With Portrait, and numerous Facsimiles and Illustrations of their Favourite Haunts

in London and the Suburbs.

London:

CHATTO AND WINDUS, PUBLISHERS.

(SUCCESSORS TO JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN).

1874.

210. k. 242.

MARY AND CHARLES LAMB.

IN

INTRODUCTION.

N the closing years of the eighteenth century, a small English family, in very humble circumstances, was occupying rooms at No. 7 Little Queen Street, Lincoln'sInn Fields. The circle was composed of an old man and his wife, their two children (a brother and sister), and these children's aunt on the mother's side—a maiden lady already advanced in years.

There was another son, who held some responsible position in the South-Sea House; but he, though a bachelor, lived apart. He was a person of rather peculiar disposition. The intercourse between him and his relatives was comparatively limited.

The old man himself had formerly been clerk to one of the benchers of the Inner Temple, and had retired on a slender annuity. The son whom he had living with him under the same roof was, like his elder brother John, on the South-Sea establishment. John, it appears, had had it in his power to place him there. If we are not mistaken, this was nearly the only obligation under which the family ever lay to John.

The site is at present (1868) occupied by Trinity Church, which has absorbed Nos. 6, 7, and 8. What tender memories were swept away to make room for what is popularly called an improvement!

B