Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/153

Rh and Scott's portion amounted to £169 6s. Longman, when a second edition was called for, offered £500 for the copyright, which was immediately accepted, but they afterwards added, as the Introduction says, "£100 in their own unsolicited kindness." In the history of British poetry nothing had ever equalled the demand for the Lay of the Last Minstrel. 44,000 copies were disposed of before Scott superintended the edition of 1830, to which the biographical introductions were prefixed.

In the ensuing year Constable issued a beautiful edition of what he termed Works of Walter Scott, Esq., comprising the poem just mentioned, the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," "Sir Tristram," and a series of "Lyrical Ballads."

In 1806 it was rumoured that Scott had a new poem in hand. Longman at once opened negotiation as to its purchase, but in vain; and in a short time the London publishers heard with a feeling of jealousy, not unmixed with honest amazement, that Constable had offered one thousand guineas for a poem which had not yet been completed, and of which he had not even seen the scheme.

It may be gathered from the Introduction of 1830 that private circumstances of a delicate nature rendered it desirable for Scott to obtain the immediate command of such a sum; the price was actually paid long before the poem was published; and it suited well with Constable's character to imagine that his readiness to advance the money may have outstripped the calculations of more experienced dealers.

The bargain having, however, been concluded he was too wary to keep the venture entirely to himself, and he consequently tendered one-fourth of the copyright to