crime of which in my own mind I believe him most guiltless. Had I
thought he committed it, I should never have taken the trouble to
apologize for the rest. I am not at all positive or obstinate on your
other objections, nor know exactly what I believe on many points of this
story. And I am so sincere, that, except a few notes hereafter, I shall
leave the matter to be settled or discussed by others. As you have
written much too little, I have written a great deal too much, and think
only of finishing the two or three other things I have begun--and of
those, nothing but the last volume of Painters is designed for the
present public. What has one to do when turned fifty, but really think
of _finishing_?

I am much obliged and flattered by Mr. Mason's approbation, and
particularly by having had almost the same thought with him. I said,
"People need not be angry at my excusing Richard; I have not diminished
their fund of hatred, I have only transferred it from Richard to Henry."
Well, but I have found you close with Mason--No doubt, cry prating I,
something will come out....[1]

[Footnote 1: "_Something will come out._" Walpole himself points out in
a note that this is a quotation from Pope: "I have found him close with
Swift." "Indeed?" "No doubt, (Cries prating Balbus) something will come
out" (Prologue to the "Satires").]

Pray read the new Account of Corsica.[1] What relates to Paoli will
amuse you much. There is a deal about the island and its divisions that
one does not care a straw for. The author, Boswell, is a strange being,
and, like Cambridge, has a rage of knowing anybody that ever was talked
of. He forced himself upon me at Paris in spite of my teeth and my
doors, and I see has given a foolish account of all he could pick up