Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/197

Rh drew up the matter of fact in writing, and set his hand to it, giving me liberty to make it public, and to assure the world that he was ready to justify the truth of what he had written, with his oath, when it should be duly required of him. He added that Mr. Gibson, the collator, could confirm some circumstances of his account, and that his brother, who was his apprentice at that time, and was sent by him both to Dr Bentley and to the collator, would have attested the truth of the whole had he been alive; but he died some months after this matter happened. However, if his own testimony and the collator's should be liable to suspicion, yet still there was a gentleman of known credit in the world—Dr King of the Commons—who was witness to all that passed at one meeting between him and Dr Bentley, and would, he hoped, be so just to him as to give an account of it. He was not mistaken; for Dr King, being applied to by a friend of mine, presently wrote him the following letter, which together with the several certificates of Mr Bennet and Mr Gibson, I here offer to the reader.