but some handful; and the man is in haste, and has taken into a mood of hope,—­for he is weak and aguish, alternating from hot to cold; otherwise, I find, a very accurate creature, and deals in his unjust trade as justly as any other will.  He has settled with me; his half-profits amount to some L130, which by charging me for every presentation copy he cuts down to somewhere about L110; not the lion’s share in the gross produce, yet a great share compared with an expectancy no higher than zero! We continue on the same system for this second adventure; I cannot go hawking about in search of new terms; I might go farther and fare worse.  And now comes your part of the affair; in which I would fain have had your counsel; but must ask your help, proceeding with my own light alone.  After Fraser’s fifteen hundred are printed off, the types remain standing, and I for my own behoof throw off five hundred more, designed for your market.  Whether five hundred are too many or too few, I can only guess; if too many, we can retain them here and turn them to account; if too few, there is no remedy.  At all events, costing me only the paper and press-work, there is surely no Pirate in the Union that can undersell us!  Nay, it seems they have a drawback on our taxed paper, sufficient or nearly so to land the cargo at Boston without more charge.  You see, therefore, how it is.  Can you find me a Bookseller, as for yourself; he and you can fix what price the ware will carry when you see it.  Meanwhile I must have his Title-page; I must have his directions (if any be needed); nay, for that matter, you might write a Preface if you liked,—­though I see not what you have to say, and recommend silence rather!  The book is to be in three volumes duodecimo, and we will take care it be fit to show its face in your market.  A few errors of the press; and one correction (about the sinking of the Vengeur, which I find lately to be an indisputable falsehood); these are all the changes.  We are to have done printing, Fraser predicts, “in two months";—­say two and a half!  I suppose you decipher the matter out of this plastering and smearing; and will do what is needful in it.  “Great inquiry” is made for the Miscellanies, Fraser says; though he suspects it may perhaps be but one or two men inquiring often,—­the dog!

I am again upon the threshold of extempore lecturing:  on “the Revolutions of Modern Europe”; Protestantism, 2 lectures; Puritanism, 2; French Revolution, 2.  I almost regret that I had undertaken the thing this year at all, for I am no longer driven by Poverty as heretofore.  Nay, I am richer than I have been for ten years; and have a kind of prospect, for the first time this great while, of being allowed to subsist in this world for the future:  a great blessing, perhaps the greatest, when it comes as a novelty!  However, I thought it right to keep this Lecture business open, come what might.