Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/264

190 it some book of competent value, to make amends for the damage it would sustain by his using the MS.

This discourse I very well remember, and I believe I can bring a witness that heard me relate it, long before the Doctor's deposition came abroad; and I take it for certain, that this was the very same conversation which Dr King overheard. 'Tis true, there is some small difference in the account: I said that the MS. would be "worth little for the future," and the Doctor says, "worth nothing." But that is no material change, and may be excused in the Doctor, who is not over nice in his expressions. But do I remember that the Doctor was present then? No, nor any time else; for I know him not, if I meet him; and perhaps my "pride and insolence" might lie in that, that I did not know a person of such known credit in the world. Allowing, then, that this was the "free conference" (as the Examiner calls it) which the Doctor overheard, I have a few things to observe in the narrative that he has made of it.

It appears first, that his pert reflection which he thought carried such a sting in it, is very silly and insipid—"Which I took the more notice of," (says