I lost yesterday, and have been forced to work to-day.

Half my article on Boswell went to Edinburgh the day before yesterday.

I have, though I say it who should not say it, beaten Croker black and blue.

Impudent as he is, I think he must be ashamed of the pickle in which I leave him.

[Mr.Carlyle reviewed Croker's book in "Fraser's Magazine" a few months after the appearance of Macaulay's article in the "Edinburgh." The two Critics seem to have arrived at much the same conclusion as to the merits of the work.
"In fine," writes Mr.Carlyle, "what ideas Mr.Croker entertains of a literary _whole_, and the thing called _Book_, and how the very Printer's Devils did not rise in mutiny against such a conglomeration as this, and refuse to print it, may remain a problem....