e of those strange facts
for which it is so difficult to account, that I shall not
attempt it. The _Idler_ has strongly expressed many of the
wonderful effects of the _vis inertiae_ of the human mind. But
it is hardly credible that a man should have the warmest
regard for his friend, a constant desire to show it, and a
keen ambition for a frequent epistolary intercourse with him,
and yet should let months roll on without having resolution,
or activity, or power, or whatever it be, to write a few
lines. A man in such a situation is somewhat like Tantalus
reversed. He recedes, he knows not how, from what he loves,
which is full as provoking as when what he loves recedes from
him. That my complaint is not a peculiar fancy, but deep in
human nature, I appeal to the authority of St. Paul, who
though he had not been exalted to the dignity of an apostle,
would have stood high in fame as a philosopher and orator,
"_What I would that do I not._" You need be under no concern
as to your debt to me for the book which I purchased for you.
It was long ago discharged; for believe me, I intended the
book as a present. Or if you rather chuse that it should be
held as an exchange with the epitaphs which you sent me, I
have no objection. Dr. Goldsmith's death would affect all the
club much. I have not been so much affected with any event
that has happened of a long time. I wish you would give me,
who am at a distance, and who cannot get to London this
spring, some particulars with regards to his last appearances.
Dr. Young has a fine thought to this purpose, that every
friend who goes before us to the other side of the river of
death, makes the passage to us the easier. Were our club all
removed to a future world but one or two, _they_, one should
think, would incline to follow. By all means let me be on your
list of subscribers to Mr. Morrell's _Prometheus_. You have
enlivened the town, I see, with a musical piece. The prologue
is admirably fancied _arripere populum tributim_; though, to
be sure, Foote's remark applies to it, that your prologues {329}
have a culinary turn, and that therefore the motto to your
collection of them should be, _Animus jamdudum in Patinis_. A
player upon words might answer him, "Any Patinis rather than
your Piety in Patten