But it must be owned Lamb was not a great reader of new books. That task devolved upon his sister. He preferred Burnet's _History of his Own Times_, to any novel, even to a 'Waverley.'
'Did you ever read,' he wrote to Manning, 'that garrulous, pleasant history? He tells his story like an old man past political service, bragging to his sons on winter evenings of the part he took in public transactions, when his "old cap was new." Full of scandal, which all true history is. No palliatives; but all the stark wickedness, that actually gives the _momentum_ to national actors. Quite the prattle of age and outlived importance. Truth and sincerity staring out upon you in _alto relievo_. Himself a party man, he makes you a party man. None of the cursed, philosophical, Humeian indifference, so cold and unnatural and inhuman. None of the cursed Gibbonian fine writing so fine, and composite! None of Dr. Robertson's periods with three members. None of Mr. Roscoe's sage remarks, all so apposite and coming in so clever, lest the reader should have had the trouble of drawing an inference.'
On the subject of children's books Lamb held strong opinions, as indeed he was entitled to do. What married pair with their quiver full ever wrote such tales for children as did this old bachelor and his maiden sister?
'I am glad the snuff and Pipos books please. _Goody Two Shoes_ is almost out of print. Mrs. Barbauld's stuff has banished all the old classics of the nursery, and the shop-man at Newberry's hardly deigned to reach them off an old exploded corner of a shelf when Mary asked for them. Mrs. Barbauld's and Mrs. Trimmer's nonsense lay in piles about. Knowledge insignificant and vapid as Mrs. Barbauld's books convey, it seems must come to a child in the _shape of knowledge_, and his empty noddle must be turned with conceit of his own powers when he has learnt that a horse is an animal, and Billy is better than a horse, and such like--instead of that beautiful interest in wild tales which made the child a man, while all the time he suspected himself to be no bigger than a child.'
Canon Ainger's six volumes are not very big. They take up but little room. They demand no great leisure. But they cannot fail to give immense pleasure to generations to come, to purify tastes, to soften hearts, to sweeten discourse.