Essayist and critic, born in London, and educated at Christ's Hospital, where he had Coleridge for school-fellow; was for 35 years a clerk in the East India Company's office, on his retirement from which he was allowed a pension of £450; it was as a poet he made his first appearance in literature, but it was as an essayist he attained distinction, and chiefly by his "Essays of Elia" he is best known and will be longest remembered; he was the friend of Wordsworth, Southey, and others of his illustrious contemporaries, and is famous for his witty remarks, to which his stammering tongue imparted a special zest; he was never married; his affection for his sister Mary, for whom he composed his "Tales from Shakespeare," is well known, and how in her weakness from insanity he tenderly nursed her (1775-1834).