ic_"--_History of the Commonwealth of England_, in
four volumes, 1824-1828.

"Fearn's _Anti-Tooke_"--_Anti-Tooke; or, An Analysis of the Principles
and Structure of Language Exemplified in the English Tongue_, 1824.

Here should come a note from Lamb to Hone, dated August 10, 1827, in
which Lamb expresses regret for Matilda Hone's illness.]

LETTER 424

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[P.M. 10 August, 1827.]

Dear B.B.--I have not been able to: answer you, for we have had, and
are having (I just snatch a moment), our poor quiet retreat, to which we
fled from society, full of company, some staying with us, and this
moment as I write almost a heavy importation of two old Ladies has come
in. Whither can I take wing from the oppression of human faces? Would I
were in a wilderness of Apes, tossing cocoa nuts about, grinning and
grinned at!

Mitford was hoaxing you surely about my Engraving, 'tis a little
sixpenny thing, too like by half, in which the draughtsman has done his
best to avoid flattery. There have been 2 editions of it, which I think
are all gone, as they have vanish'd from the window where they hung, a
print shop, corner of Great and Little Queen Streets, Lincolns Inn
fields, where any London friend of yours may inquire for it; for I am
(tho' you _won't understand_ it) at Enfield (Mrs. Leishman's, Chase). We
have been here near 3 months, and shall stay 2 or more, if people will
let us alone, but they persecute us from village to village. So don't
direct to _Islington_ again, till further notice.

I am trying my hand at a Drama, in 2 acts, founded on Crabbe's
"Confidant," mutatis mutandis.

You like the Odyssey. Did you ever read my "Adventures of Ulysses,"
founded on Chapman's old translation of it? for children or _men_. Ch.
is divine, and my abridgment has not quite emptied him of his divinity.
When you come to town I'll show it you.

You have well described your old fashioned Grand-paternall Hall. Is it
not odd that every one's earliest recollections are of some such place.
I had my Blakesware (Blakesmoor in the "London"). Nothing fills a childs
mind like a large old Mansion [_one or two words wafered over_]; better
if un-or-partially-occupied; peopled with the spirits of deceased
members of [for] the County and Justices of the Quorum. Would I were
buried in the peopled solitude of one, with my feelings at 7 years old.

Those marble busts of the Emperors, they seem'd as if they were to stand