ave the
book as soon as possible, or nothing can withhold him from madly
purchasing the book on tick.... Then shall we see him sweetly restored
to the chair of Longinus,--to dictate in smooth and modest phrase the
laws of verse; to prove that Theocritus first introduced the Pastoral,
and Virgil and Pope brought it to its perfection; that Gray and Mason
(who always hunt in couples in George's brain) have shown a great deal
of poetical fire in their lyric poetry; that Aristotle's rules are not
to be servilely followed, which George has shown to have imposed great
shackles upon modern genius. His poems, I find, are to consist of two
vols., reasonable octavo; and a third book will exclusively contain
criticisms, in which he asserts he has gone _pretty deeply_ into the
laws of blank verse and rhyme, epic poetry, dramatic and pastoral
ditto,--all which is to come out before Christmas. But above all he has
_touched_ most _deeply_ upon the Drama, comparing the English with the
modern German stage, their merits and defects. Apprehending that his
_studies_ (not to mention his _turn_, which I take to be chiefly towards
the lyrical poetry) hardly qualified him for these disquisitions, I
modestly inquired what plays he had read. I found by George's reply that
he _had_ read Shakspeare, but that was a good while since: he calls him
a great but irregular genius, which I think to be an original and just
remark. (Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Ben Jonson, Shirley, Marlowe,
Ford, and the worthies of Dodsley's Collection,--he confessed he had
read none of them, but professed his _intention_ of looking through them
all, so as to be able to _touch_ upon them in his book.) So Shakspeare,
Otway, and I believe Rowe, to whom he was naturally directed by
Johnson's Lives, and these not read lately, are to stand him in stead of
a general knowledge of the subject. God bless his dear absurd head!

By the by, did I not write you a letter with something about an
invitation in it?--but let that pass; I suppose it is not agreeable.

N.B. It would not be amiss if you were to accompany your _present_ with
a dissertation on negative quantities.

C. L.

[1] Manning, while at Cambridge, published a work on Algebra.

[2] The Rev. William Frend, who was expelled from Cambridge for
Unitarianism.

XXIV.

TO MANNING.

1800.

George Dyer is an Archimedes and an Archimagus and a Tycho Brahe and a
Copernicus; and thou art the darling of the Nine,