_Ecquid meditatur Archimedes?_ What is Euclid doing? What has happened
to learned Trismegist?--Doth he take it in ill part, that his humble
friend did not comply with his courteous invitation? Let it suffice, I
could not come--are impossibilities nothing--be they abstractions of the
intellects or not (rather) most sharp and mortifying realities? nuts in
the Will's mouth too hard for her to crack? brick and stone walls in her
way, which she can by no means eat through? sore lets, _impedimenta
viarum_, no thoroughfares? _racemi nimium alte pendentes_? Is the phrase
classic? I allude to the grapes in Aesop, which cost the fox a strain,
and gained the world an aphorism. Observe the superscription of this
letter. In adapting the size of the letters, which constitute _your_
name and Mr. _Crisp's_ name respectively, I had an eye to your different
stations, in life. 'Tis really curious, and must be soothing to an
_aristocrat_. I wonder it has never been hit on before my time. I have
made an acquisition latterly of a _pleasant hand_, one Rickman, to whom
I was introduced by George Dyer, not the most flattering auspices under
which one man can be introduced to another. George brings all sorts of
people together, setting up a sort of agrarian law, or common property,
in matter of society; but for once he has done me a great pleasure,
while he was only pursuing a principle, as _ignes fatui may_ light you
home. This Rickman lives in our Buildings, immediately opposite our
house; the finest fellow to drop in a' nights, about nine or ten
o'clock--cold bread-and-cheese time--just in the _wishing_ time of the
night, when you _wish_ for somebody to come in, without a distinct idea
of a probable anybody. Just in the nick, neither too early to be
tedious, nor too late to sit a reasonable time. He is a most pleasant
hand: a fine rattling fellow, has gone through life laughing at solemn
apes; himself hugely literate, oppressively full of information in all
stuff of conversation, from matter of fact to Xenophon and Plato--can