28th Feb., 1819, Highgate.

Dear Sir,

--First permit me to remove a very natural, indeed almost inevitable,
mistake, relative to my lectures; namely, that I 'have' them, or that
the lectures of one place or season are in any way repeated in another.
So far from it, that on any point that I had ever studied (and on no
other should I dare discourse--I mean, that I would not lecture on any
subject for which I had to 'acquire' the main knowledge, even though a
month's or three months' previous time were allowed me; on no subject
that had not employed my thoughts for a large portion of my life since
earliest manhood, free of all outward and particular purpose)--on any
point within my habit of thought, I should greatly prefer a subject I
had never lectured on, to one which I had repeatedly given; and those
who have attended me for any two seasons successively will bear witness,
that the lecture given at the London Philosophical Society, on the
'Romeo and Juliet', for instance, was as different from that given at
the Crown and Anchor, as if they had been by two individuals who,
without any communication with each other, had only mastered the same
principles of philosophic criticism. This was most strikingly evidenced
in the coincidence between my lectures and those of Schlegel; such, and
so close, that it was fortunate for my moral reputation that I had not
only from five to seven hundred ear witnesses that the passages had been
given by me at the Royal Institution two years before Schlegel commenced
his lectures at Vienna, but that notes had been taken of these by
several men and ladies of high rank. The fact is this; during a course
of lectures, I faithfully employ all the intervening days in collecting
and digesting the materials, whether I have or have not lectured on the
same subject before, making no difference. The day of the lecture, till