XIV

ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND

(

poem; and I defire you to employ your conjec-tures in finding out the author. Let me fee afampleof your fkill in knowing hands by your gueffingat the perfon, I am afraid of Lord Kames ’s LawTra£ls. A man might as well think of making afine fauce by a mixture of wormwood and aloes,as an agreeable compofition by joining metaphy-fics and Scotch law. However, the book, I be-lieve, has merit; though few people will take thepains of diving into it. But, to return to your book,and its fuccefs in this town , I muff tell you ——A plague of interruptions! I ordered myfelf to bedenied; and yet here is one that has broke in uponme again. He is a man of letters, and we have hada good deal of literary converfation. You told methat you was curious of literary anecdotes, andtherefore I fliall inform you of a few that have cometo my knowledge. I believe I have mentioned toyou already Helvetius ’s book a’e I'lfpril. It isworth your reading, not for its philofophy, whichI do not highly value, but for its agreeable com-pofition, I had a letter from him a few days ago,wherein he tells me that my name was much of-tener in the manufcript, but that the Cenfor ofbooks at Paris obliged him to firike it out. Vol­ taire has lately publillied a final) work calledCcmdtde, ou TOpthniJinc, I fliall give you a detail

of it—-But what is all this to my book? fay

you,—My dear Mr. Smith, have patience; Com-