I see in your admirable work one of the never ending disquisitions about
making writing ink. As I have used as much as most people in the
threescore and ten years of my life, and my father used perhaps three
times as much, and we never were nor are troubled, I suppose we manage as
well as most folks--and as it is begged of me to a great amount, I infer
that others like it.

I improve a little on my father's plan, by substituting a better vehicle,
and the knowledge of this improvement I obtained from a lady to whom a
Princess Esterhazy communicated it.

It is so convenient, that whenever I go to Leamington, Brighton,
Tunbridge, or such places of temporary residence, I send to a chemist's my
recipe, reduced to the quantity of half a pint; and my ink is in use as
soon as it comes, improving daily.

My home quantities are these:

Three quarts of stale good beer, _not porter_.
Three quarters of a pound fresh blue Aleppo galls, beaten.
Four ounces of copperas.
Four ounces of gum Arabic in powder.
Two ounces of rock alum.

This is kept for a week in a wide-mouthed pitcher close to the fire, never
ON it, frequently stirred with a stick, and slightly covered with a large
cork or tile.

My small quantity is--