Tecta, quibus dextræ server ab igne tuæ?
Heu! tuus ante oculos quoties furor ille recursat,
Nulla mihi toties fida sat antra reor.
Tunc ego secretas, umbracula frondea, sylvas,
Lustràque solivagis opto relicta feris.
Tunc ego vel mediis timidum caput abdere terris,
Aut maris exesâ condere rupe velim, &c.
It reads but poorly after the other, though I have given you the best of it. He afterwards by degrees quits his subject, runs into stuff about Cain and Jonah, and has entirely omitted the simile.
You express an inclination to publish my letters. You should consider that the date of some of them is so far back, that many allusions to passing incidents which might engage attention at the time, now must fail of their effect.——People are spoken of as living, who are dead——and many other objections might be enumerated. However, you are at liberty to do what you please with them. Those which are of a private nature, your prudence will, of course, keep to yourself: and for the others, where some conjectures are hazarded which may be thought different from received opinions; the writer wishes them to be read with the same impartiality they were written——though he is well apprized of the difficulty of dispossessing old opinions.