more likely to be rich than I was in the
days of Chiefswood and Kaeside,--after all, our best days, I still
believe."

He goes on to say that he has quite forsworn politics, over which he
and his correspondent used sometimes to dispute, and has satisfied
himself "that the age of Toryism is by forever." He remains "a very
tranquil and indifferent observer."

"Perhaps, however, much of this equanimity as to passing affairs has
arisen from the call which has been made on me to live in the past,
bestowing for so many months all the time I could command, and all the
care I have really any heart in, upon the manuscript remains of our
dear friend. I am glad that Cadell and the few others who have seen
what I have done with these are pleased, but I assure you none of them
can think more lightly of my own part in the matter than I do myself.
My sole object is to do him justice, or rather to let him do himself
justice, by so contriving it that he shall be as far as possible, from
first to last, his own historiographer; and I have therefore willingly
expended the time that would have sufficed for writing a dozen books
on what will be no more than the compilation of one. A stern sense of
duty--that kind of sense of it which is combined with the feeling of
his actual presence in a serene state of elevation above all
terrestrial and temporary views--will induce me to touch the few
darker points in his life and character as freely as the others which
were so predominant; and my {p.xxvi} chief anxiety on the appearance
of the book will be, not to hear what is said by the world, but what
is thought by you and the few others who can really compare the
representation as a whole with the facts of the case. I shall,
therefore, desire Cadell to send you the volumes as they are printed,
though long before publication, in the confidence that they will be
kept sacred, while unpublished, to yourself and your own household;
and if you can give me encouragement on seeing the first and second,
now I think nearly out of the printer's hands, it will be very
serviceable to me in the completion of the others. I have waived all
my own notions as to the manner of publication, and so forth, in
deference to the bookseller, who is still so largely our creditor,
and, I am grieved to add, will probably continue to be so for many
years to come.

"Your letters of the closing period I wish you would send to me; and
of these I am sure some use, and some good