Godwin in vain essayed to introduce the "conduct of the ministry," and being repeatedly baffled, he said pettishly to Lamb, And what benefit is your freehold, if you do not feel interested in government? Ah! I had a freehold it is true, the gift of my generous and solemn god-father, the oil-man in Holborn; I went down and took possession of my testamentary allotment of three quarters of an acre, and strode over it with the feeling of an English freeholder, that all betwixt sky and earth was my own. Alas! it has passed into more prudent hands, and nothing but an Agrarian can restore it! The bowl now danced from hand to hand, and I did not observe its operation until Lamb and Coleridge commenced an affectionate talk about Christ's Hospital, the blue coat boys, and all the treasured anecdotes of school-day friendship. This is the first and happiest stage of incipient intoxication, and the "willie-draughts" which are pledged to the memory of boyhood, ever inspire brighter and nobler sympathies, than are found in the raciest toasts to beauty, or the deepest libations to our country. Do you not remember, said Lamb, poor Allan! whose beautiful countenance disarmed the wrath of a town-damsel whom he had secretly pinched, and whose half-formed execration was exchanged, when she, tigress-like turned round and gave the terrible _bl----_ for a gentler meaning, _bless thy handsome face!_ And do you not remember when you used to tug over Homer, discourse Metaphysics, chaunt Anacreon, and play at foils with the sharp-edged wit of Sir Thomas Browne, how your eye glistened when you doffed the grotesque blue coat, and the inspired charity boy (this was uttered in an under tone) walked forth humanized by a christian garment. Spenser knew the nobility of heart which a new coat gives when he dressed his butterfly. The velvet nap which on his wings doth lie The silken down with which his back is dight His broad outstretched horns, his hairy thighs His glorious colors, and his glistening eyes. Col. R. now motioned to me to retire, and I bid a reluctant goodnight to the joyous scene, the exclamation "do you not remember!" from Coleridge, and the cheerful laugh ringing through the whole house and its dying echo following us to the street. Gentle reader! the critics have called Lamb a trifler, the scholars have called him a twaddler! Read _Elia_, and let your heart answer for him. THE PRAIRIE. This word is pronounced by the common people _pa-ra-re_. I was in the peninsula of Michigan, and had been for a day or two traversing the most dreary country imaginable, when I saw for the first time a salt or wet prairie, which is only a swampy meadow, grown up in a rank, coarse, sedgy grass.