assured that, if any Scotish man thinks that he is a warmer friend of his country than its author, he is mistaken. The "violent disgust," mentioned by your lordship, is perhaps not generally prevalent in Scotland. Your valuable friend, Mr. Dempster, is a warm friend of the work; and the Perth Academy has expressed approbation. But your lordship having been a patron of the Celtic school of our history, (the only one indeed known till this book appeared,) it is natural that many of those befriended by your lordship should be enemies of this work. I indeed lay my account with persecution, for not only having attacked national prejudices, but attacked them violently. Had the supporters of these prejudices been moderate, I should have been moderate too; but violent prejudices must be violently attacked; and there is surely no country in which prejudices are so violent as in ours. I am convinced, my lord, that old John Knox knew us very well; and, if he had not reformed us violently, he would never have reformed us at all.

Your lordship will remember that you permitted. me to dedicate to your lordship my "Scarce Scotish Poems Reprinted." That work is now in the press, and will be out next spring. If your lordship wishes to see the dedication before it be printed, let me know, and it shall be sent. It will contain just compliments on your attention to our antiquities in general, and to my labors in particular.

Barbour will soon be published. I have dropt all thoughts of Wallace; and I wish much that

your lordship would recommend to the Morisons to print it from the same manuscript as Barbour. I have drawn out arguments for the twelve books, which are at their service. As Wallace is even more popular than Bruce in Scotland, there is no doubt but the edition would be a matter of gain, and not of loss. If Wallace were thus printed, very little remains to be done for our old poetry.

Your lordship having good friends at the Vatican, I am induced to mention a discovery, which I had from a gentleman just returned from Rome. There is in the Vatican a "Historia Britanniæ,"* written by a Marcus, or Malchus, Anachorita, about the year 990, as appears from calculations in it. It is very short, and might soon be copied; and it certainly would be a matter of glory to import it into this country. If your lordship caused it to be published here, I should willingly superintend the press.

MR. DEMPSTER TO MR. PINKERTON.

Dunnichen, Nov. 25th, 1789.

Immediately on receipt of your favor of the 17th, I wrote to Mr. David Erskine, the first solicitor in Edinburgh, on the subject of your annuity. There is none to whom the wants of the great are better known; and, as he is an excellent antiquarian himself, I hope he will

* This curious work, which is in fact a rifacciamento of Nennius, has since been published with ample notes by the Rev. William Gunn.

enter with some keenness and kindness into your views, especially as they are so very becoming in a literary man.

I know no vendible sinecures which yield any thing like nine per cent. for money. Those about St. James's hardly give five; and in Scotland I do not know of any that are avowedly vendible, except some in Mr. Dundas's disposal, which are all offices of fatigue and attendance in the attorney line.

These are the hopes I have of being able to serve you; and I wish they may be well founded. When a man can give little assistance, he is proportionably ready to give advice. To this the following impertinence must be imputed; and I hope it will be forgiven:

The expense of housekeeping, however moderately kept, is, I know by experience, excessive in London, and worse in its neighbourhood. You are unmarried. Rather than leave Great Britain and London, the best kingdom, and the best residence for a learned man, and rather than go to Switzerland, where, except in Geneva, (a dear place) one is apt to tire, I should be tempted to become a lodger and boarder in London, somewhere near the Museum. I remember the present Professor Ferguson boarding and lodging most comfortably on a first floor at 18s. per week. His victuals were sent up to him, or the family table open, just as he pleased. Our friend, Thorkelin, I presume, lives on very easy terms in London; and to a man so spiritually employed as you, bodily considerations are not of much consequence.

The

Spectator and Tatler, and, I believe, half the Members of Parliament in Queen Anne's time, lived so. Dr. Samuel Johnson lived many years in London for 30l. a-year-I once heard him detail the system and style of life.

Enough of this from one of the worst economists in Europe; but I don't like that Switzerland, the government of which you'll find an arbitrary, corrupted, oligarchical, aristocratical republic, where the only road to fortune is by the judges selling justice for seven years in their bailiwics. The winter is cold-no coal, and wood very dear. Enough of this also from one who never was in the country he abuses. You will find much comfort in adhering to your true Whig principles; because they are founded in reason, and, thank Heaven, are become at length fashionable in Europe. I fear, however, it will always be a Tory party that will govern Great Britain the executive government seems of right to belong to Tories: the legislative and controlling part to the Whigs; for a true Whig is not in his true clement, unless in a situation of independency, to watch and censure even his own brother, become a minister. All the Whigs, who in my time have departed from the watching system, have died dispirited and broken-hearted; for I doubt if kings have found an adequate recompense for the misery of thinking right, and from servilely speaking and voting wrong.

Don't abandon your History of Scotland. I expect much from it. When you have finished a moderate period, give us a volume, and try the

pulse of the public. by their sale to the bookseller, make you very rich. I knew David Hume, when he had not above thirty pounds a-year to spend. Your natural succession to a mother, whose life I join with you in wishing to be long and happy, secures an addition as years draw on. What a child you are! I was born twenty-six years before you, and have hitherto fancied I was writing to an older man having discovered my mistake by your last letter, you see I presume upon it, and offer advice.

Your latter volumes may,

HON. HORACE WALPOLE TO MR. PINKERTON.

Berkeley Square, Dec. 15th, 1789.

You will probably have been surprised at not hearing from me so long: indeed, I hope you will have been so; for, as it has been occasioned by involuntary neglect, I had rather you should have reproached me in your own mind than have been thoughtless of me and indifferent. The truth is, that, between great misfortunes, accidents, and illness, I have passed six most melancholy months. I have lost two of my nearest and most beloved relations, Lady Dysart and Lord Waldegrave. Her illness terminated but in September: his, besides the grievous loss of him, left me in the greatest anxiety for his widow, who thought herself at the end of her

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