To make these excursions more delightful to one of my temperament, Lamb never affected any spurious gravity. Neither did he ever act the Grand _Senior_. He did not exact that common copy-book respect, which some asinine persons would fair command on account of the mere length of their years. As if, forsooth, what is bad in itself, could be the better for keeping; as if intellects already _mothery_, got anything but _grandmothery_ by lapse of time! In this particular, he was opposed to Southey, or rather (for Southey has been opposed to himself) to his Poem on the Holly Tree. “So serious should my youth appear among The thoughtless throng; So would I seem among the young and gay _More grave than they_.” There was nothing of Sir Oracle about Lamb. On the contrary, at sight of a solemn visage that “creamed and mantled like the standing pool,” he was the first to pitch a mischievous stone to disturb the duck-weed. “He was a boy-man,” as he truly said of Elia; “and his manners lagged behind his years.” He liked to herd with people younger than himself. Perhaps, in his fine generalizing way, he thought that, in relation to Eternity, we are all contemporaries. However, without reckoning birthdays, it was always “Hail fellow, well met;” and although he was my elder by a quarter of a century, he never made me feel, in our excursions, that I was “taking a walk with the schoolmaster.” I remember, in one of our strolls, being called to account, very pompously, by the proprietor of an Enfield Villa, who asserted that my dog Dash, who never hunted anything in his dog-days, had chased the sheep; whereupon, Elia taking the dog’s part, said very emphatically, “Hunt _Lambs_, Sir? Why he has never hunted _me_!” But he was always ready for fun, intellectual or practical--now helping to pelt D*****, a modern Dennis, with puns; and then to persuade his sister, God bless her! by a vox et preterea nihil, that she was as deaf as an adder. In the same spirit, being requested by a young Schoolmaster to take charge of his flock for a day, “during the unavoidable absence of the Principal,” he willingly undertook the charge, but made no other use of his brief authority than to give the boys a whole holiday. As Elia supplied the place of the Pedagogue, so once I was substitute for Lamb himself. A prose article in the Gem, was not from his hand, though it bore his name. He had promised a contribution, but being unwell, his sister suggested that I should write something for him, and the result was the “Widow” in imitation of his manner. It will be seen that the forgery was taken in good part. “DEAR LAMB,--You are an impudent varlet, but I will keep your secret. We dine at Ayrton’s on Thursday, and shall try to find Sarah and her two spare beds for that night only. Miss M. and her tragedy may be d---- d, so may _not_ you and your rib. Health attend you. Yours, T. HOOD, Esq. “_Enfield._ “Miss Bridget Hood sends love.”