FROM CHARLES FORD.
If Barber be not a very great blockhead, I shall soon send you a letter in print, in answer to your last: I hope it may be next post, for he had it on Sunday. I took care to blot the ees out of onely and the as out of scheame, which I suppose is the meaning of your question, whether I corrected it? I do not know any other alteration it wanted; and I made none except in one paragraph, that I changed the present to the past tense four times, and I am not sure I did right in it neither. There is so great a tenderness and regard shown all along to the [2], that I could have wished this expression had been out ["the uncertain timorous nature of the [2]"]. But there was no striking it out without quite spoiling the beauty of the passage: and as if I had been the author myself, I preferred beauty to discretion. I really think it is at least equal to any thing you have writ[3]; and I dare say it will do great service as matters stand at present.
- ↑ The year is omitted, but it should be 1714. This letter is endorsed, "Affairs go worse."
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 These blanks are thus in the original. Query, should the word be queen?
- ↑ Dr. Hawkesworth, in a note on this passage says, "It is not known that the dean published any thing at this time, except the "Free Thoughts." It is therefore probable that this tract was printing, or printed, when the dean suppressed it for the reasons mentioned before. The words, however, which Mr. Ford says he could have wished to have blotted out, but spared
