Longman's next trunk brings a copy of Chambers's Dictionary, then just published, as a present to Mr. Hancock, and we might almost fancy it an acknowledgment of this letter about the _Comition_ in more ways than one. We ought in justice to observe, however, that in those days, in the absence of any generally recognized and accepted standard of authority, gentlemen of the best condition in life appear to have felt at liberty to spell pretty much as they pleased, in New England. So far, at least, as Mr. Hancock's credit for orthography is concerned, it must be allowed, from his repeatedly spelling the same word in two or three different ways on the same page, that he probably gave the matter very little thought at any time,--taking as small pains as did Mr. Pepys, and really caring as little as Sir Thomas Browne for "the [Greek: batrachomyomachia] and hot skirmish betwixt S and T in Lucian, or how grammarians hack and slash for the genitive case of Jupiter."[1] That such spelling would hardly be admissible on India Wharf to-day, we freely admit,--nay, would even rush, were it necessary, to maintain,--but we must still claim for our favorite, that a century and a quarter agone he seems to have spelt about as well, on the whole, as the generality of his neighbors. There is one most extraordinary _escapade_ of his, however, in this line of performance, which we do not know how we _can_ undertake wholly to defend. To Mr. John Rowe, a little doubtful about New-England Bills of Exchange, he writes,--"As to the £100 Draft of Mr. Faneuil's above mentioned, I doubt not but any merchant in London will take that Gentleman's Bill, when accepted, as Soon as a Bank Note,--he being the _Topinest_ merchant in this Country, & I Gave 20 per Cent Extra'y for it." If there be really a proper superlative of the adjective _topping_, our letter-writer, it must be confessed, has made a wide miss here of the mark he aimed at. "Priscian's a little scratch'd here,"--rather too much, indeed, even for 1739. That the reader may not suspect Mr. Hancock of monopolizing all the cacography of his time, we give _verbatim_ the following letter from Christopher Kilby,[2] a letter among many of the same sort found with Mr. Hancock's papers. "_London, 15 February 1727._