intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus
Inciderit.

_Ars Poetica_, 191, 192.

Neither let a god interfere, unless a difficulty worth a god's
unravelling should happen (Smart's translation).

"My Black Balling." _Elia_ had been rejected by a Book Club in
Woodbridge.

"Coleridge's book"--the _Aids to Reflection_, 1825. The first intention
had been a selection of "Beauties" from Bishop Leighton (1611-1684),
Archbishop of Glasgow, and author, among other works, of _Rules and
Instructions for a Holy Life_.

"The Decision against Hunt." John Hunt, the publisher of _The Liberal_,
in which Byron's "Vision of Judgment" had been printed in 1822, had just
been fined L100 for the libel therein contained on George III.

Here should come a note from Lamb to Charles Ollier, thanking him for a
copy of his _Inesilla; or, The Tempter: A Romance, with Other Tales_.]

LETTER 341

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[P.M. February 25, 1824.]

My dear Sir--Your title of Poetic Vigils arrides me much more than A
Volume of Verse, which is no meaning. The motto says nothing, but I
cannot suggest a better. I do not like mottoes but where they are
singularly felicitous; there is foppery in them. They are unplain,
un-Quakerish. They are good only where they flow from the Title and are
a kind of justification of it. There is nothing about watchings or
lucubrations in the one you suggest, no commentary on Vigils. By the
way, a wag would recommend you to the Line of Pope

Sleepless himself--to give his readers sleep--

I by no means wish it. But it may explain what I mean, that a neat motto
is child of the Title. I think Poetic Virgils as short and sweet as can
be desired; only have an eye on the Proof, that the Printer do not
substitute Virgils, which would ill accord with your modesty or meaning.
Your suggested motto is antique enough in spelling, and modern enough in
phrases; a good modern antique: but the matter of it is germane to the
purpose only supposing the title proposed a vindication of yourself from
the presumption of authorship. The 1st title was liable to this
objection, that if you were disposed to enlarge it, and the bookseller
insisted on its appearance in Two Tomes, how oddly it would sound--

A Volume of Verse
in Two Volumes
2d edition &c--

You see thro' my wicked intention of curtailing this Epistolet by the
above device of large margin. But in truth the idea of l