ues with
taking a hand at), not being able to hit a ball he had iterate aimed at,
he cried out, "I cannot hit that beast." Now, the balls are usually
called men, but he felicitously hit upon a middle term,--a term of
approximation and imaginative reconciliation; a something where the two
ends of the brute matter (ivory) and their human and rather violent
personification into men might meet, as I take it,--illustrative of that
excellent remark in a certain preface about imagination, explaining
"Like a sea-beast that had crawled forth to sun himself!" Not that I
accuse William Minor of hereditary plagiary, or conceive the image to
have come _ex traduce_. Rather he seemeth to keep aloof from any source
of imitation, and purposely to remain ignorant of what mighty poets have
done in this kind before him; for being asked if his father had ever
been on Westminster Bridge, [2] he answered that he did not know!

It is hard to discern the oak in the acorn, or a temple like St. Paul's
in the first stone which is laid; nor can I quite prefigure what
destination the genius of William Minor hath to take. Some few hints I
have set down, to guide my future observations. He hath the power of
calculation in no ordinary degree for a chit. He combineth figures,
after the first boggle, rapidly; as in the tricktrack board, where the
hits are figured, at first he did not perceive that 15 and 7 made 22;
but by a little use he could combine 8 with 25, and 33 again with
16,--which approacheth something in kind (far let me be from flattering
him by saying in degree) to that of the famous American boy. I am
sometimes inclined to think I perceive the future satirist in him, for
he hath a sub-sardonic smile which bursteth out upon occasion,--as when
he was asked if London were as big as Ambleside; and indeed no other
answer was given, or proper to be given, to so ensnaring and provoking a
question. In the contour of skull certainly I discern something
paternal; but whether in all respects the future man shall transcend his
father's fame, Time, the trier of Geniuses, must decide. Be it
pronounced peremptorily at present that Willy is a well-mannered child,
and though no great student, hath yet a lively eye for things that lie
before him.

Given in haste from my desk at Leadenhall. Yours, and yours most
sincerely,

C. LAMB.

[1] Wordsworth's third son. He was at the Charter-house School in
London, and the Lambs had invited him to spend a half ho