Complete Correspondence and Works (Volume 2) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1870. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... Reader, in thy passage from the Bank--where thou hast been receiving thy half-yearly dividends (supposing thou art a lean annuitant like myself)--to the Flower Pot, to secure a place for Dalston, or Shacklewell, or some other thy suburban retreat northerly, -- didst thou never observe a melancholy-looking, handsome, brick and stone edifice, to the left--where Threadneedle Street abuts upon Bishopsgate? I dare say thou hast often admired its magnificent portals ever gaping wide, and disclosing to view a grave court, with cloisters and pillars, with a few or no traces of 1 Next to the Correspondence, the first Series of the Elia Essays . claims place in importance and value. It is superior to the Second Series--The Last Essays of Elia--not published till ten years later, a twelvemonth before the Author's death. 8 This Essay was, no doubt, suggested by Lamb's temporary employment there, before his transfer to the India House. 1 goers-in or comers-out, --a desolation something like Balclutha's.1 This was once a house of trade, --a centre of busy interests. The throng of merchants was here--the quick pulse of gain--and here some forms of business are still kept up, though the soul be long since fled. Here are still to be seen stately porticos, imposing staircases, offices roomy as the state apartments in palaces--deserted, or thinly peopled with a few straggling clerks; the still more sacred interiors of court and committee-rooms, with venerable faces cf beadles, door-keepers--directors seated in form on solemn days (to proclaim a dead dividend) at long worm-eaten tables, that have been mahogany, with tarnished gilt-leather coverings, supporting massy silver inkstands long since dry;--the oaken wainscots hung with pictures of deceased governors and subgovernors, of Que...