But bad writers are always the most shameless intruders on the time of good critics, and we find Diderot willingly spending hours over the abbe's handwriting, which was as wretched as what he wrote, and then spending hours more in offering critical observations on verses that were only fit to be thrown into the fire.

The abbe, being absent from Paris and falling short of money, requested Diderot to sell for him his copy of the Encyclopaedia.

"I have sold your Encyclopaedia," said Diderot, "but did not get so much as I expected, for the rumour spread abroad by those scoundrels of Swiss booksellers, that they were going to issue a revised edition, has done us some harm.

Send for the nine hundred and fifty livres (about L40) that belong to you, and if that is not enough for your expenses, besides the drawer that holds your money is another that holds mine.

I don't know how much there is, but I will count it all at your disposal."[226] One Jodin, again, was a literary hack who had been employed on the Encyclopaedia.