In haste, C.L.
P.S.—I do not know what to say to your latest theory about Nero being the Messiah, though by all accounts he was a 'nointed one.
["Next week early." Canon Ainger's text here has: "May we venture to bring Emma with us?"
"Your nephew's pleasant book"—Henry Nelson Coleridge's Six Months in the West Indies in 1825. In the last chapter but one of the book is an account of the slave question, under the title "Planters and Slaves."
"Sternhold"—Thomas Sternhold, the coadjutor of Hopkins in paraphrasing the Psalms.
"The pantomime." Coleridge seems to have had some project for modernising Dekker for Fanny Kelly. Mr. Dykes Campbell suggested that the play to be treated was "Old Fortunatus."
"Miss Gray." I have found nothing of this lady.
"Manning." Writing to Robert Lloyd twenty-five years earlier Lamb had said of Manning: "A man of great Power—an enchanter almost.—Far beyond Coleridge or any man in power of impressing —when he gets you alone he can act the wonders of Egypt. Only he is lazy, and does not always put forth all his strength; if he did, I know no man of genius at all comparable to him."
"Against Thursday." Coleridge was "at home" on Thursday evenings. Possibly on this occasion some one interested in Gray was to be there, or the allusion may be a punning one to Miss Gray.
"Your latest theory." I cannot explain this.]