To The Editor Of The Time...
Sir,-XVhen peop'le make publicblunders, it is more "trelitAble" canididly to contess end apologize, than to Ery to bolste.r up a wrong cause by sophistical evasion. The. editors of the Biographical Oic ry of cien. now af- firm that " Mr. S. Wesley, for reaso ar best EYOfwu to hiaself, re- fused. or at least neglected, after several eLppl' tjons, to rehder to t;e comi respecting his musical aC-eer." J ced he did not: he neither refused .or neglected .everal appli- cations, or even any' application, from flosc gentle-nen : he never re- ceived more than one. in a twopeNrUTy.post letter about 1?mosnthe since; and the data demanded he did not reftse, inasmuch as he never wrote a word of reply upon the subject. Ne0lect presupposes some duty or obligation, and most certainly there was no breath of ing to furnish grataitously to utter strangers materials for their own pu bhcation. ! The on3y " eason" for tiis conduct shbll not remain long " best knr,own to myself," for I will directly dedare it. 1 old cgotismn to be generally nauseous and disgnsting, and seif- !dom excusable, except in the case of unprovoked tersonul attark .Mly notions on biography may probably be singular, and oerhps er- roneous; but to me t appears both indelicate and in Sad taste to publtsh the histor,v of any liz i71g artist- and that the office of renl .justice and hberality is ratber to display him to the world when he is no longer coruptible by P.attery, nor vulnermble by malice, and when Time. that inFallible expositor of truth. shall have ripened the trinslent variety of public opinion into a mature and solid Judgment of his real merits and deficiencies. Tihese gentlemen accuse me of " an evident design to injure the repuitation of their work." No' such matter: my sole design wnas neither less nor more than to coaatnrrtict and refute an injurious re- port of myself; and I hope they will allow that j ere follow " Se defradendo never was a sin." Here follow the horns of the diiiemma, not easily evitable in our centrQver.sy : !Te crypile of the Dlktinarv eitber bhelieved Samuel Wrer Ito be dead ': about the year 1815." or they did not. ltthey did, why ask him eiizht years afterwayds to write Is ownn If they did not, vhere was the honesty of fixing the t;ne of his de.Uth " about the vear 1815 e'" I have now quite do..e w. th the subject, rernaining, --I - M rT:spJEI lYv SAMIUE1, wr,g'y.pV -buston-street, Thur?.Rel TO THE EDITOR OF THE 7IME._.