You do not "tease" me I assure you. I had purposed answering your first letter respecting Spence as soon as I had finished correcting the "Annals,"2 from the sheets of the 4th edition in a more decent state than those of the three former. I thank you for wishing the publication a "large sale"—if it have not, I shall have labored to a small purpose, for I divide profits with the publisher. I have just ridded off the last sheets, and now have at you.
Beginning with your first letter, respecting my "Short Publications in 1817,"3 I believe it is not profitable to procure any of them—if I had any they should be yours.
"Thomas Spence." The only things I have of his I deem the rarest & most curious of his works—they are 1. The Real Reading-made-Easy 2. A Supplement to the History of Robinson Crusoe—Both are printed at Newcastle in 1782.
The latter has a version in the "Kruzonian M'an'ir"—this is clearly what he afterwards called the "Spensonian" manner. The tract is pregnant with his "Plan." I will lend you, with pleasure, the little volume (24mo), & would send it by post, but I fear miscarriage. I have nobody to send with it, but will leave it at the bar of the "Grasshopper" for anyone who may ask for it in your name. I do not know anybody that has tracts by Spence which you have not.
It will be a fortnight before I can get to see you, & hear you read your sketch, for I must immediately turn to commencing "The Year Book," which I am under articles for, in the manner of the Every Day Book. Among the papers that I have to turn over, I expect to find a printed sheet of a work containing a more minute account of Spence than I ever saw. It was done by I forget whom, & sent to me about three years ago by the author from Newcastle. He knew Spence. More I cannot tell you respecting this sheet, for I recollect no more. I shall come to it within a fortnight, & you shall have it as soon as I find it.
I only know of Spence's Son that he had one. The last time I saw or heard of him was when Spence lived in Turnstile. He was then publishing a Dictionary of the "Spensonian" Language in numbers — it was, in form, like the square Entick, but, I imagine, never finished.
You speak in your last letter, just received, as though you had some paper before you, written by me, respecting Spence. I have no remembrance of such a paper. To say the truth my memory is not so good as it was. I have a faint notion only of [one word illegible] in connection with Spence. I saw Spence with his "vehicle," & bought his Trial from it in Parliament Street, near the Duke of Richmond's. My personal intercourse with him was very little, for I disliked his manner—but I was a frequent observer of him, on account of his fearless thinking & printing. About 1808 or 9 he came to the Strand4 for one of Sir F. Burdett's speeches, and talked away about his "Plan" & the Landlords, against whom he was inveterate. On leaving he gave me a card (long since lost) admitting the bearer to a meeting at the Something & Lamb in or near Windmill street, where he said he met his friends to talk over & cooperate towards his "Plan." I should not have objected to being there as a mere spectator; but I knew that could not be, & therefore did not go. Really, at present, I cannot remember more of him. His "vehicle" mentioned before, was very like a Baker's close barrow—the pamphlets were exhibited outside, & when he sold one he took it from within, & handed & recommended others with strong expressions of hate to the powers that were, & prophecies of what would happen to the whole race of "Land Lords."
I know that Spence was arrested where he kept the long stall in Chancery Lane at the Middle Row Corner, for I was passing at the time, & heard him in dispute with the officer. He had just got his shutters down in the morning when he was pounced upon. It was early therefore & no one but myself was present at first. I remained only a minute or so, for I had to hasten to a situation I then had to attend at 9 o'clock. Dates I cannot fix as I might have done 6 or 7 years ago. Since then my head has cullendered.
It gave me great pleasure to hear on coming home the other day, that honest Thomas Hardy5 had been to the Grasshopper, & broke the rules, by breaking into the bar, & kissing my daughter Matilda before all the visitors.