y called "Many Friends" (see
Vol. I.) a little in the manner of this first paragraph.

"Your picture of the Camel." Probably the story of a caller told by
Coleridge to Lamb in a letter.

"Your Enigma about Cupid." Possibly referring to the following passage
in the _Aids to Reflection_, 1825, pages 277-278:--

From the remote East turn to the mythology of Minor Asia, to the
Descendants of Javan _who dwelt in the tents of Shem, and possessed
the Isles_. Here again, and in the usual form of an historic
Solution, we find the same _Fact_, and as characteristic of the
Human _Race_, stated in that earliest and most venerable Mythus (or
symbolic Parable) of Prometheus--that truly wonderful Fable, in
which the characters of the rebellious Spirit and of the Divine
Friend of Mankind ([Greek: Theos philanthropos]) are united in the
same Person: and thus in the most striking manner noting the forced
amalgamation of the Patriarchal Tradition with the incongruous
Scheme of Pantheism. This and the connected tale of Io, which is but
the sequel of the Prometheus, stand alone in the Greek Mythology, in
which elsewhere both Gods and Men are mere Powers and Products of
Nature. And most noticeable it is, that soon after the promulgation
and spread of the Gospel had awakened the moral sense, and had
opened the eyes even of its wiser Enemies to the necessity of
providing some solution of this great problem of the Moral World,
the beautiful Parable of Cupid and Psyche was brought forward as a
_rival_ FALL OF MAN: and the fact of a moral corruption connatural
with the human race was again recognized. In the assertion of
ORIGINAL SIN the Greek Mythology rose and set.

"Have you heard _the Creature?_"--Giovanni Battista Velluti (1781-1861),
an Italian soprano singer who first appeared in England on June 30,
1825, in Meyerbeer's "Il Crociato in Egitto." He received L2,500 for
five months' salary.]

LETTER 377

CHARLES LAMB TO BERNARD BARTON

[P.M. July 2, 1825.]

My dear B.B.--My nervous attack has so unfitted me, that I have not
courage to sit down to a Letter. My poor pittance in the London you will
see is drawn from my sickness. Your Book is very acceptable to me,
because most of it [is] new to me, but your Book itself we cannot thank
you for more sincerely than for the introduction you favoured us with to
Anne Knight. Now cannot I write _Mrs._ Anne