There are also letters of Burke which from time to time have seen the light, as they were communicated by their possessors. Among these none equals in interest that addressed to Pitt with regard to his pension, which has been printed recently by Lord Stanhope, in his small, but rich and rare collection, entitled "Miscellanies." This important letter came to light among the papers of Pitt, and has been described by Macaulay as "interesting and very characteristic." The manuscripts now before us are none of these. They have a history of their own. They constitute a thin volume in folio, neatly bound, having a book-mark, and arms with the name of _Fillingham_. Here are four familiar autograph-letters from Burke to his amanuensis, Swift, all of them written from Margate, on the sea-shore, and bearing Burke's frank as a member of Parliament. According to habit with us, the frank of a member of Congress is written in the right-hand upper corner of the superscription, while the old English frank is in the left-hand lower corner. But English law, while the privilege of franking existed, required also that the name of the place where the letter was pasted, and the day on which it was posted, written at length, should appear in the superscription. Take, for instance, the following frank of Burke in this collection:-- "Margate July seventeenth, 1791 "Mr Swift, "Mr Burke's Chambers "4 Stone Buildings "Lincoln's Inn "London. "Edm. Burke." These letters have been recently published by Mr. Macknight, who says of them that "they show how kind and familiar Burke was to the humblest dependants with whom he was thrown into any human relationship"; they also "show the statesman, when at the height of literary fame, as busy and anxious in sending his sheets through the press, and making corrections and alterations, as any young author with his first proofs"; and he adds, "These letters seem to me quite as important, as illustrations of Burke's private character, as those which he wrote to the Nagles in former years." It seems that the amanuensis to whom they were addressed had at his death other similar letters in his possession; but his wife, ignorant of their value, deliberately committed them to the names, and the four now before us are all that were saved. Mr. Macknight adds, in a note,--"These letters I owe to the kindness of John Fillingham, Esq., of Hoxton, who allowed me to inspect and copy the originals."[A] [Footnote A: _Life of Burke_, Vol. III. p. 410.] Of one of these letters there is an accurate _fac-simile_, which will be found in the third volume of Mr. Macknight's elaborate biography of Burke.