THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE TO MR. PINKERTON. Strawberry Hill, Sept. 17th, 1785. You are too modest, Sir, in asking my advice on a point on which you could have no better guide than your own judgment. If I presume to give you my opinion, it is from zeal for your honor. I think it would be below you to make a regular answer to anonymous scribblers in a Magazine : you had better wait to see whether any formal reply is made to your book; and whether by any avowed writer; to whom, if he writes sensibly and decently, you may condescend to make an answer. Still, as you say you have been misquoted, I should not wish you to be quite silent, though 1 should like better to have you turn such enemies into ridicule. A foe who misquotes you, ought to be a welcome antagonist. He is so humble as to confess, when he censures what you have not said, that he cannot confute what you have said; and he is so kind as to furnish you with an opportunity of proving him a liar, as you may refer to your book to detect him. This is what I would do:-I would specify in the same Magazine, in which he has attacked you, your real words, and those he has imputed to you; and then appeal to the equity of the reader: you may guess that the shaft comes from somebody whom you have censured; and thence you may draw a fair conclusion, that you had been in the right to laugh at one who was reduced to put his own words into your mouth before he could find fault with them. And, having so done, whatever indignation he has excited in the reader must recoil on himself; as the offensive passages will come out to have been his own, not yours. You might even begin with loudly condemning the words or thoughts imputed to you, as if you retracted them; and then, as if you turned to your book, and found that you had said no such thing there, as what you was ready to retract, the ridicule would be doubled on your adversary. Something of this kind is the most I would stoop to; but I would take the utmost care not to betray a grain of more anger than is implied in contempt and ridicule. Fools can only revenge themselves by provoking; for then they bring you to a level with themselves. The good sense of your work will support it; and there is scarce a reason for defending it, but, by keeping up a controversy, to make it more noticed; for the age is so idle and indifferent, that few objects strike, unless parties are formed for or against them. member many years ago advising some acquaintance of mine, who were engaged in the direction of the Opera, to raise a competition between two of their singers, and have papers written pro and con; for then numbers would go to clap and hiss the rivals respectively, who would not go to be pleased with the music. Dr. Lort was chaplain to the late Archbishop, Sir, but I believe is not to the present; nor do I know whether at all connected with him* I do not even know where Dr. Lort is, having seen him but once the whole summer. I am acquainted with another person, who, I believe, has some interest with the present Archbishop; but I conclude that leave must be asked to consult the particular books, as, probably, indiscriminate access would not be granted. I have not a single correspondent left at Paris. The Abbé Barthélémi, with whom I was very intimate, behaved most unhandsomely to me after Madame du Deffand's death, when I had acted by him in a manner that called for a very different return. He would have been the most proper person to apply to; but I cannot ask a favor of one, to whom I had done one, and who has been very ungrateful. I might have an opportunity perhaps, ere long, of making the inquiry you desire; though the person to whom I must apply is rather too great to employ; but, if I can bring it about, I will; for I should have great pleasure to assist your pursuits, though, from my long acquaintance with the world, I am very diffident of making promises that are to be executed by others. Only a few months after this letter was written, Dr. Lort would have been the person best qualified to assist Mr. Pinkerton's researches at Lambeth; for he was appointed librarian to the Archbishop, in the course of the year 1785, upon the death of Dr. Ducarel. THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE TO MR. PINKERTON. Strawberry Hill, Sept. 30th, 1785. As soon, Sir, as I can see the lady, my friend,* who is much acquainted with the Archbishop, I will try if she will ask his leave for you to see the books you mention in his library, of which I will give her the list. I did ask Mr. Cambridge where Dr. Lort is: he told me, with the Bishop of Chester, and on an intended tour to the Lakes. I do not possess nor ever looked into one of the books you specify, nor Mabillon's Acta Sanctorum, nor O'Flaherty's Ogygia. My reading has been very idle, and trifling, and desultory; not that perhaps it has not been employed on authors as respectable as those you want to consult, nor that I had not rather read the Deeds of Sinners than Acta Sanctorum. I have no reverence but for sensible books, and consequently not for a great number; and had rather have read fewer than I have, than more. The rest may be useful on certain points, as they happen now to be to you; who, I am sure, would not read them for general use and pleasure, and are a very different kind of author. I shall like, I dare to say, any thing you do write; but I am not overjoyed at your wading into the history of dark ages, unless you use it as a canvas to be embroidered with your own opinions, and episodes, and comparisons with more * Lady Diana Beauclerk. See preceding letter. recent times. That is a most entertaining kind of writing. In general, I have seldom wasted time on the origin of nations; unless for an opportunity of smiling at the gravity of the author, or at the absurdity of the manners of those ages; for absurdity and bravery compose almost all the anecdotes we have of them, except the accounts of what they never did, nor thought of doing. I have a real affection for Bishop Hoadley: he stands with me in lieu of what are called the Fathers; and I am much obliged to you for offering to lend me a book of his; but, as my faith in him and his doctrines has long been settled, I shall not return to such grave studies, when I have so little time left, and desire only to pass it tranquilly, and without thinking of what I can neither propagate nor correct. When youth made me sanguine, I hoped mankind might be set right. Now that I am very old, I sit down with this lazy maxim-that, unless one could cure men of being fools, it is to no purpose to cure them of any folly; as it is only making room for some other. Self-interest is thought to govern every man; yet is it possible to be less governed by selfinterest than men are in the aggregate? Do not thousands sacrifice even their lives for single men? Is not it an established rule in France, that every person in that kingdom should love every king they have, in his turn? What government is formed for general happiness? Where is not it thought heresy by the majority, to insinuate that the felicity of one man ought not to be preferred to that of millions? Had not I better, at sixty |