_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, [1] 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.
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