ce of alliteration
and antithesis! why it must have been a labour far above the most
difficult versification. There is a fine simile of or picture of
Semiramis arming to repel a siege. I do not mean to keep the Book, for I
suspect you are forming a curious collection, and I do not pretend to
any thing of the kind. I have not a Blackletter Book among mine, old
Chaucer excepted, and am not Bibliomanist enough to like Blackletter. It
is painful to read. Therefore I must insist on returning it at
opportunity, not from contumacity and reluctance to be oblig'd, but
because it must suit you better than me. The loss of a present _from_
should never exceed the gain of a present _to_. I hold this maxim
infallible in the accepting Line. I read your Magazines with
satisfaction. I throughly agree with you as to the German Faust, as far
[as] I can do justice to it from an English translation. 'Tis a
disagreeable canting tale of Seduction, which has nothing to do with the
Spirit of Faustus-- Curiosity. Was the dark secret to be explored to end
in the seducing of a weak girl, which might have been accomplished by
earthly agency? When Marlow gives _his_ Faustus a mistress, he flies him
at Helen, flower of Greece, to be sure, and not at Miss Betsy, or Miss
Sally Thoughtless.

"Cut is the branch that bore the goodly fruit,
And wither'd is Apollo's laurel tree:
Faustus is dead."

What a noble natural transition from metaphor to plain speaking! as if
the figurative had flagged in description of such a Loss, and was
reduced to tell the fact simply.--

I must now thank you for your very kind invitation. It is not out of
prospect that I may see Manchester some day, and then I will avail
myself of your kindness. But Holydays are scarce things with me, and the
Laws of attendance are getting stronger and stronger at Leadenhall. But
I shall bear it in mind. Meantime something may (more probably) bring
you to town, where I shall be happy to see you. I am always to be found
(alas!) at my desk in the forepart of the day.

I wonder why they do not send the revise. I leave late at office, and my
abode lies out of the way, or I should have seen about it. If you are
impatient, Perhaps a Line to the Printer, directing him to send it me,
at Accountant's Office, may answer. You will see by the scrawl that I
only snatch a few minutes from intermitting Business.

Your oblig. Ser., C. LAMB.