rm of a letter to you, but without
one word of flattery or compliment. It will not cost my
servant a forenoon to transcribe it, so that you will
receive it by the first post after it is returned to me.

I am much obliged to you for so readily agreeing to print
the life together with my additions separate from the
_Dialogues_. I even flatter myself that this arrangement
will contribute not only to my quiet but to your interest.
The clamour against the _Dialogues_, if published first,
might hurt for some time the sale of the new edition of his
works, and when the clamour has a little subsided the
_Dialogues_ may hereafter occasion a quicker sale of another
edition.

I do not propose being with you till the Christmas holidays;
in the meantime I should be glad to know how things stand
between us, what copies of my last book are either sold or
unsold, and when the balance of our bargain is likely to be
due to me. I beg my most respectful and affectionate
compliments to Mr. Cadell; I should have written him, but
you know the pain it gives me to write with my own hand, and
I look upon writing to him and you as the same thing. I have
been since I came to Scotland most exceedingly idle. It is
partly in order to bring up in some measure my leeway that I
propose to stay here two months longer than I once intended.
If my presence, however, was at all necessary in London, I
could easily set out immediately.

I beg the favour of you to send the enclosed to Mr. Home.
The purpose of it is to bespeak my lodgings.[267]

The second and third paragraphs of this letter as they stood at first
are erased entirely, but their original substance is in no way altered
in their corrected form. One of the original sentences about the
clamour he dreaded may perhaps be transcribed. "I am still," he says,
"uneasy about the clamour which I foresee they will excite." It may
also be noticed that he does not seem to have dictated his account of
Hume's illness to his amanuensis, but to have written it with his own
hand and then got his amanuensis to transcribe it. The Mr. Home whom
he wishes to bespeak lodgings for him must be John Home the poet, in
spite of the circumstance that he speaks of John Home the poet as
being expected in Edinburgh every day at the time of writing; and in
the event Home does not seem to have