In 1823 came another removal.  During the summer, or when busy over some piece of writing, Lamb had stayed a while at Dalston or other semi-rural place away from the time-wasting friends and fascinations of town.  Thus when it was decided to leave Russell Street the move was made to semi-suburban quietude and retirement.

When you come London-ward you will find me no longer in Covt Gard.  I have a Cottage, in Colebrook row, Islington.  A cottage, for it is detach’d; a white house, with 6 good rooms; the New River (rather elderly by this time) runs (if a moderate walking pace can be so termed) close to the foot of the house; and behind is a spacious garden, with vines (I assure you), pears, strawberries, parsnips, 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 3 windows, full of choice prints.  I feel like a great Lord, never having had a house before....

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 gather’d 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.

Were Lamb a matter-of-fact correspondent it might be pointed out that tulips are not much to watch in September.  During the winter of 1824-5 he suffered from ill health, and in April, 1825, he was allowed to retire from the East India House with a pension of two-thirds of his salary, less a small sum to assure an annuity for his sister in the event of his dying first.  For thirty-three years had he continued in his office, and his salary had gradually grown from the modest L70 of the beginning to ten times that amount at his retirement, so that he became a superannuated man with an income ample for the modest requirements of himself and Mary.  On the subject of his retirement he wrote some touching letters to friends such as Wordsworth and Bernard Barton, and also in his accustomed manner made the crucial event the subject of a delightful “Elia” essay.  He had before expatiated on the excellent position of the authors who were not “authors for bread”—­men who like himself were employed in business during the day and had to dally with literature in off hours.  Certainly Lamb’s “hack work,” the work done for the booksellers during the early part of the century, was his least memorable achievement, and we cannot help feeling what a boon it was to Lamb himself and to Letters that he was chained so long to the desk’s dead wood, instead of being dependent on the favour of the booksellers for his livelihood, and upon the popular taste of the moment for his themes.