My agreement with Richardson was to have six shillings a volume for all sold of one guinea quarto volumes, but when Rackham’s compositor came to cast off the MS. he found enough for two large quarto volumes, since which discovery I had to strike out just half of what I had written; and the advantage will be very great to the work. I read the books as they are wanted for the press again and again, reducing the quantity every time till I get it tolerably to my mind, but yet not to the amount of half. The work is certainly improved by this means, and I am strongly of opinion if nine-tenths of other writers were to do the same thing their performances would be so much the better; for one reads very few quartos that would not be improved by reducing to octavo volumes.
November 23.—I was five days last week at the Duke of Grafton’s, Admiral, Mrs., and two Miss Pigots were there—she [Mrs. P.] is sister to the Duchess, the Admiral is a very worthy man—Mr. Stonehewer there also, and old Vary. I spent two days in taking the level of the Duke’s river for four miles, in order to see how much land he might water, and the improvement his estate is capable of is very great indeed. The character of this Duke is original; he is uncommonly sensible, there is no stuff in him; he is cold, silent, reserved, and even at times sullen, and he is removed from all that ease and suavity which render people agreeable; yet there is such a solid understanding, and so much learning and knowledge on certain topics, that one must value him in spite of our feelings.
Very little of the conversation interesting enough to be worth recording. I was also at a new club which Ruggles[[143]] has instituted at Melford, which might have been an agreeable thing had there been half a dozen only.
The following are [among] the letters preserved this year:—
From Dr. Burney, congratulations, pleasant anecdotes, and an account of a large auction of books, &c.:—
‘Chelsea College: Jan. 7, 1791.
‘My dear Arthur,—The precipice on which you have so long been scrambling for life seems to be more dangerous than any one of those which I had to encounter from Sarzana to Genoa or Genoa to Final. In the first of these scrambles during three days and three nights on a mule without bridle (except that of Jack Ketch) or saddle, I had a torrent called the Magra roaring in my ears at a perpendicular distance of eight hundred or a thousand feet, and, in the second, the Mediterranean, during a storm which no vessel could weather. In the darkest night I ever saw, with the artificial lights of our lanterns extinguished by the violence of the wind, at every twenty or thirty yards the pedino (a man on foot to guide the mule) cried out, “Alla montagna! alla montagna, Signore!” which was an admonition to alight and crawl on all fours over broken roads on the ridge of a precipice.
‘Now let me play the pedino’s part to your worship, and admonish you to be very careful how you travel in the perilous way to health which you have still to pass, after your escape from the great precipice; for which escape, as an Italian would say, “io me ne congratulo non meno con me medesimo che con voi.”
‘But besides congratulating you on your amendment, I have for some time wished to tell you that in the Paitoni catalogue of Italian books now selling by auction at Robson’s room, there are many on Natural History and Agriculture. Now as you have dipped into Italian literature and farming, it struck me on seeing the catalogue that there may be several works that you would wish to purchase, particularly as the Italian books of Science have hitherto sold at this auction for almost nothing. I purchased nearly fifty volumes of poetry and miscellanies, and my bill did not amount to five pounds. The books are in exceeding good condition, and most of them such as have never appeared before in the Osburn, Payne, or Robson catalogues. I am inclined to think that this sale will enrich future catalogues in our country for many years to come. Indeed I was so tired of eternally meeting with the same book over and over again that I had no longer patience to read them.
‘If you see any you wish I will get them purchased, but as neither your Bibliomania nor mine has ever raged to such a degree as to wish to buy in at any price, it will be necessary to say that we mean not to vie with those who being more curious in books than authors procure them at any price to look at and not to read. A rich acquaintance of mine, and a customer of old Tom Payne, has often bought books in languages of which he knew not a single word, merely because they were beautifully bound or very scarce.’