Thackeray, in his "Lecture on George the Second," says of his work: "Even Croker, who edited her letters, loves her, and has that regard for her with which her sweet graciousness seems to have inspired almost all men, and some women, who came near her." The following letter of Croker shows the spirit in which he began to edit the Countess's letters: _Mr.Croker to John Murray_.
_May_ 29, 1822.
DEAR MURRAY, As you told me that you are desirous of publishing the Suffolk volume by November, and as I have, all my life, had an aversion to making any one wait for me, I am anxious to begin my work upon them, and, if we are to be out by November, I presume it is high time.

I must beg of you to answer me the following questions.
1st.

What shape will you adopt?
I think the correspondence of a nature rather too light for a quarto, and yet it would look well on the same shelf with Horace Walpole's works.

If you should prefer an octavo, like Lady Hervey's letters, the papers would furnish two volumes.

I, for my part, should prefer the quarto size, which is a great favourite with me, and the letters of such persons as Pope, Swift, and Gay, the Duchesses of Buckingham, Queensberry, and Marlbro', Lords Peterborough, Chesterfield, Bathurst, and Lansdowne, Messrs.