are the only tradesmen who are not expected to know anything of the commodity in which they deal; but one would fancy that some insight at least into the commercial value of the article was requisite. And yet what a host of books could be mentioned, of high genius and popular acceptance, which, either "returned" at their outset, or insufficiently paid for, have left their authors to starve, while they have subsequently proved mines of wealth to the trading community, which at first rejected them! Thus Gay's Beggar's Opera, the most successful hit on the modern stage, was "returned"; no one would undertake Fielding's immortal Tom Jones, though the author offered the copyright for £20; Blair's Grave was rejected by at least two publishers in succession; Symmons estimated the Paradise Lost of Milton at no higher sum than £5; Miller would not give Thomson a farthing for Winter; Burns visited every publisher in London with his Justice, and asked £50 for the MS. in vain; Cave could get no one to join him in the Gentleman's Magazine; Buchan would willingly have sold his Domestic Medicine for £100, but could not get it, though, after it had passed through twenty-five editions, it was sold in thirty-two shares at £50 each; Cowper had terribly hard work with Johnson to prevail on him to publish the first volume of his poems, but could get nothing for the copyright; Bloomfield offered his Farmer's Boy to Phillips for a paltry dozen copies for himself, but the bookseller would have none on't; Beresford would gladly have disposed of his Miseries of Human Life, which has since realized £5000, for £20, but there was no bidder; Scott's Waverley, which has produced £10,000 at least, was hawked about among unwilling London publishers for £25 or £30; Murray refused Byron's Don Juan, though glad enough, when it had achieved success, as in the case of Irving's Sketch Book, to become its proprietor; the Robbers of Schiller could find no publisher; and the only man in London who had sagacity enough to see the saleability of the Rejected Addresses of the brothers Smith was Miller, again, who publishing it on the half-profit system, was glad, later on, to give £1000 for the copyright of it, and Horace in London. But why increase the list? There is a veteran author, still happily among us, Mr. Richard Hengist Horne, who, born with the century, remembers the battle of Trafalgar and was present at the funeral of Nelson. Many years ago,—in 1843,—he wrote an epic poem, which he could find no publisher to undertake, on the ground that epics did not sell. He resolved to belie the dictum, and published the poem himself, an octavo volume of 138 pages, at the price of one farthing, as indicated on the title-page. The number printed was limited, and only one copy was sold to each applicant. The edition was out of print in a few hours, and it was republished at five shillings. I was glad to give half a guinea for my original farthing copy, and it is now worth twice the amount. But quorsum hæc?—as Cicero is fond of asking. Why, this same Mr. Horne is author also of a scarce and curious volume to which I will refer the reader for an inquiry into the nature of the conspiracy which seems to exist for the purpose of debarring works of merit and interest from the reading world.[1]
I have spoken of Birmingham in connection with The Sketch Book. It was at Mr. Van Wart's house, at Edgbaston, that Irving wrote the immortal Rip Van Winkle. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was suggested
- ↑ Exposition of the False Medium and Barriers excluding Men of Genius from the Public. London, Effingham Wilson, 1833, 8vo. "What centuries of unjust deeds are here!"
