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 the scythe only by my littleness.
Even now he is whetting one of his smallest razors to clean wipe me
out, perhaps. Well!

[Footnote 1:] An etching of Lamb, by Brooke Pulham, which is said to be
the most characteristic likeness of him extant.

XCVI.

TO THOMAS HOOD,

_September_ 18, 1827.

Dear Hood,--If I have anything in my head, I will send it to Mr. Watts.
Strictly speaking, he should have all my album-verses; but a very
intimate friend importuned me for the trifles, and I believe I forgot
Mr. Watts, or lost sight at the time of his similar "Souvenir." Jamieson
conveyed the farce from me to Mrs. C. Kemble; he will not be in town
before the 27th.

Give our kind loves to all at Highgate, and tell them that we have
finally torn ourselves outright away from Colebrooke, where I had _no_
health, and are about to domiciliate for good at Enfield, where I have
experienced _good_.

"Lord, what good hours do we keep!
How quietly we sleep!" [1]

See the rest in the "Compleat Angler."

We have got our books into our new house. I am a dray-horse if I was not
ashamed of the indigested, dirty lumber, as I toppled 'em out of the
cart, and blessed Becky that came with 'em for her having an unstuffed
brain with such rubbish. We shall get in by Michael's Mass. 'T was with
some pain we were evulsed from Colebrooke.

You may find some of our flesh sticking to the doorposts. To change
habitations is to die to them; and in my time I have died seven deaths.
But I don't know whether every such change does not bring with it a
rejuvenescence. 'T is an enterprise, and shoves back the sense of
death's approximating, which, though not terrible to me, is at all times
particularly distasteful. My house-deaths have generally been
periodical, recurring after seven years; but this last is premature by
half that time. Cut off in the flower of Colebrooke! The Middletonian
stream and all its echoes mourn. Even minnows dwindle. _A parvis
fiunt minimi!_

I fear to invite Mrs. Hood to our new mansion, lest she should envy it,
and hate us. But when we are fairly in, I hope she will come and try it. I
heard she and you were made uncomfortable by some unworthy-to-be-cared-for
attacks, and have tried to set up a fee