itness against thy neighbor
at all contemplated this possible scrub. Could Moses have seen the speck
in vision? An ex post facto law alone could relieve him, and we are
taught to expect no eleventh commandment. The out-law to the Mosaic
dispensation!--unworthy to have seen Moses' behind--to lay his
desecrating hands upon Elia! Has the irriverent ark-toucher been struck
blind I wonder--? The more I think of him, the less I think of him. His
meanness is invisible with aid of solar microscope, my moral eye smarts
at him. The less flea that bites little fleas! The great Beast! the
beggarly nit!

More when we meet.

Mind, you'll come, two of you--and couldn't you go off in the morning,
that we may have a daylong curse at him, if curses are not dis-hallowed
by descending so low? Amen.

Maledicatur in extremis.

[Abraham Hayward's translation of Faust was published by Moxon in
February, 1833. Lamb's letter of thanks was said by the late Edmund
Yates to be a very odd one. I have not seen it.

We may perhaps assume that Moxon's reply to Lamb's letter stating that
Taylor's claim had been paid contained the "immortal sentence."

"Not a ninth." A tailor (Taylor) is only a ninth of a man.

"The less flea." Remembering Swift's lines in "On Poetry, a Rhapsody":--

So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite 'em,
And so proceed _ad infinitum_.]

LETTER 572

CHARLES LAMB TO JOHN FORSTER

[No date. ? March, 1833.]

Swallow your damn'd dinner and your brandy and water fast--

& come immediately

I want to take Knowles in to Emma's only female friend for 5 minutes
only, and we are free for the even'g.

I'll do a Prologue.

[The prologue was for Sheridan Knowles' play "The Wife." Lamb wrote both
prologue and epilogue (see Vol. IV.).]

LETTER 573

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[No date. ? April 10, 1833.]

Dear M. The first Oak sonnet, and the Nightingale, may show their faces
in any Annual unblushing. Some of the others are very good.

The Sabbath too much what you have written before.

You are destined to shine in Sonnets, I tell you.

Shall we look for you Sunday, we did in vain Good Friday [April 5].

[_A signature was added by Mrs. Moxon for Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson,
evidently from another letter_:--]

Your truest friend

C. LAMB.

LETTER 574

CHARLES LAMB TO C.W. DILKE