divest yourself of prepossession; else, how was it possible that a fine voice both for speaking and singing; action open, easy, and graceful; an unexceptionable person and figure, with a countenance free from the least distortion, could be productive of such faint approbation? You have often said you regarded me--but, as in the case of Miss Brent, were I to produce an angel, her being ushered by _me_ would create coolness and indifference. This observation, which I could more forcibly illustrate, I plainly see has put you out of humour. Give me leave to say, so it has _me_, who am not without my feeling on so mortifying an occasion. You are possessed both of fortune and merit; the one considerable, the other supreme. I pay you no particular respect, on account of the former; but the highest imaginable on account of the latter. Providence, by placing you in this beneficial situation, meant you as the sun and rain, to cheer and water plants of _genius_. Your own talents, and the just encouragement they have met with, demand, as a debt, those beneficent offices from you. The pay given to three _nothings_ would be a suitable reward to a rising, promising genius, whose industry and advancement could never fail of repaying you ten fold in return. Having faithfully kept my promise to take no material step, without first acquainting you with my design, and therefore given you a fair offer of Miss Weller, I will trouble you with no more letters, or applications on her account; so shall only add, that if you are inclined to encourage and cherish _her_, as you have done by _many_ others, with much lesser talents and requisites, I am desirous, and immediately ready to give you the preference; but if otherwise, as I have only my _small merit and hard labour to subsist on_, let it never be a matter of the least difference between us, that I have acted like a man of honour, and you----overlooked a jewel. I am, Sir, as I ever was, your sincere friend, and most obedient servant, "THO^{S.} AUG^{NE.} ARNE." No reply to the above can be found. The following letter from Arne to Garrick must have been written soon after the above: "Sept. 3rd. DEAR SIR,--Having just received a letter from the ingenious author of the two operas, and 'Pennyworth of Wit,' under your kind inspection, wherein he begs concealment of his name, till the fate of one or other of his pieces is determined."