o appears to have been a very spirited lady,
addressed to him the following letter on the subject of a report, that
she had permitted transcripts of these very manuscripts to get abroad.
This occasioned an animated correspondence from both sides.

SIR, _March 10, 1736-37_.

I have thus long waited in expectation that you would ere this have
called on Dean Sykes, as Sir B. Lucy said you intended, that I might
have had some satisfaction in relation to a very unjust
reproach--viz., that I, or somebody that I had trusted, had
_betrayed_ some of the transcripts, or MSS., of Mr. Collins into the
Bishop of London's hands. I cannot, therefore, since you have not
been with the dean as was desired, but call on you in this manner, to
know what authority you had for such a reflection; or on what grounds
you went for saying that these transcripts are in the Bishop of
London's hands. I am determined to trace out the grounds of such a
report; and you can be no friend of mine, no friend of Mr. Collins,
no friend to common justice, if you refuse to acquaint me, what
foundation you had for such a charge. I desire a very speedy answer
to this, who am, Sir,

Your servant,

ELIZ. COLLINS.

_To Mr. Des Maizeaux, at his lodgings next door to the Quakers'
burying-ground, Hanover-street, out of Long-Acre._

TO MRS. COLLINS.

_March 14, 1737._

I had the honour of your letter of the 10th inst., and as I find that
something has been misapprehended, I beg leave to set this matter
right.

Being lately with some honourable persons, I told them it had been
reported that some of Mr. C.'s MSS. were fallen into the hands of
strangers, and that I should be glad to receive from you such
information as might enable me to disprove that report. What
occasioned this surmise, or what particular MSS. were meant, I was
not able to discover; so I was left to my own conjectures, which,
upon a serious consideration, induced me to believe that it might
relate to the MSS. in eight volumes in 8vo, of which there is a
transcript. But as the original and the transcript are in your
possession, if you please, madam, to compare them together, you may
easily see whether they be both entire and perfect, or whether there
be anything wanting in either of them. By this me