Note 4 — LETTER LXIX.

It was not my fault, but my printers’ (who deserve raps for it), that mine came before the Company’s in last Fors.4 It is, I think, now time to state, in general comment on my monotonous account, that the current expenses recorded in the bills of Jackson, Kate, Downs, and David, represent for the most part sums spent for the maintenance or comfort of others; and that I could if need were, for my own part, be utterly at ease in the sunny parlour of a village inn, with no more carriage or coachman than my own limbs,—no more service than a civil traveller’s proper share,—and the blessedness of freedom from responsibility from everything. To which condition, if I ever reduce myself by my extravagance, and, (indeed, just after paying my good Mr. Ellis for thirteenth-century MSS.,5 etc., a hundred and forty pounds, I am in treaty to-day with Mr. Quaritch for another, which he says is charged at the very lowest penny at three hundred and twenty)—it will be simply to me only occasion for the loadless traveller’s song; but as it would be greatly inconvenient to other people, I don’t at present intend it. Some day, indeed, perhaps I shall begin to turn a penny by my books. The bills drawn by Mr. Burgess represent now the only loss I incur on them.