Lamb’s first appearance as an author was made in the year of the great tragedy of his life (1796), when there were published in the volume of Poems on Various Subjects by Coleridge four sonnets by “Mr Charles Lamb of the India House.” In the following year he also contributed along with Charles Lloyd some pieces in blank verse to Coleridge’s new volume of Poems. In 1798 he published a short and pathetic prose tale entitled Rosamund Cray, and in 1799 he was associated with Coleridge and Southey in the publication of the Annual Anthology, to which he had contributed a short religious poem in blank verse entitled “Living without God in the World”; the company in which he was thus found brought upon him the irrelevant and pointless ridicule of Canning and Gillray. His next public appearance was not more fortunate. His John JVoodvil (1801), a slight dramatic piece written in the style of the earlier Elizabethan period, and containing some genuine poetry and happy delineation of the gentler emotions, but as a whole deficient in plot, vigour, and character, was held up to ridicule by the Edinburgh Review as a specimen of the rudest condition of the drama, a work by “a man of the age of Thespis.” The dramatic spirit, however, was not thus easily quenched in Lamb. His next effort (1806) was a farce, named Mr H., the point of which lay in the hero’s anxiety to conceal his name, “Hogsflesh”; it has recently been put upon the boards with success in America, but in London it did not survive the first night of its appearance. Its author bore the failure with rare equanimity and good humour, and soon struck into new and more successful fields of literary exertion. In 1807 appeared Tales founded on the Plays of Shakespeare, written by Charles and Mary Lamb; and in 1808 Specimens of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of Shakespeare, with short but felicitous critical notes. In the same year Mary Lamb, assisted by her brother, also published Poetry for Children and a collection of short school-girl tales under the title Mrs Leicester's School ; and to the same date belongs the Adventures of Ulysses, designed by Lamb as a companion to the Adventures of Telemachus. In 1810 began to appear Leigh Hunt’s quarterly periodical, The Reflector, in which Lamb published much (including the essays on the tragedies of Shakespeare and on Hogarth) that subsequently appeared in the first collective edition of his TFbrZrs (2 vols. 12mo), which appeared in 1818. The establishment of the London Magazine in 1820 stimulated him to the production of a series of new essays which rose into instant popularity, and may be said to form the chief corner-stone in the small but classic temple of his fame. The first of these, as it fell out, was a description of the old South Sea House, with which Lamb happened to have associated the name of a “gay light-hearted foreigner” called Elia, who had frequented it in the days of his service there. The pseudonym adopted on this occasion was retained for the subsequent contributions which appeared collectively in a post 8vo volume of Essays in 1823. After a brief career of five years the London Magazine came to an end; and about the same period Lamb’s long connexion with the India House terminated, a pension of about £450 having been assigned to him. The increased leisure, however, for which he had long sighed, did not prove favourable to literary production, which henceforth was limited to a few trifling contributions to the New Monthly and other serials. The malady of his sister, which continued to increase with eveι∙ shortening intervals of relief, broke in painfully on his lettered ease and comfort; and it is unfortunately impossible to ignore the deteriorating effects of an over-free indulgence in the use of tobacco and alcohol on a temperament such as his. His removal on account of his sister to the quiet of the country, by tending to withdraw him from the stimulating society of the large circle of literary friends who had helped to make his Wednesday evening “at homes” so remarkable, doubtless also tended to intensify his listlessness and helplessness. One of the brightest elements in the closing years of his life was the friendship and companionship of Emma Isola, whom he and his sister had adopted, and whose marriage in 1833 to Mr Moxon, though a source of unselfish joy to Lamb, left him more than ever alone. While living at Edmonton, he was overtaken by an attack of erysipelas brought on by an accidental fall as he was walking on the London road; after a few days’ illness he painlessly passed away on December 27, 1834. The sudden death of one so widely known, admired, and beloved as Charles Lamb fell on the public, as well as on his own attached circle, with all the poignancy of a personal calamity and a private grief. His memory wanted no tribute that affection could bestow, and Wordsworth has commemorated in simple and solemn verse the genius, virtues, and fraternal devotion of his early friend.

In depth of thought and splendour of genius Charles Lamb was surpassed by not a few of his contemporaries, but as an essayist he is entitled to a place beside Montaigne, Sir Thomas Browne, Steele, and Addison. He unites many of the characteristics of each of these writers,—refined wit, exquisite humour, a genuine and cordial vein of pleasantry, and heart-touching pathos. His fancy as an essayist is distinguished by great delicacy and tenderness; and even his conceits are imbued with human feeling and passion. He had an extreme and almost exclusive partiality for our earlier prose writers, particularly for Fuller, Browne, and Burton, as well as for the dramatists of Shakespeare’s time; and the care with which he studied them is apparent in all he ever wrote. It shines out conspicuously in his style, which has an antique air, and is redolent of the peculiarities of the 17th century. Its quaintness has subjected the author to the charge of affectation, but there is nothing really affected in his writings. His style is not so much an imitation as a reflexion of the older writers; for in spirit he made himself their contemporary. A confirmed habit of studying them in preference to modern literature had made something of their style natural to him; and long experience had rendered it not only easy and familiar but habitual. It was not a masquerade dress he wore, but the costume which showed the man to most advantage. With thought and meaning, often profound, though clothed in simple language, every sentence of his essays is pregnant, and in this respect he bears a strong resemblance to the writers already named. If he had their manner, he possessed their spirit likewise. To some of his essays and specimens we are considerably indebted for the revival of the dramatic writers of the Shakespearian age; for he preceded Gifford and others in wiping the dust of ages from the works of these authors. In his brief comments on each specimen he displays exquisite powers of discrimination; his discernment of the true meaning of his author is almost infallible. As a poet Lamb is not entitled to so high a place as that which can be claimed for the essayist and critic. His dependence on Elizabethan models is here also manifest, but in such a way as to bring into all the greater prominence his native deficiency in “the accomplishment of verse.” Yet it is impossible, once having read, ever to forget the tenderness and grace of such verses as those to Hester Savory and on “The Old Familiar Faces,” or the quaint humour of “A Farewell to Tobacco.” As a letter writer also Lamb is entitled to rank very high.

The Letters of Charles Lamb, with a sketch of his life by one of his executors, Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, appeared in 2 vols, in 1837, and Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, by the same hand, were published in 1848. Supplementary to these is the Memoir by another personal friend B. W. Procter (Barry Cornwall) published in 1866. See also Fitzgerald’s Charles Lamb, his Friends, his Haunts, and his Books, 1866; Cradock ’ s Charles Lamb, 1867; and Carew Hazlitt’s Mary and Charles Lamb: Poems, Letters, and Remains, 1874. There have been several complete editions of the Works of Lamb; of these the fullest as well as most recent is that of Fitzgerald (Life, Letters, and Writings of Charles Lamb, 6 vols., 1870-76).

Lambert’s most important work, Pyrometric (Berlin, 1779), is a systematic treatise on heat, containing the records and full discussion of many of his own experiments. Worthy of special notice also are Photometria, Augsburg, 1760; Insigniores orbitae Cometarum proprietates, Augsburg, 1761; and Beiträge zum Gebrauche der Mathematik und deren Anwendung, 4 vols., Berlin, 1765-72.

The Memoirs of the Berlin Academy from 1761 to 1784 contain many of his papers, which treat of such subjects as resistance of fluids, magnetism, comets, probabilities, the problem of three bodies, meteorology, &c. In the Acta Helvetica (1752-60) and in the Nova Acta Erudita (1763-69) several of his contributions appear. In Bode’s Jahrbuch (1776-80) he discusses nutation, aberration of light, Saturn’s rings, and comets; in the Nova Acta Helvetica (1787) he has a long paper “Sur le Son des Corps Elastiques”; in Bernoulli and Hindenburg’s Magazin (1787-88) he treats of the roots of equations and of parallel lines; and in Hindenburg’s Archives (1798-99) he writes on optics and perspective. Many of these pieces were found among his effects after his death, and published posthumously. Recognized as among the first mathematicians of his day, he was also widely known for the universality and depth of his philological and philosophical knowledge. The most valuable of his logical and philosophical memoirs were published collectively in 2 vols., 1782. See Huber’s Lambert nach seinem Leben und Wirken.

LAMBERT, John (1619-1694), was born in 1619 at Calton Hall in the parish of Kirkby Malharn, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His family was of ancient lineage, and long settled in the county. He studied at the Inns of Court, but without making the law his profession. In 1640 he married Frances, daughter of Sir William Lister. He was present at the great meeting of the Yorkshire gentry on Heyworth Moor (3d Juue 1642), and in September was appointed a captain of horse under Lieutenant-Colonel Fairfax. He did good service at the siege of Hull (11th October 1642), at Bradford (5th March 1644), and at the important engagement at Selby (10th April 1644). At Marston Moor (2d July 1644) he commanded part of Sir Thomas Fairfax’s cavalry on the right wing. He was sent into York to arrange terms for the surrender of the city, which took place July 16,1644. When the “New Model” army was formed in the beginning of 1645, Colonel Lambert was appointed commissarygeneral of the army in the north. He beat the royalists at Keighley and Ferrybridge, and took several strong places. He followed Fairfax’s campaign in the west of England in 1646, and was a commissioner with Cromwell and others for the surrender of Oxford in the same year.

When the quarrel between the army and the parliament began, Lambert threw himself warmly into the army’s cause. He is said by Clarendon to have assisted Ireton in drawing up the several addresses and remonstrances issued by the army, both men having had some experience in the law, and being “of a subtle and working brain.” In August 1647 Lambert was sent as major-general by Fairfax to take charge of the forces in the northern counties. His wise and just managing of affairs in those parts is commended by Whitelocke. He displayed personal courage in suppressing a mutiny among his troops, kept strict discipline, and showed much diligence in hunting down the mosstroopers who infested the moorland country.

When the Scotch army under the marquis of Hamilton invaded England in the summer of 1648, Lambert was obliged to retreat till Cromwell came up from Wales, and joining him destroyed the Scotch army in three days’ fighting from Preston to Warrington. Lambert pressed Hamilton with the cavalry, and took him prisoner at Uttoxeter, a few days after the battle. He then marched back into Scotland, where he was left in charge of the troops. In December 1648 he sat down before Pontefract Castle, which held out till March 1649. Lambert was thus absent from London at the time of the violence put upon the parliament by Colonel Pride, and the other measures which led to the king’s death.

Cromwell, when appointed to the command of the war in Scotland (26th July 1650), took Lambert with him as major-general. He was wounded at Musselburgh, but was with Cromwell at Dunbar on the 2d of September, when the soldiers begged that Lambert might lead them the next day, and Cromwell willingly gave his consent. He defeated the “Protesters” or “Western Whigs” at Hamilton, on the 1st of December 1650. In the following July he was sent over into Fife to get a position in the rear and flank of the Scotch army near Falkirk, and force them to decisive action by cutting off their supplies from Perth. A battle fought at Inverkeithing, with heavy loss to the Scots, in which Lambert behaved with great gallantry, gave him the position he required, and he improved it by taking Inchgarvie and Burntisland. Charles now (as Lambert had foreseen) made for England. Lambert with the cavalry was ordered to harass his march down the western shires, while Cromwell followed through Yorkshire and the Midlands. In the action at Warrington Bridge Lambert again distinguished himself by his personal courage, and at Worcester also (3d September 1651), where he commanded the forces on the eastern bank of the Severn, and had his horse shot under him. Parliament now conferred on him a grant of lands in Scotland worth £1000 per annum.

In November 1651 he was made a commissioner to settle the affairs of Scotland, and on the death of Ireton he was appointed lord deputy of Ireland in February 1652. He accepted the office with pleasure; but his magnificent preparations offended the Commons, who limited his office to the term of six months. Lambert hereupon resigned the deputyship without entering on its duties.

Notwithstanding this affront Lambert took part with Cromwell in the expulsion of the Rump (20th April 1653) and its council of state. He was joined to the lord-general and two others as additional members of the little parliament of nominees, making up the number to one hundred and forty-four. He presented the act of resignation of that assembly, and was principally concerned in drawing up the address requesting Cromwell to assume the protectorate, and the Instrument of Government, which was the constitution of the Protectorat rule. At the installation of Cromwell he bore a prominent part. In the parliament of 1654, and again in 1656, Lambert (or Lord Lambert as he is now generally called) sat as member for the West Riding of Yorkshire. When the proposal to declare Oliver king was started in parliament (February 1657) he at once declared strongly against it. A hundred officers headed by Fleetwood and Lambert waited on the Protector, and begged him to put a stop to the proceedings. Lambert was not convinced by Cromwell’s arguments, and Cromwell and he henceforward never spoke to each other as friends. On his refusal to take the official oath of allegiance to the Protector, Cromwell deprived him of his commissions, giving him, however, a pension of £2000 a year. He retired to his house and garden at Wimbledon, and appeared no more in public during Oliver Cromwell’s lifetime.

On the accession of Richard he seems to have expected the first place in the army, but was not unwilling to be second to Fleetwood. The Protector was between two parties—the court party, who wished to hold to the “Petition and Advice,” and the army party or Wallingford House party, who, whilst supporting Richard as Protector, wished to put the control of the army into stronger hands. Richard saw that to deliver up the power of the sword was to abdicate, and refused to make Fleetwood general. Lambert was elected for Pontefract in Richard’s parliament, and took part with the republican malcontents who soon combined with Wallingford House. Councils of officers were held, which Lambert, though holding no commission, was invited to attend. They determined to stand by the “good old cause” and to demand the dissolution of the parliament as being too full of monarchical and Presbyterian notions —in fact, to put the civil power aside and set up a military government in its stead. The Protector dissolved parliament (22d April 1659). The officers, unable to rule without a parliament, restored the Rump as representing the Commonwealth (7th May 1659). Richard’s Protectorate had practically ended with his parliament, and he now laid down the show of royalty. Sir George Booth and Sir Thomas Middleton headed a royalist rising in Cheshire, which Lambert put down after a sharp encounter near Chester. He promoted a petition from his army that Fleetwood might be made lord-general and himself majorgeneral. The republican party in the house took offence. The Commons (12th October 1659) cashiered Lambert, Desborough, and other officers, and retained Fleetwood’s commission as chief of a military council of seven, republicans of the old sort. Lenthall, the speaker, was to give his orders to the army. On the next day (13th October) Lambert caused the doors of the House to be shut and the members kept out. On the 26th a “committee of safety” was appointed, of which Lambert was a member. He was also appointed major-general of all the forces in England and Scotland, Fleetwood being general. Lambert was now sent with a large force to meet Monk, who was in command of the English forces in Scotland, and either negotiate with him or force him to terms. Monk, however, declared for the liberty and authority of parliament, and set his army in motion southward. The committee of safety was obeyed no more than the Rump had been. The soldiers themselves cried out for the restoration of parliament, and on the 26th <.f December the Rump was recalled to restore some appearance of lawful authority.

Meanwhile the bulk of Lambert’s army was dissolved by the mere appearance of Lord Fairfax in arms on Marston Moor, and he was kept in suspense by Monk’s deceits and delays, till his whole army fell from him, and he came back to town almost alone. Monk marched unopposed to London, and declared for a “free parliament.” The “excluded” Presbyterian members were recalled. Lambert was sent to the Tower (3d March 1660), from which he escaped a month later (9th April 1660). He tried to rekindle the civil war in favour of the Commonwealth, but was speedily recaptured, and sent back to the Tower (2 4th April). On the Restoration he, along with Vane, was exempted from danger of life by an address of both Houses to the king. The next parliament (1662) brought a charge of high treason against them. Vane was beheaded, but Lambert was spared, and remained in custody in the island of Guernsey for the remainder of his life. He died at the age of seventy-five, in 1694.

Lambert would have left a better name in history if he had been a Cavalier. His genial, ardent, and excitable nature, easily raised and easily depressed, was more akin to the royalist than the puritan spirit. Vain and sometimes overbearing, as well as ambitious, he believed that Cromwell could not stand without him, and, when Cromwell was dead, he imagined himself equal to succeed him, and thought that the first place must be his by right. Yet his ambition was less selfish than that of Monk. Lambert is accused of no ill faith, no want of generosity, no cold and calculating policy. Lambert was not merely a soldier. He was an able writer and speaker, and an accomplished negotiator, and took pleasure in quiet and domestic pursuits. He learnt his love of gardening from Lord Fairfax, who was also his master in the art of war. He painted flowers, besides cultivating them, and incurred the blame of Mrs Hutchinson by “dressing his flowers in his garden and working at the needle with his wife and his maids.” He made no special profession of religion; but no imputatiι n is cast upon his moral character by his detractors. It has been said that he became a Roman Catholic before his death. χ (f. w. c.*)