room,
all studded over and rough with old Books, and above is a lightsome
Drawing room, 3 windows, full of choice prints. I feel like a great
Lord, never having had a house before.

The London I fear falls off.--I linger among its creaking rafters, like
the last rat. It will topple down, if they don't get some Buttresses.
They have pull'd down three, W. Hazlitt, Proctor, and their best stay,
kind light hearted Wainwright --their Janus. The best is, neither of our
fortunes is concern'd in it.

I heard of you from Mr. Pulham this morning, and that gave a fillip to
my Laziness, which has been intolerable. But I am so taken up with
pruning and gardening, quite a new sort of occupation to me. I have
gather'd my Jargonels, but my Windsor Pears are backward. The former
were of exquisite raciness. I do now sit under my own vine, and
contemplate the growth of vegetable nature. I can now understand in what
sense they speak of FATHER ADAM. I recognise the paternity, while I
watch my tulips. I almost FELL with him, for the first day I turned a
drunken gard'ner (as he let in the serpent) into my Eden, and he laid
about him, lopping off some choice boughs, &c., which hung over from a
neighbor's garden, and in his blind zeal laid waste a shade, which had
sheltered their window from the gaze of passers by. The old gentlewoman
(fury made her not handsome) could scarcely be reconciled by all my fine
words. There was no buttering her parsnips. She talk'd of the Law. What
a lapse to commit on the first day of my happy "garden-state."

I hope you transmitted the Fox-Journal to its Owner with suitable
thanks.

Mr. Cary, the Dante-man, dines with me to-day. He is a model of a
country Parson, lean (as a Curate ought to be), modest, sensible, no
obtruder of church dogmas, quite a different man from Southey,--you
would like him.

Pray accept this for a Letter, and believe me with sincere regards

Yours C.L.

2 Sept.

["Your kind sonnet." Barton's well-known sonnet to Elia (quoted below)
had been printed in the _London Magazine_ long before--in the previous
February. I do not identify this one among his writings.

"I have a Cottage." This cottage still stands (1912). Within it is much
as in Lamb's day, but outwardly changed, for a new house has been built
on one side and it is thus no longer detached. The New River still runs
before it, but subterraneously.

Barton was so attracted by one