Those original letters connected with the controversy, which were addressed to Hume, whether by Rousseau or others, are among the papers in possession of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. They bear marks of having been much handled.[360:3] Of the letters addressed to Rousseau, which of course were written in French, it is to be presumed that Hume preserved the duplicates, which afterwards enabled him to show copies of the documents on both sides. The originals probably do not exist; for Rousseau, who held his own part in a controversy as the only important one, appears not to have kept the letters addressed to him, though he retained copies of his own. The dispute with Rousseau very nearly produced a subsidiary discussion with Horace Walpole. He said, alluding to the advice which had been transmitted to Hume by D'Alembert, "Your set of literary friends are what a set of literary men are apt to be, exceedingly absurd. They hold a consistory to consult how to argue with a madman; and they think it very necessary for your character, to give them the pleasure of seeing Rousseau exposed; not because he has provoked you, but them. If Rousseau prints, you must; but I certainly would not, till he does." Walpole evidently looked on this quarrel as a small dispute between small people;--something on a par with the wrangling of country gentlemen about their preserves and their swing gates.[361:1] Yet, when he found that his own name appeared to be connected with it, he thought it right to publish "a narrative of what passed relative to the quarrel of Mr. David Hume and J. J. Rousseau, as far as Mr. Horace Walpole was concerned in it." He very distinctly absolves Hume from any connexion with the fictitious letter of the King of Prussia. The only wrong of which he had to complain was, that Hume published this exoneration, of which it seems a publication was not expected, though the letter contained the words, "You are at full liberty, dear sir, to make use of what I say in your justification, either to Rousseau or any body else;" and that, in printing the letter, the passage above cited, reflecting on the literary circle of Paris, had been, from motives of delicacy towards all parties, suppressed.[362:1] The only portion of Walpole's pamphlet that appears to possess any interest, contains Hume's remarks on his friend, D'Alembert. They were intended as an answer to Walpole's spiteful sneers; but, though eulogistic, and apparently just, they by no means exhibit a violent encomiastic zeal.