“I received your obliging letter last night, with the excellent Essay on the art of engraving, for which I return you my most sincere thanks. The observations contained in it are, as you remark, entirely new; and, from the mode of their arrangement, precisely what are highly necessary to precede a work like mine. As you have kindly permitted me to make use of them, I shall certainly give them to the public in the form in which they stand, which cannot possibly, as I conceive, be altered for the better; and I hope you will favour me, whenever you can find leisure, with any observations that may strike you, either concerning the art itself, or any of the artists; for every assistance from a person of your taste and judgment will contribute greatly to the enriching of the work, which of course, as a mere dictionary, must be exceedingly dry.”
