"I hope your lordship, as my friend, will congratulate me on the resolution I took in the beginning of my life, that is, of my literary life, never to reply to any body. Otherwise this gentleman, I mean this author, might have insulted me on my silence. I am sure your lordship would have disowned me for ever as a friend, if I had entered the lists with such an antagonist. Mr. Goodall is no very calm or indifferent advocate in this cause; yet he disowns him as an associate, and confesses to me and all the world, that I am here right in my facts, and am only wrong in my inferences. "There appear to me two infallible marks of our opposite parties, and as we may say proof charges, which, if a man can stand, there is no fear that any charge will ever burst him. A Whig who believes the popish plot, and a Tory who asserts Queen Mary's innocence, are certainly fitted to go all lengths with their party. I am happy to think that such people are both equally my enemies; and still more happy, that I have no animosity at either. "It is an old proverb, _Love me, love my dog_; but certainly it admits of many exceptions. I am sure, at least, that I have a great respect for your lordship, yet have none at all for this dog of yours. On the contrary, I declare him to be a very mangy cur; entreat your lordship to rid your hands of him as soon as possible, and think a sound beating, or even a rope too good for him."[256:1] Lord Elibank's answer does not appear to have been preserved. It can scarcely be supposed that the foregoing letter, or any one written in a like spirit, is the communication which Hume characterizes in the following letter as written "in a spirit of cordiality and amity," and containing "every pathetic, every engaging sentiment and expression;" yet we afterwards find Lord Elibank sarcastically alluding to his having been so stupid as to mistake the spirit thus described, for one of a totally opposite tendency. HUME _to_ LORD ELIBANK. "_Fontainbleau, 3d Nov. 1764._