Original (English)

PREFACE. In my seventy-seventh year. I have been invited to place on record my recollections of Charles Lamb. I am, I believe, nearly the only man now surviving who knew much of the excellent "Elia." Assuredly I knew him more intimately than any other existing person, during the last seventeen or eighteen years of his life. In this predicament, and because I am proud to associate my name with his, I shall endeavor to recall former times, and to bring my old friend before the eyes o