Great care was
bestowed on the revision. Passages that had appeared in the magazine
articles were omitted; new sentences were inserted; and the language
was retouched throughout."--MASSON. Cf. as to the revision, Professor
Dowden's article, "How De Quincey worked," _Saturday Review_, Feb.
23, 1895. This selection is found in _Works_, Masson's ed., Vol.
XIII, pp. 270-327; Riverside ed., Vol. I, pp. 517-582.
1 6 HE HAD MARRIED THE DAUGHTER OF A DUKE: "Mr. John Palmer, a native
of Bath, and from about 1768 the energetic proprietor of the Theatre
Royal in that city, had been led, by the wretched state in those days
of the means of intercommunication between Bath and London, wand his
own consequent difficulties in arranging for a punctual succession of
good actors at his theatre, to turn his attention to the improvement of
the whole system of Post-Office conveyance, and of locomotive machinery
generally, in the British Islands. The result was a scheme for
superseding, on the great roads at least, the then existing system of
sluggish and irregular stage-coaches, the property of private persons
and companies, by a new system of government coaches, in connexion with
the Post-Office, carrying the mails and also a regulated number of
passengers, with clockwork precision, at a rate of comparative speed,
which he hoped should ultimately be not less than ten miles an hour.
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