He crackled delicately.

John Collier Jun has sent me a Poem which (without the smallest bias from the aforesaid present, believe me) I pronounce sterling.

I set about Evelyn, and finished the first volume in the course of a natural day.  To-day I attack the second—­Parts are very interesting.—­

I left a blank at top of my letter, not being determined which to address it to, so Farmer and Farmer’s wife will please to divide our thanks.  May your granaries be full, and your rats empty, and your chickens plump, and your envious neighbors lean, and your labourers busy, and you as idle and as happy as the day is long!

VIVE L’AGRICULTURE!

Frank Field’s marriage of course you have seen in the papers, and that his brother Barron is expected home.

How do you make your pigs so little? 
They are vastly engaging at that age. 
I was so myself. 
Now I am a disagreeable old hog—­
A middle-aged-gentleman-and-a-half.

My faculties, thank God, are not much impaired.  I have my sight, hearing, taste, pretty perfect; and can read the Lord’s Prayer in the common type, by the help of a candle, without making many mistakes.

Believe me, while my faculties last, a proper appreciator of your many kindnesses in this way; and that the last lingering relish of past flavors upon my dying memory will be the smack of that little Ear.  It was the left ear, which is lucky.  Many happy returns (not of the Pig) but of the New Year to both.—­

Mary for her share of the Pig and the memoirs desires to send the same—­

D’r.  M’r.  C. and M’rs.  C.—­

Yours truly

C. LAMB.

[This letter is usually supposed to have been addressed by Lamb to Mr. and Mrs. Bruton of Mackery End.  The address is, however, Mrs. Collier, Smallfield Place, East Grinstead, Sussex.

“If Evelyn could have seen him.”  John Evelyn’s Diary had recently been published, in 1818 and 1819, in two large quarto volumes.]

LETTER 307

CHARLES LAMB TO CHARLES ADERS

[Jan. 8, 1823.]

Dear Sir—­We shall have great pleasure in surprising Mrs. Aders on her Birthday—­You will perceive how cunningly I have contrived the direction of this note, to evade postage.

Yours truly

C. LAMB.

8 Jan. ’23.

[This note is sent to me by Mr. G. Dunlop of Kilmarnock.  It is the only note to Aders, a friend of Crabb Robinson, to whose house Lamb often went for talk and whist.  Aders had a fine collection of German pictures.  See the verses to him in Vol.  IV.  The cunning in the address consisted apparently in obtaining the signature of an India House colleague to certify that it was “official.”]

LETTER 308

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON