private
Lacock Abbey Chippenham
Monday
Dr Sir
Although I am annihilated in the last Quarterly Review,<1> and may be looked upon as a lost man, or a gone 'coon, (as an American would say), still it is my intention to publish a second volume of the Etymologies - which will be no better than the first. But as I cannot expect you to become the Publisher of it, on the terms I am about to mention, I only name it to you because I think it is due to
you to make you the offer in the first instance - Those terms are, to pay for the expense of printing 500 copies, and to defray the cost of all advertisements, and to allow me 50 copies to give away to my friends - But I ask nothing in the way of profit or as a remuneration for the time employed about the work.
The work would not be ready in time to be published this season, nevertheless I wish at present to make an arrangement for [illegible deletion] its publication - and shall be glad of an answer at your early convenience.
I hope that you made a pleasant tour on the Continent, where I have been myself this summer.
At Bāle <2> I am informed whether correctly or not I cannot say, that you had passed thro' that city a day or two previously-
I remain dr Sir Yours very truly
H. F. Talbot
address: Athenaeum Club
London
J Murray Esq
[address panel]
J. Murray Esq
private
H. F. Talbot
[in another hand]
Octr 1847 Talbot H F.
Notes:
1. John Wilson Croker wrote a negative review of WHFT, English Etymologies (London: J. Murray, 1847), in Quarterly Review, v.81, September 1847, pp. 500-525. WHFT replied to this review in 'The Reviewer Reviewed', The Literary Gazette and Journal of belles lettres, science and art, n.1615, 1 January 1848, p. 3 - see Doc. No: 06078. John Wilson Croker (1780-1857), Irish-born, was a Tory MP from 1807 to 1832 and Secretary of the Admiralty from 1810 to 1830. As an author, he was noted for his virulent reviews in The Quarterly Review as much as for his 1831 edition of Boswell's Live of Johnson.
2. The French spelling of Basle, or Basel, in northwestern Switzerland.