Perhaps you may think that my animosity to opposition is the cause of my dissent, on seeing the politics of Mr. Fox (which, while I was in the world, I combated by every instrument which God had put into my hands, and in every situation in which I had taken part) so completely, if I at all understand you, adopted in your Lordship’s book:  but it was with pain I broke with that great man forever in that cause; and I assure you, it is not without pain that I differ with your Lordship on the same principles.  But it is of no concern.  I am far below the region of those great and tempestuous passions.  I feel nothing of the intemperance of mind.  It is rather sorrow and dejection than anger.

Once more my best thanks for your very polite attention; and do me the favor to believe me, with the most perfect sentiments of respect and regard,

My dear Lord,

Your Lordship’s most obedient and humble servant,

Edmund Burke.

Beaconsfield, Oct. 30th, 1795.

Friday Evening.

LETTER IV.

To the Earl Fitzwilliam.

My dear Lord,—­I am not sure that the best way of discussing any subject, except those that concern the abstracted sciences, is not somewhat in the way of dialogue.  To this mode, however, there are two objections:  the first, that it happens, as in the puppet-show, one man speaks for all the personages.  An unnatural uniformity of tone is in a manner unavoidable.  The other and more serious objection is, that, as the author (if not an absolute skeptic) must have some opinion of his own to enforce, he will be continually tempted to enervate the arguments he puts into the mouth of his adversary, or to place them in a point of view most commodious for their refutation.  There is, however, a sort of dialogue not quite so liable to these objections, because it approaches more nearly to truth and Nature:  it is called controversy.  Here the parties speak for themselves.  If the writer who attacks another’s notions does not deal fairly with his adversary, the diligent reader has it always in his power, by resorting to the work examined, to do justice to the original author and to himself.  For this reason you will not blame me, if, in my discussion of the merits of a Regicide Peace, I do not choose to trust to my own statements, but to bring forward along with them the arguments of the advocates for that measure.  If I choose puny adversaries, writers of no estimation or authority, then you will justly blame me.  I might as well bring in at once a fictitious speaker, and thus fall into all the inconveniences of an imaginary dialogue.  This I shall avoid; and I shall take no notice of any author who my friends in town do not tell me is in estimation with those whose opinions he supports.