I flattered myself that my last letter would have satisfied you, but
I have the mortification to see that my hopes were vain. Therefore I
beg leave once more to set this matter right. When I told you what
had been reported, I acted, as I thought, the part of a true friend,
by acquainting you that some of your MSS. had been purloined, in
order that you might examine a fact which to me appeared of the last
consequence; and I verily believe that everybody in my case would
have expected thanks for such a friendly information. But instead of
that I find myself represented as an enemy, and challenged to produce
proofs and witnesses of a thing dropt in conversation, a hearsay, as
if in those cases people kept a register of what they hear, and
entered the names of the persons who spoke, the time, place, &c., and
had with them persons ready to witness the whole, &c. I did own I
never thought of such a thing, and whenever I happened to hear that
some of my friends had some loss, I thought it my duty to acquaint
them with such report, that they might inquire into the matter, and
see whether there was any ground for it. But I never troubled myself
with the names of the persons who spoke, as being a thing entirely
needless and unprofitable.
Give me leave further to observe, that you are in no ways _concerned_
in the matter, as you seem to be apprehensive you are. Suppose some
MSS. have been taken out of your library, who will say you ought to
bear the guilt of it? What man in his senses, who has the honour to
know you, will say you gave your consent to such thing--that you was
privy to it? How can you then take upon yourself an action to which
you was neither privy and consenting? Do not such things happen every
day, and do the losers think themselves injured or _abused_ when they
are talked of? Is it impossible to be betrayed by a person we
confided in?
You call what I told you was a report, a surmise; you call it, I say,
an _information_, and speak of _informers_ as if there was a plot
laid wherein I received the information: I thought I had the honour
to be better known to you. Mr. Collins loved me and esteemed me for
my integrity and sincerity, of which he had several proofs; how I
have been drawn in to injure him, to forfeit the good opinion he had
of me, and which, were he now alive, would deservedly expose me to
his utmost contempt, is a grief which I shall carry to the grave. It
would be a sort of comfort to me, if those who have consented I
should be drawn in were in some measure sensible of the guilt towards
so good, kind, and generous a man.
Thus we find that, _seven years_ after Des Maizeaux had inconsiderately
betrayed his sacred trust, his remorse was still awake; and the
sincerity of his grief is attested by the affecting style which
describes it: the spirit of his departed friend seemed to be hovering
about him, and, in his imagination, would haunt him to the grave.
The nature of these manuscripts; the cause of the earnest desire of
retaining them by the widow; the evident unfriendliness of her conduct
to Des Maizeaux; and whether these manuscripts, consisting of eight
octavo volumes with their transcripts, were destroyed, or are still
existing, are all circumstances which my researches have hitherto not
ascertained.