for ever, as they had stood from the living days of Rome, in that old
Marble Hall, and I to partake of their permanency; Eternity was, while I
thought not of Time. But he thought of me, and they are toppled down,
and corn covers the spot of the noble old Dwelling and its princely
gardens. I feel like a grasshopper that chirping about the grounds
escaped his scythe only by my littleness. Ev'n now he is whetting one of
his smallest razors to clean wipe me out, perhaps. Well!

["My Engraving"--Brook Pulham's caricature.

"You have well described your ... Grand-paternall Hall." Barton wrote
the following account of this house, the home of his step-grandfather at
Tottenham; but I do not know whether it is the same that Lamb saw:--

My most delightful recollections of boyhood are connected with the
fine old country-house in a green lane diverging from the high road
which runs through Tottenham. I would give seven years of life as it
now is, for a week of that which I then led. It was a large old
house, with an iron palisade and a pair of iron gates in front, and
a huge stone eagle on each pier. Leading up to the steps by which
you went up to the hall door, was a wide gravel walk, bordered in
summer time by huge tubs, in which were orange and lemon trees, and
in the centre of the grass-plot stood a tub yet huger, holding an
enormous aloe, The hall itself, to my fancy then lofty and wide as a
cathedral would seem now, was a famous place for battledore and
shuttlecock; and behind was a garden, equal to that of old Alcinous
himself. My favourite walk was one of turf by a long straight pond,
bordered with lime-trees. But the whole demesne was the fairy ground
of my childhood; and its presiding genius was grandpapa. He must
have been a very handsome man in his youth, for I remember him at
nearly eighty, a very fine-looking one, even in the decay of mind
and body. In the morning a velvet cap; by dinner, a flaxen wig; his
features always expressive of benignity and placid cheerfulness.
When he walked out into the garden, his cocked hat and amber-headed
cane completed his costume. To the recollection of this delightful
personage, I am, I think, indebted for many soothing and pleasing
associations, with old age.

"Those marble busts of the Emperors." See the _Elia_ essay "Blakesmoor
in H----shire," in Vol. II, of this edition.]

LETTE