But what strange a creature will you think me, to venture to point a mistake in a work so perfect? In several parts of the first volume our countryman Godefroy of Bouillon is named Godefroy de Boulogne. You have reasons, perhaps, for the alteration, and I am ready to submit to them. I would only express my doubts: I hope you will excuse this freedom. Since I have gone so far, permit me, sir, to ask your opinion upon the last book of M. Rousseau. I should be very glad to have my judgment of it confirmed or mended by yours. Nothing would be wanting to my satisfaction, if in the same letter, where you could grant me the favour I wish for, I was assured you had renewed the project to come here, and that you would speedily execute it. I am, sir, with esteem, gratitude, and, permit me to add, friendship, your most humble servant. In answer to this letter, Hume says that he had at first regarded it as a sort of challenge to answer it in French, but that he had given up the attempt as an unequal contest with "the sole instance of a foreigner, not habituated to our tongue, who has, from reading alone, become so entirely mistress of it." He then gives an account of the letter he had received from Lord Marischal, and says of Rousseau's refusal of the kindnesses proferred to him,--"Rousseau, with his usual dignity, refused all these gratuities, though at the same time he desired my lord to learn from me, whether it were possible for him to gain from the London booksellers as much money as would suffice for his maintenance; and this recompense, being the fruit of his own industry, he would have no scruple to accept of. I think this instance of conduct a kind of phenomenon in the republic of letters, and one very honourable for M. Rousseau. One is only apt to wish that he could practise this virtue with less hardship and difficulty; though we must also confess, that the difficulty adds to the lustre of it. I have heard, that the circumstance which deterred him from coming over to England, as he first intended, was a harsh reflection, which he threw out on the people in his 'Treatise of Education:' if this was his motive, I am persuaded that he would find it a vain fear, and that every one would rather have been anxious to show respect to his merit."[113:1] He then obeys the mandate to criticise the "Emile."