Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/212

176 1 76 JOHN MURRA Y. price ;" yet this ridiculous price he continued to receive, and he was in the habit of saying that he was as much overpaid for his articles by Murray, as he was underpaid for the rest of his work for other publishers. " Madoc," of which he had great hopes, brought him $ 19^. id. for the first twelvemonth, and the three volumes of the " History of the Brazils," scarcely paid their expenses of publication. Of the other contributors it is unnecessary to speak fully here ; but the Review, now that it was esta- blished, gave Murray at once a pre-eminence in the London trade, by bringing him into connection with the chief Conservative statesmen, and with the prin- cipal literary men in England. The alliance that Murray had formed with the Ballantynes was soon dissolved, for Murray, though venturous enough, was a man of business, and their loose, slip-shod way of general dealings, did not at all satisfy his requirements. William Blackwood, then a dealer in antiquarian books, was chosen instead as Edinburgh agent, and, in conjunction with him, Murray purchased the first series of the " Tales of My Land- lord." This was in 1816, and some payments for Quarterly Review articles was well-nigh the last busi- ness communication between Scott and Murray. Now that Murray had so completely rivalled Con- stable in one line that of the Review he wished to rival him in another. Constable had made an ap- parent fortune out of Scott's poetry, in which Murray had in one case, to the extent of one quarter, partici- pated. Scott had, it is true, left Constable, but was for the present unalienable from the Ballantynes, who at this moment enjoyed the dubious services of a London branch.