Respecting the correction of the press, you are right in supposing that it was intended to apply not only to the part which more immediately concerns yourself, but to the whole work. If, however, you think that the revision of my part of the work will be a great fatigue, and take up too much of your time, I am willing to omit this from the conditions above stated. I must, however, in this case, beg of you to name your own terms, in case it suited you to undertake it, or else to find some one else in whose capacity and judgment you have confidence, and who will have some discretion in his demands upon my purse.
Yours, &c., &c.,
Vernon.”
“B. M., Nov. 30th, 1848.
“My dear Lord,
In thanking you for your kind expressions towards me, I beg to add that I cannot allow you to incur any expense whatever for correcting your own edition of the Inferno. I consider it part of my duty, according to the terms of the memorandum of the 23rd of October, as explained in my lettter[lettter] to your Lordship on the 31st of the same month, to correct the press of that Cantica; I am at your Lordship’s orders, and ready to perform that duty to the best of my abilities.
I suppose I shall hear from Mr. Pickering when I am wanted in that respect. With reference to the text of the first four editions, twelve cantos of the first (Foligno) are prepared for collation with those of Mantua, Jesi, and Naples.
By midsummer I hope the greater part, if not the whole of the first part of the poem, will be thus collated and ready for press. The printing will proceed slowly, as I am to re-collate the whole in type.
Yours, &c., &c.,
A. Panizzi.”