encumbrance, and shall be able to lock my friends out as
often as I desire to hold free converse with my immortal
mind; for my present lodgings resemble a minister's levee, I
have so increased my acquaintance (as they call 'em), since
I have resided in town. Like the country mouse, that had
tasted a little of urban manners, I long to be nibbling my
own cheese by my dear self without mouse-traps and
time-traps. By my new plan, I shall be as airy, up four pair
of stairs, as in the country; and in a garden, in the midst
of enchanting, more than Mahometan paradise, London, whose
dirtiest, drab-frequented alley, and her lowest-bowing
tradesman, I would not exchange for Skiddaw, Helvellyn
James, Walter, and the parson into the bargain. O! her lamps
of a night! her rich goldsmiths, print-shops, toy-shops,
mercers, hardwaremen, pastry-cooks! St. Paul's churchyard!
the Strand! Exeter Change! Charing Cross, with the man
_upon_ a black horse! These are thy gods, O London! Ain't
you mightily moped on the banks of the Cam? Had you not
better come and set up here? You can't think what a
difference. All the streets and pavements are pure gold, I
warrant you. At least I know an alchemy that turns her mud
into that metal,--a mind that loves to be at home in crowds.

Here we have the voice of the best of London-lovers, and here we have
also a hint of the way in which he was finding himself too much
"accompanied"--to use a phrase from one of his unpublished letters. He
frequently chafed against the number of visitors who ate up his day,
and at times had even to resent the way in which an intimate friend
would be over-zealous in entertaining him, when for his own part he
would rather have been alone. One special evening in each week was set