[PW] ? "Speak Truth to Power" (Quotation Query #633)

[Fred Shapiro]

The expression "speak truth to power" is usually traced to the title of a
pamphlet published by the American Friends Service Committee in 1955.  In
tomorrow's New York Times Magazine, William Safire writes:  "The earliest 
use I can find of that challenge to authortiy was in a letter, probably 
written in the 1820's, from the British painter B. R. Haydon to the editor 
of The Edinburgh Review.  The artist told the editor, 'My life has been a 
whirlwind of brilliant victory and bitter defeat ... because in my early 
and ardent aspirations after excellence I _told truth to power_!'"

Is anyone able to supply a more precise citation for this alleged letter?

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS
   Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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