DEAR SIR—­I give you thanks for the agreeable present of your Theory.  Wedderburn and I made presents of our copies to such of our acquaintances as we thought good judges and proper to spread the reputation of the book.  I sent one to the Duke of Argyle, to Lord Lyttelton, Horace Walpole, Soame Jenyns, and Burke, an Irish gentleman who wrote lately a very pretty treatise on the Sublime.  Millar desired my permission to send one in your name to Dr. Warburton.

I have delayed writing you till I could tell you something of the success of the book, and could prognosticate with some probability whether it should be finally damned to oblivion or should be registered in the temple of immortality.  Though it has been published only a few weeks, I think there appear already such strong symptoms that I can almost venture to foretell its fate.  It is, in short, this—­

But I have been interrupted in my letter by a foolish impertinent visit of one who has lately come from Scotland.  He tells me that the University of Glasgow intend to declare Rouet’s office vacant upon his going abroad with Lord Hope.  I question not but you will have our friend Ferguson in your eye, in case another project for procuring him a place in the University of Edinburgh should fail.  Ferguson has very much polished and improved his Treatise on Refinement, and with some amendments it will make an admirable book, and discovers an elegant and singular genius.  The Epigoniad, I hope, will do, but it is somewhat uphill work.  As I doubt not but you consult the Reviews sometimes at present, you will see in The Critical Review a letter upon that poem; and I desire you to employ your conjectures in finding out the author.  Let me see a sample of your skill in knowing hints by guessing at the person.

I am afraid of Kames’s Law Tracts.  The man might as well think of making a fine sauce by a mixture of wormwood and aloes as an agreeable combination by joining metaphysics and Scottish law.  However, the book, I believe, has merit, though few people ever take the pains of inquiring into it.  But to return to your book and its success in this town.  I must tell you—­

A plague to interruptions!  I ordered myself to be denied, and yet here is one that has broke in upon me again.  He is a man of letters, and we have had a good deal of literary conversation.  You told me that you was curious of literary anecdotes, and therefore I shall inform you of a few that have come to my knowledge.  I believe I have mentioned to you already Helvetius’s book De l’Esprit.  It is worth your reading, not for its philosophy, which I do not highly value, but for its agreeable composition.  I had a letter from him a few days ago, wherein he tells me that my name was much oftener in the manuscript, but that the censor of books at Paris obliged him to strike it out.