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 (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 [?backs], smeared leaves, and dogs' ears, will be
rather a recommendation than otherwise.

N.B.--He must have the book as soon as possible, or nothing can withhold
him from madly purchasing the book on tick.... Then shall we see him
sweetly restored to the chair of Longinus--to dictate in smooth and
modest phrase the laws of verse; to prove that Theocritus first
introduced the Pastoral, and Virgil and Pope brought it to its