fortified me in the Protestant Religion; and gave me the greatest abhorrence to Popery. And soon after I perused Mercurius Rusticus, The Eleventh Persecution, Lloyd, Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, and many others, which gave me almost as bad an opinion of the Dissenters. But then I learned in my childhood to live in Charity with all Men, and I have used my best endeavours to put this doctrine in practice all my life long. I never thought ill, or quarrelled with any man merely because he had been educated in principles different to mine; and yet I have been acquainted with many papists, dissenters, &c. and if I found any of them learned, ingenuous, and modest, I always found my heart well-disposed for contracting a firm friendship with them: and notwithstanding that, I dare believe that all those people will, with joint consent, vouch for me, that I have ever been steady in my own principles.

I can truly affirm that never any one engaged in such a work, with an honester heart, or executed it with more unbiassed integrity, than I have done. And indeed, I take the unkind censures passed upon me by the furious uncharitable zealots of both parties, to be the strongest proof of it. And after all, I dare challenge any man, whether Protestant, Papist, or Dissenter, Whig or Tory, (and I have drawn up and published memoirs of women who professed all those prin.

ciples) to prove me guilty of partiality, or to shew that I have made any uncharitable reflections on any person, and whenever that is done, I will faithfully promise to make a public recantation. I wish, Sir, you would point out to me any one unbecoming word or expression which has fell from me on Bishop Burnet. Had I had the least inclination to have lessened his character, I did not want proper materials to have done it. I have in my possession two original letters from Bishop Gibson and Mr. Norris of Bemerton,* to Dr. Charlett, which, if published, would lessen your too great esteem for him. And what, I beseech you, Sir, have I said in praise of Mrs. Hopton and her pious and useful labours, which they do not well deserve, and which can possibly give any just offence to any good man? I dare not censure or condemn a good thing merely because it borders upon the Church of Rome. I rather rejoice that she retains any thing I can fairly approve. Should I attempt to do this, might I not condemn the greater part of our Liturgy, &c.? and should I not stand self-condemned for so doing? I cannot for my life perceive that I have said any thing of that excellent woman, which she does not merit; and I must beg leave to say that I think her letter to F. Tur

beville deserves to be wrote in letters of gold, and ought to be carefully read and preserved by all Protestants. Mary Queen of Scots fell under my notice, no otherwise than as a learned woman. The affairs you mention would by no means suit my peaceable temper. I was too well acquainted with the warm disputes, and fierce engagement both of domestic and foreign writers on that head, once to touch upon the subject. And indeed, unless I had been the happy discoverer of some secret springs of action which would have given new information to the public, it would have been excessive folly in me to intermeddle in an affair of so tender a nature, and of so great importance.

I have often blamed my dear friend Mr. Brome for destroying his valuable collections, but I now cease to wonder at it. He spent his leisure hours pleasantly and inoffensively, and when old age came on, which not only abates the thirst, but oftentimes gives a disrelish to these and almost all other things, which do not help to make our passage into eternity more easy, he then destroyed them (I dare believe) in order to prevent the malicious reflections of an ill-natured world.

I have always been a passionate lover of History and Antiquity, Biography, and Northern Literature and as I have ever hated idleness, so I have in my time filled many hundred sheets with

my useless scribble, the greater part of which I will commit to the flames shortly, to prevent their giving me any uneasiness in my last moments.*

[May 22, 1753.]

SIR,

LETTER CLXII.

Dr. LYTTELTON to Mr. BALLARD.

In Answer to the last.

THE pleasure I generally receive in reading a letter from you was much lessened when I was favoured with your last of the 22d ult. as I perceived by it you was sensibly affected by some passages in a former letter of mine relating to your Lives of the Learned Ladies. The objections I then made were not my own, but those of other people, and you have given so satisfactory an answer to them that must

* Ballard left a very large collection of original letters, including copies of several of his own writing, and a complete Index to the whole, to the Bodleian, where they are now preserved with great care. The original Manuscript of his "Learned Ladies" was in the possession of the late Mr. Gough, and was sold with the rest of his books, in 1811.

at once stop the mouths of candid critics; and as for others, it is of no consequence to endeavour to refute them. As to what you observe of Mr. Brome's burning his papers long before his death, I am fully persuaded he was so far from passing the remainder of his life the more quietly for such a hasty action, that he must have a thousand times repented of it in his cooler hours, and consequently have suffered much uneasiness on that account. Let me advise you therefore not to follow such an example, but remember that no works are faultless, any more than their authors; and if there are more readers who approve than condemn, 'tis as much as any author should expect.

June 11, 1753.