Editor’s Notepg 323Editor’s Note3024To Étienne Dumont29 November 1823 (Aet 75)

• 1823. Nov, 29^th
• To M. Dumont

• 33 Canterbury Square
• Southwark

Dear Sir

Yours of the 14^th or 6^th Oct. is but just received.² Down to this time, I have been waiting in expectation of receiving a letter either from you or from your visitor; in consequence of that letter of mine, which I hope and presume you received from him.³ Him we⁴ have heard of in Letters to other friends.⁵ Taking for granted that some letter of his or yours must have miscarried, I was on the point of writing as I do now, when this letter of yours came. According to him, you were to come here not before next Spring twelve month; business which he mentioned detaining you; this of yours brings better news; giving us reason to hope that you will be here by the next Spring. No: upon second thoughts, and comparison of dates, it cannot be so. In my abovementioned Letter I gave you only a faint anticipation of the success of Preuves here; now I can tell you, that it is the subject of universal admiration. They say it is still better got up than any of your former publications. The Westminster Review was if I misrecollect not, among the topics on which you were instructed to examine my friend:⁶ N^o. 1 comes out for certain the 1^st of the year;⁷ N^o. 2 will as certainly contain an article on Preuves, by a person who, I am told, is all admiration of it, and writes con amore; and who himself though as yet he has appeared but little as a public writer, is highly spoken of.⁸ We are not without hopes of getting mention made of it as early as the first of January, in a sheet which under some such terms as the Recommendation Sheets we propose to make a regular pg 324accompaniment to the Westminster Review.⁹ This Review, you I suppose know already has for its Publisher Longman & C^{o. 10} the most extensive publishers by far which as yet the world ever saw. Number of the Prospectus printed 100,000.¹¹ What think you of this? To be sure it is very short: not containing more matter perhaps than one page of the last Letter my husband¹² received from you.¹³ Number of copies of N^o. 1 no more than 2,000; or at most 3,000: but, in addition to these, there will be a stereotype of the whole. What think you of this? Their expression is[, there is] not a village in the three Kingdoms into which this little prospectus will not find its way, I have a copy in lithography, but I know not whether it will be worth while to make you pay postage for it, it is so insipid and lame. As a reason for the tameness, the Booksellers say, that by this means they gain support from several influential persons, from whom they would otherwise experience opposition. Constable of Edinburgh, who has one half of the Edinburgh, came to Longman's, full of alarm and wrath. But somehow or other he is pacified. Who do you think have the other half? Who but Longmans themselves. So that here they are counsel for plaintiff and Defendant at the same time. The Reviewers Reviewed will form a constant head. The history of that Review is, in N^o. 1, brought down about half way to the present time. It is by one of the two to whom you destined a copy of Preuves that the articles under this head are and will be written.¹⁴ Apropos of these copies.¹⁵ Upon my husband's shewing¹⁶ those lines of your letter to Bossange here, he said he was not in connection with Bossange frère, and on that account declined giving him¹⁷ the 2 copies for the 2 persons, but lent us¹⁸ 2 for them and promised spontaneously to write about it to Bossange frère. N.B. We¹⁹ had bought 6 of him, but this I believe was²⁰ mentioned in the letter that was delivered to you.²¹

I wish you could point out to us some mode of sending an odd Book or pg 325so to you: with two or three Demon pamphlets. A comical Book has lately made its appearance here under the title of 'not Paul, but Jesus' by Gamaliel Smith Esq.²² Inquiries who this M^r Smith is have hitherto proved fruitless. Some people will have it that it is by the pamphleteer;²³ it is wonderful with what plausibility M^r Smith endeavours to persuade us that St Paul was constantly disbelieved by all the Christians of Jerusalem, as well as by the Holy Apostles. The Book contains 400 pages, with the addition of Tables, for the purpose of bringing under one view, the different accounts of S^t Paul's conversion and some other matters. M^r Smith says that all that is good and really belongs to what is called Christianity came from Jesus alone, and is in the four Gospels; and that all that has made so much discension, belongs to S^t Paul and to him alone. There are people here who say that this will make a new Sect, as if there were not Sects enough already. For my part I stick to the Church, as these matters are too high for me. But though you will not shake my faith, still I should be curious to know what you think of it, as you are of old a connoisseur in these matters.

If you were amused with those papers which you saw of my husband's, you will I hope be still more so by what he will have to show you should he live till you come. For since he wrote those papers, he has been making a little excursion he says into the field of Judicial Procedure; finding the matter of it so entangled in the matter of those other papers. You will see by the date that we have changed our abode since we had last the pleasure of hearing from you. He is so extremely busy just now; he begs you to excuse your receiving this scrawl from me, instead of a Letter from him.

•                                         Believe me, Dear Sir
•                                            Yours most sincerely,
•                                               Martha Colls