I purpose setting off in the course of a few days for Paris where I mean to reside till the beginning of October. I shall not fail of paying my respe… - Joseph Ritson

I shall only request the favour to add that it would be most absurd nay inexpressibly impertinent and foolish in me to dispute the right you have in common with every other person of controverting my opinions or correcting my errors: a liberty of which no one perhaps has made a greater use than myself. I think I need call no ghost from the grave to explain the difference between information and attack. Far from being offended, you say, with any person who should acquaint you that you had a hole in your stocking or some dirt on your face, you would think yourself much obliged to him; and so should I, but not if he accompanied the information with a kick on the shin or a box on the ear. I have nothing to object to your inserting the notes of Mr. Tyrwhitt and Mr. Malone. They had received some provocation, and if they have advanced any thing I dislike I can find a speedier method of being even with them than that you are so obliging as to point out. And do you seriously think that after being gibbeted for eight or ten years in the margin of your edition it is a sufficient compensation that I stand a chance of obtaining a reversal of my sentence from your successor? No, no, e'en let me hang on.

With respect to a revolution, though I think it at no great distance, it seems to defy all calculation for the present. If the increase of taxes, the decline of manufactures, the high price of provisions, and the like, have no effect upon the apathy of the sans culottes here, one can expect little from the reasoning of philosophers or politicians. When the pot boils violently, however, it is not always in the cooks power to prevent the fat from falling into the fire. But suppose a revolution do happen, how is it to provide for you? People will have to work for their bread, I presume, pretty much as they do at present; for a long series of years at least; and he who has nothing will be in equal danger of starving. In fact the idea of an approaching change should influence you the rather to fix yourself in a business or situation which would enable you to take advantage of it when it did come: and I do not see but an attorney is as likely to make his way in case of a revolution as any other member of the profession.

Your reflections are still worse founded, and could only arise from your considering me in the light of a pettyfogging attorney.