Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/49

 Rh Mr. Leslie Stephen to withdraw from the 'Cornhill,' Payn succeeded him as editor, filling, as before, the position of the firm's 'reader' in addition. With a view to converting the 'Cornhill' into an illustrated repertory of popular fiction, Payn induced Smith to reduce its price to sixpence. The magazine was one of the earliest monthly periodicals to appear at that price. The first number of the 'Cornhill' under the new conditions was issued in July 1883; but the public failed to welcome the innovation, and a return to the old tradition and the old price was made when Payn retired from the editorial chair in 1896. Payn had then fallen into ill-health, and during long years of suffering Smith, whose relations with him were always cordial, showed him touching kindness. While he conducted the magazine, he accepted for the first time serial stories from Dr. Conan Doyle ('The White Company,' 1891), H. S. Merriman, and Mr. Stanley Weyman, and thus introduced to the firm a new generation of popular novelists. Payn's connection with the firm as 'reader' was only terminated by his death in March 1898.

Petty recrimination was foreign to Smith's nature, and the extreme consideration which he paid those who worked with him in mutual sympathy is well illustrated by a story which Payn himself related under veiled names in his 'Literary Recollections.' In 1880 Mr. Shorthouse's 'John Inglesant' was offered to Smith, Elder, & Co., and, by Payn's advice, was rejected. It was accepted by another firm, and obtained great success. A few years afterwards a gossiping paragraph appeared in a newspaper reflecting on the sagacity of Smith, Elder, & Co. in refusing the book. The true facts of the situation had entirely passed out of Payn's mind, and he regarded the newspaper's statement as a malicious invention. He mentioned his intention of publicly denying it. Smith gently advised him against such a course. Payn insisted that the remark was damaging both to him and the firm, and should not be suffered to pass uncorrected. Thereupon Smith quietly pointed out to Payn the true position of affairs, and called attention to the letter drafted by Payn himself, in which the firm had refused to undertake 'John Inglesant.' Payn, in reply, expressed his admiration of Smith's magnanimity in forbearing, at the time that the work he had rejected was achieving a triumphant circulation at the hands of another firm, to complain by a single word of his want of foresight. Smith merely remarked that he was sorry to distress Payn by any reference to the matter, and should never have mentioned it had not Payn taken him unawares.

Meanwhile new developments both within and without the publishing business were in progress. The internal developments showed that there was no diminution in the alertness with which modes of extending the scope of the firm's work were entertained. A series of expensive éditions de luxe was begun, and a new department of medical literature was opened. Between October 1878 and September 1879 there was issued an édition de luxe of