the French and travelled post a thousand miles in order to beat the Russians, was not more hurried than I am.[1] My letter must, therefore, be very short, and I proceed at once to business.
Surrey’s Sonnets was the book of all others that I most desired. I am also extremely glad that you have got the Gascoyne, and return you many thanks for the means you are pursuing to perfect it, which I beg you would do, if possible, in print. But if any imperfection should still remain, I request that you will take the trouble to get it supplied in handwriting. And this I would entreat you to do with any imperfect book you may hereafter purchase for me. Do you not mistake when you say that the two plays which you had omitted to bind with my two volumes of B(eaumont) and Fletcher’s, would make my quartos complete? I have in all but sixteen plays, exclusive of the two you mention. Were there then no more than eighteen published in quarto? However, should you happen to have made a mistake, the two unbound plays will make a beginning for a third volume.
Elmsley[2] is, I am sure, mistaken with regard to the Natural History of Buffon. His birds were certainly printed on a very large paper and coloured. It was the price of these I was desirous of knowing, as well as the relative cost of the uncoloured and small paper.
That men of taste should wish for good impressions of Hogarth’s prints is not at all surprising, as I look upon him to have been, in his way, and that too an original way, one of the first of geniuses. Neither am I much surprised at the rage you mention, as I am, by experience, well acquainted with the collector’s madness. Excepting only the scarce portrait, my collection goes no farther than those which Mrs. Hogarth has advertised, and even of them a few are wanting, which I wish you would procure for me, viz., The Cock-match, The Five Orders of Periwigs, The Medley, The Times, Wilkes, and The Bruiser. As my impressions are remarkably good, having been selected for me by Hogarth himself, I should wish to}}