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Letters of Horace Walpole — Volume II by Horace Walpole
page 76 of 309 (24%)
ask you, because you have so long refused to show me anything. You could
not suppose I thought that you never write. No; but I concluded you did
not intend, at least yet, to publish what you had written. As you did
intend it, I might have expected a month's preference. You will do me
the justice to own that I had always rather have seen your writings than
have shown you mine; which you know are the most hasty trifles in the
world, and which though I may be fond of the subject when fresh, I
constantly forget in a very short time after they are published. This
would sound like affectation to others, but will not to you. It would be
affected, even to you, to say I am indifferent to fame. I certainly am
not, but I am indifferent to almost anything I have done to acquire it.
The greater part are mere compilations; and no wonder they are, as you
say, incorrect, when they are commonly written with people in the room,
as "Richard"[1] and the "Noble Authors" were. But I doubt there is a
more intrinsic fault in them: which is, that I cannot correct them. If I
write tolerably, it must be at once; I can neither mend nor add. The
articles of Lord Capel and Lord Peterborough, in the second edition of
the "Noble Authors," cost me more trouble than all the rest together:
and you may perceive that the worst part of "Richard," in point of ease
and style, is what relates to the papers you gave me on Jane Shore,
because it was tacked on so long afterwards, and when my impetus was
chilled. If some time or other you will take the trouble of pointing out
the inaccuracies of it, I shall be much obliged to you: at present I
shall meddle no more with it. It has taken its fate: nor did I mean to
complain. I found it was condemned indeed beforehand, which was what I
alluded to. Since publication (as has happened to me before) the success
has gone beyond my expectation.

[Footnote 1: He is here alluding to his own very clever essay, entitled
"Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of Richard III." It failed to
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