o date. ? November 29, 1829.]

Pray trust me with the "Church History," as well as the "Worthies." A
moon shall restore both. Also give me back Him of Aquinum. In return you
have the _light of my countenance_. Adieu.

P.S.--A sister also of mine comes with it. A son of Nimshi drives her.
Their driving will have been furious, impassioned. Pray God they have
not toppled over the tunnel! I promise you I fear their steed, bred out
of the wind without father, semi-Melchisedecish, hot, phaetontic. From
my country lodgings at Enfield.

C.L.

[The _Church History_ and the _Worthies_ are by Fuller.

"Light of my countenance." Mr. Hazlitt says that this was a copy of
Brook Pulham's etching.

"The tunnel"--the Highgate Archway.]

LETTER 496

CHARLES LAMB TO JAMES GILLMAN

30 Nov., 1829.

Dear G.,--The excursionists reached home, and the good town of Enfield a
little after four, without slip or dislocation. Little has transpired
concerning the events of the back-journey, save that on passing the
house of 'Squire Mellish, situate a stone-bow's cast from the hamlet,
Father Westwood, with a good-natured wonderment, exclaimed, "I cannot
think what is gone of Mr. Mellish's rooks. I fancy they have taken
flight somewhere; but I have missed them two or three years past." All
this while, according to his fellow-traveller's report, the rookery was
darkening the air above with undiminished population, and deafening all
ears but his with their cawings. But nature has been gently withdrawing
such phenomena from the notice of Thomas Westwood's senses, from the
time he began to miss the rooks. T. Westwood has passed a retired life
in this hamlet of thirty or forty years, living upon the minimum which
is consistent with gentility, yet a star among the minor gentry,
receiving the bows of the tradespeople and courtesies of the alms' women
daily. Children venerate him not less for his external show of gentry,
than they wonder at him for a gentle rising endorsation of the person,
not amounting to a hump, or if a hump, innocuous as the hump of the
buffalo, and coronative of as mild qualities. 'Tis a throne on which
patience seems to sit--the proud perch of a self-respecting humility,
stooping with condescension. Thereupon the cares of life have sate, and
rid him easily. For he has thrid the _angustiae domus_ with dexterity.
Life opened upon him with comparative brilliancy. He set out as a rider
or traveller for a wholesale house, in