Though my readers, by this time, will scarcely be disposed to believe it, I really can keep accounts, if I set myself to do so: and even greatly enjoy keeping them, when I do them the first thing after my Exodus or Plato every morning; and keep them to the uttermost farthing. I have examples of such in past diaries; one, in particular, great in its exhibition of the prices of jargonel and Queen Louise pears at Abbeville. And my days always go best when they are thus begun, as far as pleasant feeling and general prosperity of work are concerned. But there is a great deal of work, and especially such as I am now set on, which does not admit of accounts in the morning; but imperatively requires the fastening down forthwith of what first comes into one’s mind after waking. Then the accounts get put off; tangle their thread—(so the Fates always instantly then ordain)—in some eightpenny matter, and without Œdipus to help on the right hand and Ariadne on the left, there’s no bringing them right again. With due invocation to both, I think I have got my own accounts, for the past year, stated clearly below.

Receipts. Expenditure. Balance.
£ s. d. £ s. d. £ s. d.
February 1344 17 9 817 0 0 527 17 9
March 67 10 0 370 2 3 225 5 6
April 1522 12 4 276 10 0 1471 7 10
May 484 18 3 444 16 3 1511 9 10
June 179 0 0 464 11 0 1225 18 10
July 0 0 0 460 0 0 765 18 10
August 180 11 8 328 19 6 617 11 0
September 0 0 0 427 5 0 190 6 0
October 1279 8 0 655 0 0 814 14 0
November 0 0 0 495 0 0 784 8 0
December 592 15 4 242 0 0 1135 3 4

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In the first column are the receipts for each month; in the second, the expenditure; in the third, the balance, which is to be tested by adding the previous balance to the receipts in the first column, and deducting the expenditure from the sum.

The months named are those in which the number of Fors was published in which the reader will find the detailed statements: a grotesque double mistake, in March, first in the addition and then in the subtraction, concludes in a total error of threepence; the real balance being £225 5s. 6d. instead of £225 5s. 9d. I find no error in the following accounts beyond the inheritance of this excessive threepence: (in October, p. 334, the entry under September 1 is misprinted 10 for 15; but the sum is right,) until the confusion caused by my having given the banker’s balance in September, which includes several receipts and disbursements not in my own accounts, but to be printed in the find yearly estimate in Fors of next February. My own estimate, happily less than theirs, brings my balance for last month to £784 8s.; taking up which result, the present month’s accounts are as follows:—

Receipts. £ s. d. £ s. d.
Oct. 15. Balance 784 8 0
Dividend on £6,500 Stock 292 10 0
Rents, Marylebone 90 15 4
Rents, Herne Hill 30 0 0
Oxford, Half-year’s Salary 179 10 0
——— 1377 3 4
Expenditure.
Oct. 15 to Nov. 15. Self at Venice 150 0 0
Oct. 24. Burgess 42 0 0
Nov. 1. Raffaelle 15 0 0
” 7. Downs 25 0 0
” 11. Crawley 10 0 0
——— 242 0 0
Balance, Nov. 15 £1135 3 4

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III. I have lost the reference to a number of the ‘Monetary Gazette,’ of three or four weeks back, containing an excellent article on the Bishop of Peterborough’s declaration, referred to in the text, that the disputes between masters and men respecting wages were a question of Political Economy, in which the clergy must remain ‘strictly neutral.’

Of the Bishop’s Christian spirit, in the adoption of his Master’s “Who made me a divider?” rather than of the earthly wisdom of John the Baptist, “Exact no more than that which is appointed you,” the exacting public will not doubt. I must find out, however, accurately what the Bishop did say; and then we will ask Little Bear’s opinion on the matter. For indeed, in the years to come, I think it will be well that nothing should be done without counsel of Ursula.