Blackheath April 29th 1775

My Dear Carlyle,

In answer to the two or three letters which you have written to me I can give you five or six which I had written in my own mind to you before I received any of yours.
The first was from Geneva where having had the advantage of Lodging in Calvins own house & having access to some of his most secret manuscripts I thought myself without Vanity qualifyed to give you some light into the more Intricate recess of our Church. My second was from Fernex the seat of that renowned & Pious Apostle Voltaire who saluted me with a Complt on a gentleman¹ of my family who had Civilized the Russians. I owned this Relation and at this & every successive visit encouraged every attempt at Conversation even Jokes against Moses, Adam & Eve & the rest of the Prophets till I began to be considered as a person who tho true to my own faith had no ill humour to the freedom of fancy in Others. As my own Complt had come all the way from Russia I wished to know how some of my Friends woud fare but I found the old man in a state of perfect indifference to all Authors except two sorts, One of those who write Panegyrics, another who write Invectives on himself. There is a third kind whose names he has been used to repeat fifty or sixty years without knowing any thing of them such as Locke, Boyle, Newton &c. I forgot his competitors for fame of whom he is always either silent or speaks slightingly. The fact is that he reads little or none, his mind exists by Reminiscence & by doing over & over what it has been used to do, Dictates Tales, dissertations & Tragedy, even the latter with all his Elegance tho not with his former force. His Conversation is among the Pleasantest I ever met with, he lets you forget the superiority which the public opinion gives him, which is indeed great[er than w]hat we conceive in this Island . . . .

I am Dear Carly[l]e

Yours most affectionately,

Adam Ferguson