nips, leeks, carrots, cabbages, to delight the heart
of old Alcinous. You enter without passage into a cheerful dining-room,
all studded over and rough with old books; and above is a lightsome
drawing-room, three 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 pulled down three,--Hazlitt, Procter, and their
best stay, kind, light-hearted Wainewright, their Janus. [1] The best is,
neither of our fortunes is concerned 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
gathered 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 recognize the paternity while I watch
my tulips. I almost fell with him, for the first day I turned a drunken
gardener (as he let in the serpent) into my Eden; and he laid about him,
lopping off some choice boughs, etc., 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 talked 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 mode 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.

[1] Wainewright, the notorious poisoner, who, under the name of "Janus
Weathercock," contributed various frothy papers on art and literature to
the "London Magazine."

LXXVIII.

TO MRS. HAZLITT.

_November_, 1823.

Dear Mrs. H.,--Sitting down to write a letter is such a painful
operation to Mary that you must accept me as her proxy. You have seen
our house. What I now tell you is literally true. Ye