Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/14

vi themselves into the Book as it stood,—easily, or even with labour if that were all,—should be duly admitted. Secondly, that for such Letters as tended to bring into better relief any feature of the Man or his Work,—much more, had they tended to correct or alter in any respect any feature I had assigned to him or to it: that for these an effort should be made, if needful; even a considerable effort; effort, in fact, to be limited only by this consideration. Not to damage by it to a still greater degree the already extant, and so by one’s effort accomplish only loss. Thirdly, that for such Cromwell Letters as did not fall under either of these descriptions, but were nevertheless clearly of his composition, there should be an Appendix provided. In which, without pretension to commentary, and not needing to be read along with the Text, but only apart from it if at all, they might at least stand correctly printed:—they, and certain other Pieces of more doubtful claim; for most part Letters too, but of half, or in some cases of wholly, official character;—if by chance they were elucidative, brief, and not easily attainable elsewhere. Into which Appendix also, as into a loose back-room or lumber-room, not bound to be organic or habitable, bound only to be maintained in a reasonably swept condition, any still new Letters of Cromwell might without ceremony be disposed.

Upon these principles this Second Edition has been produced. New Letters intercalated into the Text, and Letters lying in loose rank in the Appendix, all that I had, or could hear of or get any trace of hitherto, are here given. For purchasers of the First Edition, the new matter has been detached, printed as a Supplement, which the Bookseller undertakes to sell at prime cost.—And now, having twice escaped alive from these detestable Dust-Abysses, let me beg to be allowed to consider this my small act of Homage to the Memory of a Hero as finished;—this Second Edition of Oliver’s Letters and Speeches as the final one. New Letters, should such still turn up, I will not, except they contradict some statement, or fibre of a statement, in the Text, under