“I have shown Mrs. Delany’s MS. letters to the Prince Regent; he was much entertained with this revival of old times in his recollection, and he says that every word of it is true.  You know that H.R.H. has a wonderful memory, and particularly for things of that kind.  His certificate of Mrs. Delany’s veracity will therefore be probably of some weight with you.  As to the letter-writing powers of Mrs. Delany, the specimen inclines me to doubt.  Her style seems stiff and formal, and though these two letters, which describe a peculiar kind of scene, have a good deal of interest in them, I do not hope for the same amusement from the rest of the collection.  Poverty, obscurity, general ill-health, and blindness are but unpromising qualifications for making an agreeable volume of letters.  If a shopkeeper at Portsmouth were to write his life, the extracts of what relates to the two days of the Imperial and Royal visit of 1814 would be amusing, though all the rest of the half century of his life would be intolerably tedious.  I therefore counsel you not to buy the pig in Miss Hamilton’s bag (though she is a most respectable lady), but ask to see the whole collection before you bid.”

The whole collection was obtained, and, with some corrections and elucidations, the volume of letters was given to the world by Mr. Murray in 1821.

In May 1820 Mr. Murray requested Mr. Croker to edit Horace Walpole’s “Reminiscences.”  Mr. Croker replied, saying:  “I should certainly like the task very well if I felt a little better satisfied of my ability to perform it.  Something towards such a work I would certainly contribute, for I have always loved that kind of tea-table history.”  Not being able to undertake the work himself, Mr. Croker recommended Mr. Murray to apply to Miss Berry, the editor of Lady Russell’s letters.  “The Life,” he said, “by which those letters were preceded, is a beautiful piece of biography, and shows, besides higher qualities, much of that taste which a commentator on the ‘Reminiscences’ ought to have.”  The work was accordingly placed in the hands of Miss Berry, who edited it satisfactorily, and it was published by Mr. Murray in the course of the following year.

Dr. Tomline, while Bishop of Winchester, entered into a correspondence with Mr. Murray respecting the “Life of William Pitt.”  In December 1820, Dr. Tomline said he had brought the Memoirs down to the Declaration of War by France against Great Britain on February I, 1793, and that the whole would make two volumes quarto.  Until he became Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Tomline had been Pitt’s secretary, and from the opportunities he had possessed, there was promise here of a great work; but it was not well executed, and though a continuation was promised, it never appeared.  When the work was sent to Mr. Gifford, he wrote to Mr. Murray that it was not at all what he expected, for it contained nothing of Pitt’s private history.  “He seems to be uneasy until he gets back to his Parliamentary papers.  Yet it can hardly fail to be pretty widely interesting; but I would not have you make yourself too uneasy about these things.  Pitt’s name, and the Bishop’s, will make the work sell.”  Gifford was right.  The “Life” went to a fourth edition in the following year.