The "Life and Letters of Charles Lamb," and the "Final Memorials," are household treasures. Exception may be taken to occasional passages—but the net result is delightful, as every memorial of Elia must be—that "cordial old man," whose lot it was to
—leave behind him, freed from griefs and years,
Far worthier things than tears.[1]
The love of friends without a single foe:
Unequalled lot below!
- ↑ Addressed by Mr. Landor to "The Sister of Elia"—whom, mourning, he would fain comfort with the reminder—"yet awhile! again shall Elia's smile refresh thy heart, where heart can ache no more."
