I am happy, Sir, that I have both your approbation to my opinion of Lucan, and to my edition of him; but I assure you there will not be one word from me.  I am sensible that it demands great attention to write even one’s own language well:  how can one pretend to purify a foreign language? to any merit in a dead one?  I would not alone undertake to correct the press; but I am so lucky as to live in the strictest friendship with Dr. Bentley’s Only Son, Who, to all the ornament of learning, has the amiable turn of mind, disposition, and easy wit.  Perhaps you have heard that his drawings and architecture are admirable,—­perhaps you have not:  he is modest—­he is poor--he is consequently little known, less valued.

I am entirely ignorant of Dr. Burton and his Monasticon,(994) and after the little merit you tell me it has, I must explain to you that I have a collection of books of that sort, before I own that I wish to own it; at the same time, I must do so much justice to myself as to protest that I don’t know so contemptible a class of writers as topographers, not from the study itself, but from their wretched execution.  Often and often I have had an inclination to show how topography should be writ, by pointing out the curious particulars of places, with descriptions of principal houses, the pictures, portraits, and Curiosities they contain.

I scarce ever yet found any thing one wanted to know in one of those books; all they contain, except encomiums on the Stuarts and the monks, are lists of institutions and inductions, and inquiries how names of places were spelt before there was any spelling.  If the Monasticon Eboracense is only to be had at York, I know Mr. Caesar Ward, and can get him to send it to me.

I will add but one short word:  from every letter I receive from you, Sir, my opinion of you increases, and I much wish that so much good sense and knowledge were not thrown away only on me.  I flatter myself that you are engaged, or will engage, in some work or pursuit that will make you better known.  In the mean time, I hope that some opportunity will bring us personally acquainted, for I am, Sir, already most sincerely yours, Hor.  Walpole.

P. S. You love to be troubled, and therefore I will make no apology for troubling you.  Last summer, I bought of Vertue’s widow forty volumes of his ms. corrections relating to English painters, sculptors, gravers, and architects.  He had actually begun their lives:  unluckily he had not gone far, and could not write grammar.  I propose to digest and complete this work (I mean after the Conway Papers).(995) In the mean time, Sir, shall I beg the favour of you just to mark down memorandums of the pages where you happen to meet with any thing relative to these subjects, especially of our antienter buildings, paintings, and artists.  I would not trouble you for more reference, if even that is not too much.

(992) Mr. Walpole did not insert any notice of Lord Lonsdale in his subsequent editions, though the omission has been remedied by Mr. Park.  The piece to which Mr. Zouch probably alluded, the knowledge of which he may have derived from the noble family of Lowther, was " a “Treatise on Economies” addressed to his son, by Sir John Lowther, created Baron Lonsdale in 1696.  This treatise was never published.-C.