Your letter gave me the greatest pleasure, enhanced by knowing that the promptitude & manner in which a promotion

so just & proper in itself has been granted, must have been owing to Wynn.

I never doubted his hearty desire to be of real service to you, whenever it should be in his power. Tell me the designation of your office. Long may you live to fulfill its duties, & to enjoy the remuneration to which you will be rightly entitled whenever you are weary of them, & chuse to amuse yourself in your own way for the rest of your life.

Poor Gifford! The state of his health must make him think seriously of appointing a King of the Romans,

– & between ourselves, neither he nor Murraylemagne are aware of how much depends upon the choice. You will not let what I am about to say to you go farther. Murray has a great many enemies, especially in his own trade; & the QR has disgusted a great many persons who were by principle strongly disposed to be its friends. They are offended by its wretched inconsistency upon many points; by criticisms which are often as ill tempered & unmanly as they are unjust; & by its silence concerning Lord Byron, which is not the less scandalous in such a journal because Murray is implicated with him in the disgrace which must attach to every person concerned in bringing forth D Juan.

In the event of Giffords decession – or decease, a New Q.R. has been talked of unless he should be succeeded by a person who would make the existing one what it ought to be in point of consistency, & high uncompromising principle. Thus it may be started with advantage. Mawman

is ready to move to the West end of the town, & I am assured that if I would take the management he would secure me 500 £ a year, give me half the profits above that sum whatever they might be, & vest the copyright in me. Coadjutors on which I could rely, & such as I should chuse, are ready.

This has been communicated to me by John Coleridge. My wish is that he should be Giffords successor, & upon this point I wrote to Gifford as he has probably told you. Should that arrangement take place, this scheme falls to the ground at once. Otherwise, tho it is by no means likely that I should accede to it, so as to change my residence & act as Editor, it is very probable that it will be tried. And the Q.R. might be as much shaken by it, as the Edinburgh

has been by the QR.

Enough of this. Pray send me the remaining sheets of my first volume

that I may get it put in boards & enjoy the satisfaction of seeing it compleat & in a tangible shape: At present I am working (hard as any Clerk in a public office after a motion for papers) upon a box full of papers from Frere, all which I have to read & exenterate, not to use so coarse a word as gut. As soon as this task is performed, the second volume will go on briskly.