Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/166

132 132 CONSTABLE, CAD ELL, AND BLACK. an immense majority of respectable British families who never thought of buying a book. " Look," he cried to Scott, " at the small class of people who pay the powder tax, what a trifle it is to each, and yet what a fortune it would bring to a bookseller ! If I live for half-a-dozen years," he continued, "I shall make it as impossible that there should not be a good library in every decent house in Great Britain, as that the shepherd's ingle nook should want the ' saut poke.'" " Troth," said Scott, " if you live you are indeed likely to be ' The great Napoleon of the realms of print! " " If you outlive me," retorted Constable, " I bespeak that line for my tombstone ... At three shillings or half-a-crown a volume every month, which must and shall sell, not by thousands, and tens of thousands, but by hundreds of thousands, and, ay, by millions ! Twelve volumes in the year, a halfpenny of profit on every copy of which will make me richer than all the copyrights of all the quartos that ever were, or ever will be, hot-pressed ! Twelve volumes so good that millions must wish to possess them, and so cheap that every butcher callant may have them if he pleases to let me tax him sixpence a week !" Scott saw the feasibility of the scheme, and it was decided to start at once with a life of the " other Napoleon," and a portion of one of the " Waverley Novels." But, alas ! before the plan could be carried into execution, the crisis came. Lockhart received a letter from London stating that Constable's London banker had thrown up his book, and he galloped over