On the completion of the first volume, he says:
"Mr. Routledge and Mr. Warne both wrote to me expressing their great satisfaction with the last number, and I suppose it must be considered a good shilling's worth. You know how I appreciate your labours; there are cuts in the last number that cannot be exceeded, and looking at the volume, I think, for general even goodness of style in engraving, it has never been excelled."
That the printing of some of our books was not at all times faultless, the following note from Sir John Gilbert will testify. In acknowledging a volume of India proofs, he says:
King Lear and Fool in a Storm.
Lear. "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples."
—Shakespeare.
By Sir John Gilbert, R.A., P.R.W.S.
By permission of Messrs. George Routledge & Sons.