Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/401

361 EDWARD MOXON. 361 In 1855 appeared another poem resulting from the war " Maud," one of the most beautiful and least understood of all Mr. Tennyson's compositions. On the 3rd of June, 1858, Edward Moxon died, having, as a publisher, earned the esteem of all his clients and the gratitude of all the public. What his services to literature have been the names comprised in his catalogues bear ample witness. Truly Lamb's dedicatory prophecy had been amply fulfilled ! On his death the immediate management of the firm devolved upon Mr. J. Bertrand Payne, and under his rule the business was distinguished rather for the energy with which the already published works were pushed forward than for any encouragement held out to acknowledged genius. Mr. Payne himself under- took the superintendence of the " Moxon's Miniature Series," and, as soon as the " Idylls of the King" had been published, of the luxurious edition of them illus- trated by that extraordinary genius, M. Gustave Dore. There was one exception to his lack of enterprise. In 1 86 1 Mr. Pickering published the "Queen Mother" and " Rosamond/' two plays by Mr. Swinburne, then a young man of eighteen. Except in the case of a condemnatory notice in the Athenaeum these poems attracted little or no attention ; but in 1865 " Moxon and Son " published the " Atalanta in Calydon," which at once marked out the author as the most musical, and one of the greatest, of our living singers. It was at all events pretty generally acknowledged that for true poetic inspiration, momentary if it were, no poet of our generation could rival Mr. Swinburne. This opinion was still further strengthened by the publication of " Chastelard," in 1866. When, how- ever the " Poems and Ballads " appeared, they were 23