David Carnegie Andrew Agnew

“ I chanced lately to mention to you in our discourse something concerning the famous Whiston’s impudent letters to the Bishop of London, wherein he opposed our doxology; you will pardon me, my Lord, if I trouble your Lordship with this little pamphlet, which my zeal in the cause of religion moved me to write. Neither my studies nor calling have been turned to Divinity farther than a Christian ought who has some little knowledge of the original text of his Bible. ”

“ The few friends I have (among whom I desire still to reckon you) are not increased since you left the town. I am too old now to create new friendships; and as the world now goes, a few good ones are best. ”

“ This and his other great works being in Latin, I cannot extract anything to excite interest. But an Etonian printer in 1762, Mr Joseph Pote, in his preface to the first edition of Morell’s “Greek Gradus,” gives the following hints:—
“A material article in Printing is the correction of the press. And it is worthy of remark and well known among the learned, that the most correct impressions were made in the infancy of printing, when literature was a general concern, and the correction of the press was thought not below the attention of the learned. ”

“ It will be observed that the new edition specifies an earlier date than the first for the invention of printing, but yet not early enough, as appears from a letter of Maittaire’s friend Rev. John Lewis, to Joseph Ames, Secretary to the Antiquarian Society, and at a later date the author of “Typographical Antiquities;” in this letter Lewis (a learned man and a useful author) says, on 18th November 1743: [5] —
“Mr. Maittaire has said that he knows of no impression of any book before 1457; yet he owns it is not to be doubted but that before that time a great many printed books were extant. ”

“ Three years later he showed his interest in a younger editor of Latin classics by writing thus:—
“As among the poets, Virgil is the chief, so the accurate English translation and learned notes which Dr. Martyn has made with much pains and labour upon the Georgicks — the most complete and exactly finished work of that poet — deserve to be recommended. M. Maittaire. Southampton Row [London] , 1st July 1746.”
In Dcs Maizeaux’s collected correspondence all the refugees write in French, except Maittaire, who always uses colloquial English. ”