Dear Sir, The little leisure I have to-day will, I trust, excuse my saying very few words in answer to your obliging letter, of which no part touches me more than what concerns your health, which, however, I rejoice to hear is reestablishing itself.

I am sorry I did not save you the trouble of cataloguing Ames’s beads, by telling you that another person has actually done it, and designs to publish a new edition ranged in a different method.  I don’t know the gentleman’s name, but he is a friend of Sir William Musgrave, from whom I had this information some months ago.

You will oblige me much by the sight of the volume you mention.  Don’t mind the epigrams you transcribe on my father.  I have been inured to abuse on him from my birth.  It is not a quarter of an hour ago since, cutting the leaves of a new dab called Anecdotes of Polite Literature, I found myself abused for having defended my father.  I don’t know the author, and suppose I never shall, for I find Glover’s Leonidas is one of the things he admires—­and so I leave them to be forgotten together, Fortunati Ambo!

I sent your letter to Ducarel, who has promised me those poems—­I accepted the promise to get rid of him t’other day, when he would have talked me to death.

(214) A distinguished antiquary, better known by the assistance he gave to others than by publications of his own.  He was vicar of Burnham, in the county of Bucks; and died December 16th, 1782, in his sixty-eighth year.-E.

Letter 113 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.  Arlington Street, Feb. 13, 1762. (PAGE 171)

Sir, I should long ago have given myself the pleasure of writing to you, if I had not been constantly in hope of accompanying my letter with the Anecdotes of Painting, etc.; but the tediousness of engraving, and the roguery of a fourth printer, have delayed the publication week after week- for months:  truly I do not believe that there is such a being as an honest printer in the world.

I Sent the books to Mr. Whiston, who, I think you told me, was employed by you:  he answered, he knew nothing of the matter.  Mr. Dodsley has undertaken now to convey them to you, and I beg your acceptance of them:  it will be a very kind acceptance if you will tell me of any faults, blunders ,omissions, etc. as you observe them.  In a first sketch of this nature, I cannot hope the work is any thing like complete.  Excuse, Sir, the brevity Of this.  I am much hurried at this instant of publication, and have barely time to assure you how truly I am your humble servant.

Letter 114To The Earl Of Bute.(215) Strawberry Hill, Feb. 15, 1762. (PAGE 171)