He got your direction from me with a
view of writing to you and thanking you for your present,
for I made it pass in your name. I wonder he has not done
it. He is now in Ireland. I am not acquainted with
Jenyns,[110] but he spoke very highly of the book to Oswald,
who is his brother in the Board of Trade. Millar showed me a
few days ago a letter from Lord Fitzmaurice,[111] where he
tells him that he has carried over a few copies to the Hague
for presents. Mr. York[112] was very much taken with it, as
well as several others who had read it.

I am told that you are preparing a new edition, and propose
to make some additions and alterations in order to obviate
objections. I shall use the freedom to propose one; which,
if it appears to be of any weight, you may have in your eye.
I wish you had more particularly and fully proved that all
kinds of sympathy are agreeable. This is the hinge of your
system, and yet you only mention the matter cursorily on p.
20. Now it would appear that there is a disagreeable
sympathy as well as an agreeable. And, indeed, as the
sympathetic passion is a reflex image of the principal, it
must partake of its qualities, and be painful when that is
so. Indeed, _when we converse with a man with whom we can
entirely sympathise_, that is when there is a warm and
intimate friendship, the cordial openness of such a commerce
overbears the pain of a disagreeable sympathy, and renders
the whole movement agreeable, but in ordinary cases this
cannot have place. A man tired and disgusted with
everything, always _ennuie_, sickly, complaining,
embarrassed, such a one throws an evident damp on company,
which I suppose would be accounted for by sympathy, and yet
is disagreeable.

It is always thought a difficult problem to account for the
pleasure from the tears and grief and sympathy of tragedy,
which would not be the case if all sympathy was agreeable.
An hospital would be a more entertaining place than a ball.
I am afraid that on p. 99 and 111 this proposition has
escaped you, or rather is interwoven with your reasoning. In
that place you say expressly, "It is painful to go along
with grief, and we always enter into it with reluctance." It
will probably be requisite for you to modify or explain this
sentimen