ogia."--WALPOLE.]

[Footnote 2: He had just published a small edition of Grammont's
Memoirs, "Augmentee de Notes et eclaircissemens necessaires, par M.
Horace Walpole," and had dedicated it to Mme. du Deffand.]

Another thing you must tell me, if you can, is, if you know anything
ancient of the Freemasons. Governor Pownall,[1] a Whittingtonian, has a
mind they should have been a corporation erected by the popes. As you
see what a good creature I am, and return good for evil, I am engaged to
pick up what I can for him, to support this system, in which I believe
no more than in the pope: and the work is to appear in a volume of the
Society's pieces. I am very willing to oblige him, and turn my cheek,
that they may smite that, also. Lord help them! I am sorry they are such
numskulls, that they almost make me think myself something; but there
are great authors enough to bring me to my senses again. Posterity, I
fear, will class me with the writers of this age, or forget me with
them, not rank me with any names that deserve remembrance. If I cannot
survive the Milles's, the What-d'ye-call-him's [Masters's], and the
compilers of catalogues of Topography, it would comfort me very little
to confute them. I should be as little proud of success as if I had
carried a contest for churchwarden.

[Footnote 1: Thomas Pownall, Esq., the antiquary, and a constant
contributor to the "Archaeologia." Having been governor of South
Carolina and other American colonies, he was always distinguished from
his brother John, who was likewise an antiquary, by the title of
Governor.]

Not being able to return to Strawberry Hill, where all my books and
papers are, and my printer lying fallow, I want some short bills to
print. Have you anything you wish printed? I can either print a few to
amuse ourselves, or, if very curious, and not too dry, could make a
third number of "Miscellaneous Antiquities."

I am not in any eagerness to see Mr. What-d'ye-call-him's pamphlet
against me; therefore pray give yourself no trouble to get it for me.
The specimens I have seen of his writing take off all edge from
curiosity. A print of Mr. Gray will be a real present. Would it not be
dreadful to be commended by an age that had not taste enough to admire
his "Odes"? Is not it too great a compliment to me to be abused, too? I
am ashamed. Indeed our antiquaries ought to like me. I am but too much
on a par with them. Does not Mr. Henshaw come to London? Is he a
pro