Recollections of Charles Lamb [I] [April 1838]

It was as impossible to the moral nature of Charles Lamb that he should imitate another, as, in an intellectual sense, it was impossible that any other should successfully imitate him. To write with patience even, not to say genially, for Charles Lamb it was a very necessity of his constitution that he should write from his own wayward nature; and that nature was so peculiar that no other man, the ablest at mimicry, could counterfeit its voice. Lamb had to choose: between appearing ridiculous himself for a moment, by going through a ridiculous evolution, which no man could execute with grace; or, on the other hand, appearing lofty and assuming, in a degree which his truly humble nature must have shrunk from with horror. There was another trait of character about Charles Lamb which might have countenanced the common notion that he looked indulgently upon dissolute men, or men notorious for some criminal escapade.