Dyer was very thin and short in person, and was extremely near-sighted; and his motions were often (apparently) spasmodic. His means of living were very scanty; he subsisted mainly by supervising the press, being employed for that purpose by booksellers when they were printing Greek or Latin books. He dwelt in Clifford's Inn, "like a dove in an asp's nest," as Charles Lamb wittily says; and he might often have been seen with a classical volume in his hand, and another in his pocket, walking slowly along Fleet Street or its neighborhood, unconscious of gazers, cogitating over some sentence, the correctness of which it was his duty to determine. You might meet him murmuring to himself in a low voice, and apparently tasting the flavor of the words. Dyer's knowledge of the drama (which formed part of the subject of his first publication) may be guessed, by his having read Shakespeare, "an irregular genius," and having dipped into Rowe and Otway, but never having heard of any other writers in that class. In absence of mind, he probably exceeded every other living man. Lamb has set forth one instance (which I know to be a fact) of Dyer's forgetfulness, in his "Oxford in the Vacation;" and to this various others might be added, such as his emptying his snuff-box into the teapot when he was preparing breakfast for a hungry friend, &c. But it is scarcely worth while to chronicle minutely the harmless foibles of this inoffensive old man. If I had to write his epitaph, I should say that he was neither much respected nor at all hated; too good to dislike, too inactive to excite great affection; and that he was as simple as the daisy, which we think we admire, and daily tread under foot. In 1799 Charles Lamb visited Cambridge, and there, through the introduction of Lloyd, made the important acquaintance of Mr. Thomas Manning, then a mathematical tutor in the university. This soon grew into a close intimacy. Charles readily perceived the intellectual value of Manning, and seems to have eagerly sought his friendship, which, he says, (December, 1799), will render the prospect of the approaching century very pleasant. "That century must needs commence auspiciously for me" (he adds), "that brings with it Manning's friendship as an earnest of its after gifts." At first sight it appears strange that there should be formed a close friendship between a youth, a beginner, or student in poetry (no more), and a professor of science at one of our great seats of learning. But these men had, I suppose, an intuitive perception of each other's excellences. And there sometimes lie behind the outer projections of character a thousand concealed shades which readily intermingle with those of other people. There were amongst Lamb's tender thoughts, and Manning's mathematical tendencies, certain neutral qualities which assimilated with each other, and which eventually served to cement that union between them which continued unshaken during the lives of both.