LETTER 63


CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING

[P.M. August 11, 1800.]

My dear fellow (_N.B._ mighty familiar of late!) for me to come to
Cambridge now is one of God Almighty's impossibilities. Metaphysicians
tell us, even He can work nothing which implies a contradiction. I can
explain this by telling you that I am engaged to do double duty (this
hot weather!) for a man who has taken advantage of this very weather to
go and cool himself in "green retreats" all the month of August.

But for you to come to London instead!--muse upon it, revolve it, cast
it about in your mind. I have a bed at your command. You shall drink
rum, brandy, gin, aqua-vitae, usquebaugh, or whiskey a' nights; and for
the after-dinner trick I have eight bottles of genuine port, which, if
mathematically divided, gives 1-1/7 for every day you stay, provided you
stay a week. Hear John Milton sing,

"Let Euclid rest and Archimedes pause."
Twenty-first Sonnet.

And elsewhere,--

"What neat repast shall feast us, light[1] and choice,
Of Attic taste, with wine,[2] whence we may rise
To hear the lute well touch'd, or artful voice
Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?"