Moore to write a play on ‘Lalla Rookh’ (Moore, Diary, iii. 294). In the same year Lamb published his most important literary work, ‘The Poems of Caius Valerius Catullus translated, with a Preface and Notes’ (2 vols.) Though it was savagely attacked in ‘Blackwood's Magazine’ for 21 Aug. (ix. 507–16, evidently by Christopher North), the translation has the merit of smooth versification and some pretensions to scholarship. It has been republished in Bohn's ‘Classical Library’ (1854). Lamb is said to have written some minor poems, but they were never collected.
On the death of Sir S. Romilly in 1819, Lamb was persuaded to stand for Westminster in the whig interest against the radicals Hobhouse and Major Cartwright. He was elected, after a very disorderly contest, lasting fifteen days, having polled 4,465 votes, against Hobhouse's 3,861 and Cartwright's 38 (An Authentic Narrative of the Events of the Westminster Election, published by order of Hobhouse's committee; Ashley, Palmerston, i. 87). At the general election of 1820 he was defeated, the numbers being: Burdett 5,327, Hobhouse 4,882, Lamb 4,436. In June 1826 he was returned for Dungarvan, co. Waterford, a borough of the Duke of Devonshire's. In 1830, on the formation of Grey's ministry, he became under-secretary of state to his brother, Lord Melbourne [see Lamb, William], in the home department. He contrived to keep on good terms with O'Connell, who in 1831 offered to bring him in free of expense for co. Waterford (O'Connell's Life and Times, ed. Fitzpatrick, i. 259). He continued, however, to represent Dungarvan. In December 1830 he was sent by Lord Melbourne to request Francis Place [q. v.] to issue a manifesto to the working classes against acts of violence. Place, a sound radical, declined to take the advice of a lukewarm reformer (Place MSS. i. 85). He died on 2 Jan. 1834. Lamb married, 17 May 1809, Caroline Rosalie Adelaide St. Jules, but left no issue. His married life was one of great happiness, and he was universally popular as an amiable and kind-hearted man.
[Gent. Mag. 1834, i. 437–8, where, however, Charles Lamb's farce, ‘Mr. H.,’ is wrongly attributed to George Lamb; Torrens's Memoirs of Lord Melbourne, vol. i. passim.]
LAMB, JAMES (1599–1664), orientalist, baptised on 2 Feb. 1598–9 in All Saints parish, Oxford, was son of Richard Lamb, by his second wife. After attending Magdalen College school he matriculated as a commoner of Brasenose College on 2 July 1613 (Oxf. Univ. Reg., Oxf. Hist. Soc., vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 331), and graduated B.A. in 1615–1616, and M.A. as a member of St. Mary Hall in 1619–20 (ib. vol. ii. pt. iii. p. 341). He became chaplain to Thomas Wriothesley, earl of Southampton. On 23 July 1660 he was installed prebendary of Westminster (Le Neve, Fasti, ed. Hardy, iii. 360), was created D.D. at Oxford on 9 Aug. following, and on 4 Jan. 1662–3 was presented to the rectory of St. Andrew, Holborn. He died on 18 Oct. 1664, and was buried on the 20th in Westminster Abbey, leaving a widow, Elizabeth, of the Bromfield family of Kent (Chester, Registers of Westminster Abbey, p. 161). He bequeathed many of his books to the Abbey library. In the Bodleian Library are the following manuscripts by Lamb:
- ‘Grammatica Arabica,’ 3 vols. 4to.
- ‘Danielis Prophetiæ liber, Syriace,’ 4to.
- ‘Collectanea ad Lexicon Arabicum spectantia,’ 4 vols. oblong 8vo.
- ‘Flexio Verborum Arabicorum,’ 8vo.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 668.]
LAMB, Sir JAMES BLAND (1752–1824), politician and miscellaneous writer. (See Burges.]
LAMB, JOHN, D.D. (1789–1850), master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and dean of Bristol, born at Ixworth, Suffolk, on 28 Feb. 1789, was son of John Lamb, perpetual curate of Ixworth, vicar of Haxey, Lincolnshire, and rector of Stretton, Rutland, by his wife Maria, daughter of William Hovell of Backwell Ash, Suffolk. He studied at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1811 as fifteenth and last wrangler, and proceeded M.A. in 1814, B.D. in 1822, and D.D. in 1827. In 1822 he was chosen master of his college, in succession to Philip Douglas, B.D. In 1824 he was presented by the college to the perpetual curacy of St. Benedict in Cambridge; on 20 Oct. 1837 he was nominated by the crown to the deanery of Bristol; and in 1845 he was instituted, on the presentation of the dean and chapter of Bristol, to the vicarage of Olveston, Gloucestershire, which he held till his death with his mastership and deanery. In politics he maintained whig principles. He died on 19 April 1850, at the lodge of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and was buried in a vault under the college chapel.
He married, on 19 March 1822, Anne, daughter of James Hutchinson, rector of Cranford, Northamptonshire, and had issue ten sons and four daughters. One of the sons, John Lamb, was a fellow and bursar of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; and another, James Henry Lamb, was a fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, and is now (1892) rector of Burnham-West-
