Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/229

JOHN MURRAY. 193 of Nelson," and expanded another review article into a " Life of Wellington," on terms equally munificent with the other. Cheap editions of Byron were multiplied by the score ; Landor received a thousand guineas for his "Journals of African Travel," and Napier another thousand for his first volume of the " History of the Peninsular War." If Murray neglected opportunities, he generally managed to retrieve them. He might have had the " Bridgewater Treatises ;" and he says, "The ' Rejected Addresses ' were offered me for ten pounds, and I let them go by as the kite of the moment. See the result ! I was determined to pay for my neglect, and I bought the remainder of the copyright for 1 50 guineas." Murray might have added that he generously gave the Smiths a handsome share in the ultimate profits. Sometimes, too, he had the sagacity to buy the failures as well as the successes of other publishers. Constable produced a little " History of England," in one small volume, which fell still-born from the press. Murray purchased it for a trifle, re-christened it with his usual happiness, and as " Mrs. Markham's History of England " the work has been an annual source of revenue to the house, as the present Mr. Murray's last trade sale list would tell us. Murray was never dazzled by the fame of his Byrons, his Moores, his Campbells, and his Crabbes, but always recollected that " taste " is flitting, while works that only aid the necessities of mankind are always saleable. The "Army and Navy List" and the " Nautical Almanack " are every whit as profitable to-day as in the first year of their publication. Moore tells a story that shows he could still occupy his mind