improved and augmented. The other (fortunately the smaller) was much
more imperfect, just as it was taken from his mouth by dictation. The
former reaches from the two hundred and forty-sixth to near the end of
the two hundred and sixty-second page; the latter nearly occupies the
twelve pages which follow.[3] No important change, none at all affecting
the meaning of any passage, has been made in either, though in the more
imperfect parcel some latitude of discretion in subordinate points was
necessarily used.

There is, however, a considerable member for the greater part of which
Mr. Burke's reputation is not responsible: this is the inquiry into the
condition of the higher classes, which commences in the two hundred and
ninety-fifth page.[4] The summary of the whole topic, indeed, nearly as
it stands in the three hundred and seventy-third and fourth pages,[5]
was found, together with a marginal reference to the Bankrupt List, in
his own handwriting; and the actual conclusion of the Letter was
dictated by him, but never received his subsequent correction. He had
also preserved, as materials for this branch of his subject, some
scattered hints, documents, and parts of a correspondence on the state
of the country. He was, however, prevented from working on them by the
want of some authentic and official information, for which he had been
long anxiously waiting, in order to ascertain, to the satisfaction of
the public, what, with his usual sagacity, he had fully anticipated from
his own personal observation, to his own private conviction. At length
the reports of the different committees which had been appointed by the
two Houses of Parliament amply furnished him with evidence for this
purpose. Accordingly he read and considered them with attention: but for
anything beyond this the season was now past. The Supreme Disposer of
All, against whose inscrutable counsels it is vain as well as impious to
murmur, did not permit him to enter on the execution of the task which