My _sentiment_ is long since vanished. I hope my
_virtues_ have done _sucking_. I can scarce think but you meant it in
joke. I hope you did, for I should be ashamed to think you could think
to gratify me by such praise, fit only to be a cordial to some
green-sick sonneteer.
[1] An allusion to Coleridge's lines, "This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison,"
wherein he styles Lamb "my gentle-hearted Charles."
XXIII.
TO MANNING.
_August_, 1800.
Dear Manning,--I am going to ask a favor of you, and am at a loss how to
do it in the most delicate mariner. For this purpose I have been looking
into Pliny's Letters, who is noted to have had the best grace in begging
of all the ancients (I read him in the elegant translation of Mr.
Melmoth); but not finding any case there exactly similar with mine, I am
constrained to beg in my own barbarian way. To come to the point, then,
and hasten into the middle of things, have you a copy of your Algebra [1]
to give away? I do not ask it for myself; I have too much reverence for
the Black Arts ever to approach thy circle, illustrious Trismegist! But
that worthy man and excellent poet, George Dyer, made me a visit
yesternight on purpose to borrow one, supposing, rationally enough, I
must say, that you had made me a present of one before this; the
omission of which I take to have proceeded only from negligence: but it
is a fault.
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