Titchfield-street Oxford, N. 40 Thursday night, June 12^th 1777

I thank you, my dear Doctor, for the kind concern you have expressed upon my account in your letter of this morning: yet I cannot recede a step from my assertion, that Voltaire knows à peu près just as much of English, as your tender misses do of French, which I took the liberty to term no knowledge at all for a man that pretends to play the critick.
How can any body think, that it is possible to write off hand a good language and an even rapid style, and at the same time commit gross errors of orthography, and begin with a little letter almost every word that ought to be begun with a great one? Title for title, and enligthen for enlighten, &c. are errors of too gross a nature for a thorough master of style and language, too gross indeed! Hence I draw my inference, that Voltaire copied his letter to Rolt from another man's writing, and copied it with as quick a hand as he could, to impose himself upon his Correspondent for the real composer of it; which he certainly was, but in French, not in English. Believe me, sir that, if Voltaire had ever been able to write such English language and such English style during five or six years, which implies an unintermitted reading of English Books, he would have felt Shakespeare at least as much as I do, Poet as he is, and would of course, have forborn his late infamous shitt to Monsieur d'Argenteuil and the French Academy.

You may answer, that his malevolence to the English betray'd him into that dishonesty and induced him to write that shitt in spight of his better knowledge. But if you believe him dishonest there, as you absolutely must, how can you believe him honest with Rolt, or any body else? And can you really swallow his repeated assertions, that he was the writer of the two English Pamphlets published in his name when he was in England? And have you not noted the many blunders that he has committed in his silly translations from the English, besides the few that I have taken down in my Discours? Doctor Young, Author of the Night-Thoughts, told me once, by the fire-side of Pamela-Richardson, the name of the Gentleman that translated those two Pamphlets from Voltaire's French: but little thinking then, that I should ever have occasion for that piece of intelligence, I made so little of it, that I soon forgot that name. However I will tell you, that about seven years ago, being at Bologna, I read over, and very attentively, a large number of letters written between 1760 and 1770 by Voltaire to a marquis Albergati, a great friend of mine, who understands English tolerably well. In many of those Letters Voltaire made many efforts to write English Periods and English Paragraphs; but did it in so aukward a manner, that convinced me quite of his being but a very shallow smatterer in English. It was then that I began to think of exposing him on this head; but never found a fair opportunity. Thanks to his letters to M^r d'Argenteuil and the French Academy, that have at last afforded it. There is a M^r Celesia, a Nobleman of Genoa, married a twenty years ago here in London to an English Woman, who understands English almost as well as his wife, though she is the author of Almida. M^r Celesia, I say, under whose hospitable roof I have lived many a month, told me more than once, that Voltaire knows almost no English at all; and I believed him, as he has lived a pretty while in the greatest intimacy with Voltaire, and is a man of great veracity as well as learning. You may possibly think it strange, that a man should take much pains during many years, in order to impose upon mankind without any visible advantage but a small increase of reputation, and incur de gaieté de coeur the danger of being detected for an Impostor. But if you had diligently attended to Voltaire's character when reading his various works, you would have been long acquainted with his wicked industry in this particular. What has he not done, what trouble has he spared, in order to get the name of a good Italianist? But do you believe him one, after having read the two last chapters of my little work? and if he has play'd the rogue in one case, why not in the other? You know likewise, that he has done his utmost to palm himself upon the world for a good Grecian. Do you really think he knows Greek enough to entitle him to talk so big, as he has always done of Homer and other Greek Poets, whom he has treated as cavalierly as he has done the English and the Italians? I give him credit for his genius. D^r Johnson, when at Paris, said of him, and very justly, Vir acris ingenii, paucarum verò litterarum. Allow him you too as much wit as you please; but don't tell me of his skill in languages! He knows none well, but his own. Let him answer my little book, if he dares, and it is then, that I will give you a few more of my proofs of his knowing but very little of your language. He may cheat Englishmen who know it naturally; not me, that acquired it by incessant study. I give you my word I will detect him further, if he puts me to it, maugre his letters to Rolt and others. But my paper is at an end, and I have but room to say that I am your must humble ser^t

Joseph Baretti