4th. All the letters of Swift, except one or two, in this collection are printed (though not always accurately) in Scott's edition of his works. Yet I think it would be proper to reprint them from the originals, because they elucidate much of Lady Suffolk's history, and her correspondence could not be said to be complete without them. Let me know your wishes on this point.
5th. My materials are numerous, though perhaps the pieces of great merit are not many. I must therefore beg of you to set up, in the form and type you wish to adopt, the sheet which I send you, and you must say about how many pages you wish your volume, or volumes, to be. I will then select as much of the most interesting as will fill the space which you may desire to occupy.
Mr. Croker also consented to edit the letters of Mrs. Delany to Mr. Hamilton, 1779-88, containing many anecdotes relating to the Royal Family.
"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.