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. I could lend him no assistance. You must know he is just now
diverted from the pursuit of BELL LETTERS by a paradox, which he has
heard his friend Frend [2] (that learned mathematician) maintain, that
the negative quantities of mathematicians were _merae nugae_,--things
scarcely _in rerum natura_, and smacking too much of mystery for
gentlemen of Mr. Frend's clear Unitarian capacity. However, the dispute,
once set a-going, has seized violently on George's pericranick; and it
is necessary for his health that he should speedily come to a resolution
of his doubts. He goes about teasing his friends with his new
mathematics; he even frantically talks of purchasing Manning's Algebra,
which shows him far gone, for, to my knowledge, he has not been master
of seven shillings a good time. George's pockets and ----'s brains are
two things in nature which do not abhor a vacuum.... Now, if you could
step in, in this trembling suspense of his reason, and he should find on
Saturday morning, lying for him at the Porter's Lodge, Clifford's
Inn.--his safest address,--Manning's Algebra, with a neat manuscriptum
in the blank leaf, running thus, "FROM THE AUTHOR!" it might save his
wits and restore the unhappy author to those studies of poetry and
criticism which are at present suspended, to the infinite regret of the
whole literary world. N.B.--Dirty books, smeared leaves, and dogs' ears
will be rather a recommendation than otherwise. N.B.--He must h