I shall be much obliged to you for the extract relating to the Academy of which a Walpole was president.  I doubt if he was of our branch; and rather think he was of the younger and Roman Catholic branch.

Are you reconciled to your new habitation?  Don’t you find it too damp? and if you do, don’t deceive yourself, and try to surmount it, but remove immediately.  Health is the most important of all considerations.  Adieu! dear Sir.

(1003) “Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third, by Mr. Horace Walpole;” London, 1768, 4to.  Two editions of this work, which occasioned a good deal of historical controversy, were published during the year.-E.

(1004) “An Account of the Giants lately discovered; in a letter to a friend in the country.”  London, 1766, 8vo.  It was afterwards translated into French by the Chevalier Redmond, an Irish officer in the French service.-E.

Letter 336 To Sir David Dalrymple.(1005) Arlington Street, Feb. 2, 1768. (page 509)

I have sent to Mr. Cadell my Historic Doubts, Sir, for you.  I hope they may draw forth more materials, which I shall be very ready either to subscribe to or to adopt.  In this view I must beg you, Sir, to look into Speed’s History of England, and in his account of Perkin Warbeck you will find Bishop Leslie often quoted.  May I trouble you to ask, to what work that alludes, and whether in print or Ms.?  Bishop Leslie lived under Queen Elizabeth, and though he could know nothing of Perkin Warbeck, was yet near enough to the time to have had much better materials than we have.  May I ask, too, if Perkin Warbeck’s Proclamation exists any where authentically?  You will see in my book the reason of all these questions.

I am so much hurried with it just now, that you will excuse my being so brief.  I can attribute to nothing but the curiosity of the subject, the great demand for it; though it was sold publicly but yesterday, and twelve hundred and fifty copies were printed, Dodsley has been with me this morning to tell me he must prepare another edition directly.  I am, Sir, etc.

(1005) Now first collected.

Letter 337 To Mr. Gray.  Arlington Street, Feb. 18, 1768. (page 509)

You have sent me a long and very obliging letter, and yet I am extremely out of humour with you.  I saw Poems by Mr. Gray advertised:  I called directly at Dodsley’s to know if this was to be more than a new edition?  He was not at home himself, but his foreman told me he thought there were some new pieces, and notes to the whole.  It was very unkind, not only to go out of town without mentioning them to me, without showing them to me, but not to say a word of them in this letter.  Do you think I am indifferent, or not curious, about what you write?  I have ceased to ask you, because you have so long refused to show me any thing.