s, such as I had never experienced in the
whole course of my life. The materials of my correspondence I have
gradually accumulated, and despairing of being able to say any thing, I
have wisely finished by saying nothing. Meantime, it is not necessary to
inform my dear reader that I love him just as much as if I had written
to him every week.

Where, then, shall I begin this letter? Can this question be put to a
man who has just published his book? I shall speak of myself, and I
shall enjoy the pleasure which renders the conversation of friends so
delightful,--the pleasure of talking of one's self with somebody who
will take an interest in the subject. It is true I should greatly prefer
conversing with you, walking backwards and forwards in my library, where
I could, without blushing, make to you all the confessions which my
vanity might prompt. But at this lamentable distance from London to
Leipsig we cannot do without a confidant, and the paper might one day
disclose the little secrets which I am obliged to confide to you.

You know that the first volume of _The History of the Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire_ has had the most complete success, and the most
flattering to the author. But I must take up the matter a little further
back. I do not know whether you recollect that I had agreed with my
bookseller for an edition of 500 copies. This was a very moderate
number; but I wished to learn the taste of the public, and to reserve to
myself the opportunity of soon making, in a second edition, all the
changes which the observations of critics and my own reflections might
suggest. We had come, perhaps, to the twenty-fifth sheet, when my
publisher and my printer, men of sense and taste, began to perceive that
the work in question might be worth something, and that the said 500
copies would not suffice for the demands of the British readers. They
stated their reasons to me, and very humbly, but very earnestly, begged
me to permit 500 more to be printed. I yielded to their entreaties, not,
however, without fearing that the younger brothers of my numerous family
might be condemned to an inglorious old age, in the obscurity of some
warehouse. Meantime the printing went on; and, in spite of paternal
affection, I sometimes cursed the attention which I was obliged to pay
to the education of my children, to cure them of the little defects
which the negligence of their preceptors had suffered to pass without
correcting them.