"One more remark, my Lord, and I have done. I am very sensible that in this application to your Lordship I have been guilty of what would be term'd by some a piece of great impertinence, and by most an act of consummate folly. Will you allow me, my Lord, frankly to state to you the arguments on which my resolutions were founded?
"I have not address'd you, my Lord, on the impulse of the moment, dictated by desperation, and adopted without reflection. No, my Lord; I had, or, at least, I thought I had, better reasons. I remembered that you had once condescended to address me
'candidly, not critically,'
that you had even kindly interested yourself on my behalf. I thought that, amid all the keenness and poignancy of your habitual feelings, as powerfully pourtrayed in your writings, I could discern the workings of a heart
truly noble
. I imagin'd that what to a superficial observer appear'd only the overflowings of misanthropy, were, in reality, the effusions of deep sensibility. I convinc'd myself, by repeated perusals of your different productions, that though disappointments the most painful, and sensations the most acute, might have stung your heart to its very core, it had yet many feelings of the most exalted kind. From these I hoped everything. Those hopes may be disappointed, but the opinions which gave rise to them have not been hastily form'd, nor will any selfish feeling of mortification be able to alter them.
"I do not, my Lord, intend the above as any idle complimentary apology for what I have done. I am not, God knows, just now in a complimentary mood; and if I were, you, my Lord, are one of the last persons on earth on whom I should be tempted to play off such trash as idle panegyrics. I esteem you, my Lord, not merely for your rank, still less for your personal qualities. The former I respect as I ought; of the latter I know nothing. But I feel something more than mere respect for your genius and your talents; and from your past conduct towards myself I cannot be insensible to your kindness. For these reasons, my Lord, I acted as I have done. I before told you that I consider'd you
no common character
, and I think your Lordship will admit that I have not treated you as such.
"Permit me once more, my Lord, to take my leave by assuring you that I am,