However, as I knew there was in truth no small quantity of learning in the piece referred to, and that the author of the D. L. whatever Bate, and Peters, and Jackson, may say or insinuate, is unquestionably, and to a very competent degree, learned, I began to take the matter a little more seriously. And, upon looking attentively at the words a second time, I thought a very natural account might be given of them upon other principles. For, as to the substantive friend, why might not that for once be put in for your own sake as well as his? The advantages of friendship are reciprocal. And though it be very clear to other people which is the gainer by this intercourse, who knows but Dr. Jortin, in his great modesty, might suppose the odds to lie on his own side?
And then for learned, which had embarrassed me so much, I bethought myself at last there was not much in that, this attribute having been long prostituted on every man who pretends, in any degree, to the profession of letters.
So that, on the whole, though I must still reckon this for an instance, amongst others, of that due measure of respect with which your politeness teaches you to treat your friends, yet I see no reason for charging it with any excess of civility.
And now, Sir, having been at all this pains to justify you from the two contrary censures of having done too little and too much, let us see how the account stands. Malice itself, I think, must confess that you have not been lavish of your encomiums. You have even dispensed them with a reserve, which, though I admire extremely, will almost expose you to the imputation of parsimony. And yet, on the other hand, when we compute the number and estimate the value of your applauses, we shalt see cause to correct this censure. For, from the EIGHT articles I have so carefully set down, and considered, it appears at length that you have done all due honour to your friend, and in ways the most adapted to do him honour. That is to say, You have adopted his subject—You have written against him—You have glanced at him—You have spared his arguments—You have lent him some of your own—You have quoted him—You have called his conjecture ingenious—Nay elegant—And you have called himself learned, and, what is more, your friend.
And if all this will not satisfy him, or rather his friends (for I hope, and partly believe, he himself thinks nothing of this whole matter), I know not for my part what will. I am sure (and that should be your satisfaction, as it is mine) that you have gone as far as was consistent with the delicacy of friendship (which may reasonably imply in it a little jealousy), and with the virtuous consciousness of that importance which writers of your class ought to be of to themselves. And I hope never to see the day when you shall be induced by any considerations to compliment any man breathing at the expence of these two virtues.
And here, on a view of this whole matter, let me profess the pleasure I take in observing that you (and I have remarked it in some others), who have so constantly those soft words of candour, goodness, and charity in your mouth, and whose soul, one would think, was ready to melt itself into all the weaknesses of this character, should yet have force enough not to relent at the warmest influences of friendship. Men may see by this instance that charity is not that unmanly enfeebling virtue which some would represent it, when, though ready on fit occasions to resolve and open itself to a general candour, it shuts up the heart close and compact, and impregnable to any particular and personal attachment.
I take much delight in this pleasing contemplation. Yet, as our best virtues, when pushed to a certain degree, are on the very point of becoming vices, you are not to wonder that every one hath not the discernment or the justice to do you right. And to see, in truth, the malignity of human nature, and the necessity there was for you to inculcate in your third Discourse, The duty of judging candidly and favourably of others, I will not conceal from you, at parting, what hath been suggested to me by many persons to whom I communicated the design of this address. “They said,” besides other things which I have occasionally obviated in the course of this letter, “that the excellent person whom you have allowed yourself to treat with so much indignity and disrespect (I need not take notice that I use the very terms of the objectors), in this poor and disingenuous criticism upon him, had set you an example of a very different sort, which you ought in common equity, and even decency, to have followed.” They observe that his own pen never expatiates more freely, and with more pleasure, than when it finds or takes an occasion to celebrate the virtues of some deserving friend. They own the natural warmth and benevolence of his temper is even liable to some excess on these inviting occasions. And for an instance they referred me to a paragraph in the notes on Julian, which, though I know you do not forget, I shall here set down as it stands in the last edition. He had just been touching a piece of ecclesiastical history. “But this,” says he, “I leave with Julian’s adventures to my learned friend Mr. Jortin, who, I hope, will soon oblige the public with his curious Dissertations on Ecclesiastical Antiquity, composed like his Life, not in the spirit of controversy, nor, what is worse, of party, but of truth and candour[129].”
Here, said they insultingly, is a specimen of that truly liberal spirit with which one learned friend should exert himself when he would do honour to another. Will all the volumes which the profound ecclesiastical remarker hath published, or ever will publish, do him half the credit with posterity as this single stroke, by which his name and virtues are here adorned and ushered into the acquaintance of the public? And will you still pretend to vindicate him from the scorn which every honest man must have for him, after seeing how unworthily he requites this service by his famous Sixth Dissertation in this new volume?
This, and a great deal more to the same purpose, was said by them in their tragical way. I need not hint to you, after the clear exposition I have given of my own sentiments, how little weight their rhetoric had on me, and how easily I turned aside this impotent, though invenomed, invective from falling on your fame and memory. For the compliment they affect to magnify so much, let every candid reader judge of it for himself. But, as much had been said in this debate concerning FRIENDSHIP, and the persons with whom it was most proper to contract it, I found myself something struck with the concluding observation of one of these rhetorical declaimers. As it was delivered in a language you love, and is, besides, a passage not much blown upon by the dealers in such scraps, I have thought it might, perhaps, afford you some amusement. He did not say where he found it, and you would not like it the better if he had, but, as I remember, it was delivered in these words: Ἐμοὶ πρὸς φιλοσόφους ἐστὶ φιλία· πρὸς μέν τοι ΣΟΦΙΣΤΑΣ, ἢ ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΙΣΤΑΣ, ἢ τοιοῦτο γένος ἕτερον ΑΝΘΡΩΠΩΝ ΚΑΚΟΔΑΙΜΟΝΩΝ, ὄυτε ΝΥΝ ΕΣΤΙ ΦΙΛΙΑ ΜΗΤΕ ΥΣΤΕΡΟΝ ΠΟΤΕ ΓΕΝΟΙΤΟ.
Lincoln’s-Inn,
Nov. 25, 1755.