Mr. Loring, and all men who had a hand
in it along with you, that I am altogether right well pleased
with this edition, and find it far beyond my expectation. To my
two young Friends, Henry S. McKean (be so good as write these
names more indisputably for me) and Charles Stearns Wheeler, in
particular, I will beg you to express emphatically my gratitude;
they have stood by me with right faithfulness, and made the
correctest printing; a _great_ service had I known that there
were such eyes and heads acting in behalf of me there, I would
have scraped out the Editorial blotches too (notes of admiration,
dashes, "We think"s, &c., &c., common in Jeffrey's time in the
_Edinburgh Review_) and London misprints; which are almost the
only deformities that remain now. It is _extremely_ correct
printing wherever I have looked, and many things are silently
amended; it is the most fundamental service of all. I have not
the other _Articles_ by me at present; I think they are of
themselves a little more correct; at all events there are
nothing but _misprints_ to deal with;--the Editors, by this time,
had got bound up to let me alone. In the _Life of Scott,_ fourth
page of it (p. 296 of our edition), there is a sentence to be
deleted. "It will tell us, say they, little new and nothing
pleasing to know": out with this, for it is nonsense, and was
marked for erasure in the manuscript, I dare say. I know with
certainty no more at present.

Fraser is to sell the Four Volumes at Two Guineas here. On
studying accurately your program of the American mercantile
method, I stood amazed to contrast it with our English one. The
Bookseller here admits that he could, by diligent bargaining, get
up such a book for something like the same cost or a _little_
more; but the "laws of the trade" deduct from the very front of
the selling price--how much think you--_forty percent_ and odd,
when your man has only _fifteen;_ for the mere act of vending!
To cover all, they charge that enormous price. (A man, while I
stood consulting with Fraser, came in and asked for Carlyle's
_Revolution;_ they showed it him, he asked the price; and
exclaimed, "Guinea and a half! I can get it from America for
nine shillings!" and indignantly went his way; not without
reason.) There are "laws of the trade" which ought to be
_repealed;_ which I will take the liberty of contravening to all
lengths by all opportunities--if I had but the power! But if
this