Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/129

97 THE L ONGMAN FA MIL K 97 after this the Prince Regent threw over his old Whig friend, but Moore was so successful in his political warfare that he more than gained as a poet what he lost as a courtier, and his Two-penny Post Bag went through fourteen editions. He was, however, anxious to apply his genius to the creation of some work more likely to raise his reputation than the singing of las- civious songs, or the jerking off of political squibs. Accordingly Perry, the editor of ti&Morning Chronicle, was sent to discuss preliminary matters with Long- man. "'I am of opinion," said Perry, "that Mr. Moore ought to receive for his poem the largest price that has been given in our day for such a work." " That," replied Longman promptly, " was 3000." " Exactly so," rejoined the editor, " and no smaller a sum ought he to receive." Longman insisted upon a perusal beforehand : " Longman has communicated his readiness to terms, on the basis of the three thousand guineas, but requires a perusal beforehand ; this I have refused, I shall have no ifs." Again Moore writes, " To the honour and glory of romance, as well on the publisher's side as on the poet's, this very generous view of the transaction was without any difficulty acceded to ;" and again, " There has seldom occurred any transaction in which trade and poetry have shone so satisfactorily in each other's eyes." So Moore left London to find a quiet resting- place " in a lone cottage among the fields in Derby- shire," and there Lalla Rookh was written ; the snows of two or three Derbyshire winters aiding, he avers, his imagination, by contrast, to paint the ever- lasting summers and glowing scenery of the East. The arrangement had hitherto been verbal, but on