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xxxii

DEDICATORY EPISTLE.

tacles agreeable to her commission, during my late journey to London, and hope she has received them safe, and found them satisfactory. I send this by the blind carrier, so that probably it may be sometime upon its journey.^[1] The last news

↑ This anticipation proved but too true; as my learned correspondent did not receive my letter until a twelvemonth after it was written. I mention this circumstance, that a gentleman attached to the cause of learning, who now holds the principal controul of the post-office, may consider whether by some mitigation of the present enormous rates, some favour might not be shewn to the correspondents of the principal Literary and Antiquarian Societies. I understand, indeed, that this experiment was once tried, but that the mail-coach having broke down under the weight of packages addressed to members of the Antiquarian Society, it was relinquished as a hazardous experiment. Surely, however, it would be possible to build these vehicles in a form more substantial, heavier in the perch and broader in the wheels, so as to support the weight of antiquarian learning; when, if they should be found to travel more slowly, they would be not the less agreeable to quiet travellers like myself.

[1] This anticipation proved but too true; as my learned correspondent did not receive my letter until a twelvemonth after it was written. I mention this circumstance, that a gentleman attached to the cause of learning, who now holds the principal controul of the post-office, may consider whether by some mitigation of the present enormous rates, some favour might not be shewn to the correspondents of the principal Literary and Antiquarian Societies. I understand, indeed, that this experiment was once tried, but that the mail-coach having broke down under the weight of packages addressed to members of the Antiquarian Society, it was relinquished as a hazardous experiment. Surely, however, it would be possible to build these vehicles in a form more substantial, heavier in the perch and broader in the wheels, so as to support the weight of antiquarian learning; when, if they should be found to travel more slowly, they would be not the less agreeable to quiet travellers like myself.

[1]