But now first as to this question, What I mean?  You must know poor Fraser, a punctual but most pusillanimous mortal, has been talking louder and louder lately of a “second edition” here; whereupon, as labor-wages are not higher here than with you, and printing-work, if well bargained for, ought to be about the same price, it struck me that, as in the case of the Miscellanies, so here inversely the supply of both the New and the Old England might be profitably combined.  Whether aught can come of this, now that it is got close upon us, I yet know not.  Fraser has only seventy-five copies left; but when these will be done his prophecy comprehends not,—­“surely within the year”!  For the present I have set him to ascertain, and will otherwise ascertain for myself, what the exact cost of stereotyping the Book were, in the same letter and style as yours; it is not so much more than printing, they tell me:  I should then have done with it forever and a day.  You on your side, and we on ours, might have as many copies as were wanted for all time coming.  This is, in these very days, under inquisition; but there are many points to be settled before the issue.

I have not yet succeeded in finding a Bookseller of any fitness, but am waiting for one always.  And even had I found such a one, I mean an energetic seller that would sell on other terms than forty percent for his trouble, it were still a question whether one ought to venture on such a speculation:  “quitting the old highways,” as I say, “in indignation at the excessive tolls, with hope that you will arrive cheaper in the steeple-chase way!” It is clear, however, that said highways are of the corduroy sort, said tolls an anomaly that must be remedied soon; and also that in all England there is no Book in a likelier case to adventure it with than this same,—­which did not sell at all for two months, as I hear, which all Booksellers got terrified for, and which has crept along mainly by its own gravitation ever since.  We will consider well, we shall see.  You can understand that such a thing, for your market too, is in agitation; if any pirate step in before us in the meanwhile, we cannot help it.

Thanks again for your swift attention to the Miscellanies; poor Fraser is in great haste to see them; hoping for his forty-per-cent division of the spoil.  If you have not yet got to the very end with your printing, I will add a few errata; if they come too late, never mind; they are of small moment....

This foggy Babylon tumbles along as it was wont; and, as for my particular case, uses me not worse, but better, than of old.  Nay, there are many in it that have a real friendliness for me.  For example, the other night, a massive portmanteau of Books, sent according to my written list, from the Cambridge University Library, from certain friends there whom I have never seen; a gratifying arrival.  For we have no Library here, from which we can borrow