me; and therefore am obliged to desire
you would make Dodsley print it immediately (which may be done in less
than a week's time) from your copy, but without my name, in what form is
most convenient for him, but on his best paper and character. He must
correct the press himself, and print it without any interval between the
stanzas, because the sense is in some places continued beyond them; and
the title must be, "Elegy, written in a Country Churchyard." If he would
add a line or two to say it came into his hands by accident, I should
like it better.

TO STONEHEWER

_Cambridge, August_ 18, 1758. I am as sorry as you seem to be that our
acquaintance harped so much on the subject of materialism when I saw him
with you in town. That we are indeed mechanical and dependent beings, I
need no other proof than my own feelings; and from the same feelings I
learn with equal conviction that we are not merely such; that there is a
power within that struggles against the force and bias of that
mechanism, commands its motion, and, by frequent practice, reduces it to
that ready obedience which we call "habit"; and all this in conformity
to a preconceived opinion, to that least material of all agents, a
thought.

I have known many in his case who, while they thought they were
conquering an old prejudice, did not perceive they were under the
influence of one far more dangerous; one that furnishes us with a ready
apology for all our worst actions, and opens to us a full licence for
doing whatever we please; and yet these very people were not at all the
more indulgent to other men, as they should have been; their indignation
to such as offended them was nothing mitigated. In short, the truth is,
they wished to be persuaded of that opinion for the sake of its
convenience, but were not so in their heart.

TO HORACE WALPOLE

1760. I am so charmed with the two specimens of Erse poetry
(Macpherson's) that I cannot help giving you the trouble to inquire a
little farther about them.

Is there anything known of the author or authors, and of what antiquity
they are supposed to be? Is there any more to be had of equal beauty, or
at all approaching to it? I have often been told that the poem called
"Hardycanute," which I always admired, and still admire, was the work of
somebody that lived a few years ago. This I do not at all believe,
though it has evidently been retouched in places by some modern hand;
but, however, I am authorised by