Charles Lamb's biography should be read at length in his essays and his letters—from them we get to know not only the facts of his life but almost insensibly we get a knowledge of the man himself such as cannot be conveyed in any brief summary. He is as a friend, a loved friend, whom it seems almost sacrilegious to summarize in the compact sentences of a biographical dictionary, of whom it would be a wrong to write if the writing were to be used instead of, rather than as an introduction to, a literary self-portrait, more striking it may be believed than any of the canvases in the Uffizi Gallery.

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