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 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 perfection; that Gray and Mason (who always hunt in couples in George’s brain) have shown a great deal of poetical fire in their lyric poetry; that Aristotle’s rules are not to be servilely followed, which George has shown to have imposed great shackles upon modern genius.  His poems, I find, are to consist of two vols., reasonable octavo; and a third book will exclusively contain criticisms, in which he asserts he has gone pretty deeply into the laws of blank verse and rhyme, epic poetry, dramatic and pastoral ditto,—­all which is to come out before Christmas.  But above all he has touched most deeply upon the Drama, comparing the English with the modern German stage, their merits and defects.  Apprehending that his studies (not to mention his turn, which I take to be chiefly towards the lyrical poetry) hardly qualified him for these disquisitions, I modestly inquired what plays he had read.  I found by George’s reply that he had read Shakspeare, but that was a good while since:  he calls him a great but irregular genius, which I think to be an original