but as I had taken a resolution never to have the least altercation with these fellows, I shall not readily be brought to pay any attention to him; and I cannot but be displeased that your inadvertence or indiscretion (for I cannot give it a better name) should have brought me to this dilemma. I fancy Brown will find it a difficult matter to persuade the public that I do not speak my sentiments in every subject I handle, and that I have any view to any interest whatsoever. I leave that to him and his gang: for he is a flatterer, as I am told, of that low fellow, Warburton; and any thing so low as Warburton, or his flatterers, I should certainly be ashamed to engage with. I am, &c. "P.S. Since you are acquainted with Dr. Brown, I must beg of you to read this letter to him; for it is probably, or indeed certainly, all the answer I shall ever deign to give him."[25:1] The reader will feel interested in the sketch, by the pen of Hume, of an eminent contemporary--his friend Wilkie--in the following letter. HUME _to_ GILBERT ELLIOT _of Minto_. "_Edinburgh, 3d July, 1757._ "DEAR SIR,--To show you that I am not such an affecter of singularity as to entertain prejudices against ministers of state,[25:2] I am resolved to congratulate you on your return to power, and to express my wishes, that, both for your sake and the public's, your ministry, and that of your friends, may be more durable than it was before. We even hope it will, though the strange motley composition which it consists of, gives us some apprehensions. However, we are glad to find, from past experience, that you can neither rise nor fall, without credit and reputation. You know that, according to the whimsical way in this country, it is more difficult to rise than fall with reputation. "I suppose that, by this time, you have undoubtedly read and admired the wonderful production of the Epigoniad, and that you have so much love for arts, and for your native country, as to be very industrious in propagating the fame of it. It is certainly a most singular production, full of sublimity and genius, adorned by a noble, harmonious, forcible, and even correct versification. We generally think the story deficient and uninteresting; but perhaps the new fancy of crossing the invention of all modern romance-writers may make some atonement, and even bestow an air of novelty on the imitation of Homer. As I cannot but hope that this work will soon become the subject of conversation in London, I shall take this opportunity of supplying you with some anecdotes with regard to the author, besides such as you already know,--of his being a very worthy and a very entertaining man, adorned with all that simplicity of manners, so common to great men, and even with some of that rusticity and negligence which serve to abate that envy to which they are so much exposed.