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?"

Indeed, the poets are full of this pleasing morality--

"Veni cito, Domine Manning!"

Think upon it. Excuse the paper: it is all I have.

_N.B._--I lives at No. 27 Southampton Buildings, Holborn.

C. LAMB.

[Footnote 1: We poets generally give _light_ dinners.]

[Footnote 2: No doubt the poet here alludes to port wine at 38s. the dozen.]