are a nest of----.

There is neither faith nor truth in them.

In my last letter I mentioned to you that there was not the smallest appearance of the work being yet begun, and there is as little still.

James Ballantyne shifts this off his own shoulders by saying that he cannot help it.

Now, my own belief is that at the time he made such solemn promises to me that the first volume would be in my hands in a month, he had not the smallest expectation of this being the case; but he knew that he would not have got our bills, which he absolutely wanted, without holding this out.