FROM COUNT VORONTSOV 28 MARCH 1764 3°9 isfaction a lire, lorsque je serai un peu plus verse dans la langue que vous avez si enrichi, Monsieur, par vos productions que je ne l'ai ete jusqu'a present. Je ne suis pas moins flatte du billet3 obligeant dont vous m'avez honore; permettez que vous en marquant ma reconnais­ sance, j'aie la satisfaction de vous renouveler les assurances de la parfaite consideration avec laquelle j'ai l'honneur d'etre,

Monsieur, Votre tres humble et tres obeissant serviteur,

COMTE ALEXANDRE DE W

To ARTHUR ONSLOW, Saturday 31 March 1764

Printed from a photostat of the MS, kindly furnished by the late 6th , bound in a volume of 'Private Papers 0[nslow] 1630-1863' deposited in the Muniment Room, Castle Arch, Guildford, Surrey. First printed in C. E. Vulliamy, The Onslow Family, 1953, pp. 151"* (one PassaSc omitted). The MS descended in the Onslow family to the late Lord Onslow; deposited in the Guildford Muniment Room, with a collection of Onslow family papers, by the Dowager Countess of Onslow in 1972. Strawberry Hill, March 31, 1764. Sir, CANNOT express how much I am obliged to you for the great ^ trouble you have been so good as to give yourself. I have so slender Ia titl e to it, that I cannot help attributing a little of it to your love of and zeal for the arts. This sounds ungrateful: but I do not know how to assume to myself alone the pains you have taken. All I can do, both to pay the debt of the arts and my own, is, to improve my next edition1 by your communications2—at the same time that I must do justice to Vertue,3 by taking from him to myself many of the faults, at least, omissions that you blame. My fear of making so trifling and uninteresting a work too prolix, prevailed on me to omit many stories that he had collected, especially on the less shining artists, for I think, Sir, you and I differ in nothing but when you ascribe more merit to our English performers than I do. Some of . . ^ 3. George Vertue, whose MSS, acquired 3. Missing. ^; HW .n ^^ werc the basis o£ ,. Of Anecdotes of Painting. Anecdotes of Painting (ante 29 Aug. 1758, 2. Onslow's letter to HW is missing. n. 5).