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　　LETTER 174

　　CHARLES LAMB TO GEORGE DYER

　　From my Desk in Leadenhall Street,

　　Decr 5, 1808.

　　Dear Dyer,—Coleridge is not so bad as your fears have represented him; it is true that he is Bury'd, altho' he is not dead; to understand this quibble you must know that he is at Bury St. Edmunds, relaxing, after the fatigues of lecturing and Londonizing. The little Rickmaness, whom you enquire after so kindly, thrives and grows apace; she is already a prattler, and 'tis thought that on some future day she may be a speaker. [This was Mrs. Lefroy.] We hold our weekly meetings still at No. 16, where altho' we are not so high as the top of Malvern, we are involved in almost as much mist. Miss B[etham]'s merit "in every point of view," I am not disposed to question, altho' I have not been indulged with any view of that lady, back, side, or front—fie! Dyer, to praise a female in such common market phrases—you who are held so courtly and so attentive. My book is not yet out, that is not my "Extracts," my "Ulysses" is, and waits your acceptance. When you shall come to town, I hope to present you both together—never think of buying the "Extracts"—half guinea books were never calculated for my friends. Those poets have started up since your departure; William Hazlitt, your friend and mine, is putting to press a collection of verses, chiefly amatory, some of them pretty enough. How these painters encroach on our province! There's Hoppner, Shee, Westall, and I don't know who besides, and Tresham. It seems on confession, that they are not at the top of their own art, when they seek to eke out their fame with the assistance of another's; no large tea-dealer sells cheese; no great silversmith sells razorstrops; it is only your petty dealers who mix commodities. If Nero had been a great Emperor, he would never have played the Violoncello! Who ever caught you, Dyer, designing a landscape, or taking a likeness? I have no more to add, who am the friend of virtue, poetry, painting, therefore in an especial manner,

　　Unalterably Thine

　　C. LAMB. The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 5