Chapter 24

Arlington Street, June 11, 1771. (page 47)

You are very kind, dear Sir, and I ought to be, nay, what is more, I am ashamed of giving you so much trouble; but I am in no hurry for the letters. I shall not set out till the 7th of next month, And it will be sufficient if I receive them a week before I set out. Mr. C. C. C. C. is very welcome to attack me about a Duchess of Norfolk. He is even welcome to be in the right; to the edification I hope of all the matrons at the Antiquarian Society, who I trust will insert his criticism in the next volume of their Archaeologia, or Old Women's Logic; but, indeed, I cannot bestow my time on any more of them, nor employ myself in detecting witches for vomiting pins. When they turn extortioners like Mr. Masters,(34) the law should punish them, not only for roguery, but for exceeding their province, which our ancestors limited to killing their neighbour's cow, or crucifying dolls of wax. For my own part, I am so far from being out of charity with him, that I would give him a nag or new broom whenever he has a mind to ride to the Antiquarian sabbat, and preach against me. Though you have more cause to be angry, laugh -,it him as I do. One has not life enough to throw away on all the fools and knaves that come across one. I have often been attacked, and never replied but to Mr. Hume and Dr. Milles--to the first, because he had a name; to the second, because he had a mind to have one:--and yet I was in the wrong, for it was the only way he could attain one. In truth, it is being too self-interested, to expose only one's private antagonists, when one lets worse men pass unmolested. Does a booby hurt me by an attack on me, more than by any other foolish thing he does? Does not he tease me more by any thing he says to me, without attacking me, than by any thing he says against me behind my back? I shall, therefore, most certainly never inquire after or read Mr. C. C. C. C.'s criticism, but leave him to oblivion with her Grace of Norfolk, and our wise society. As I doubt my own writings will soon be forgotten, I need not fear that those of my answerers will be remembered.

(34) There is a note on this letter in Cole's handwriting. Mr. Mason had informed him, that Mr. Masters had lately read a paper at the Antiquarian Society against some mistake of Mr. Walpole's respective a Duchess of Norfolk; and he adds, "This I informed Mr. Walpole of in my letter, and said something to him of Masters' extortion in making me pay forty pounds towards the repairing his vicarage-house at Waterbeche, which he pretended he had fitted up for my reception."