‘Dear Rogers,—I am sorry that I cannot dine with you to-day. I have not lately been very well and am under sentence of pill and potion for an attack of liver, &c.
‘You may set your heart at rest on poor G.’s business. Murray, when it came to the point, demurred, and though not exactly refusing, gave such sort of answers as determine me to take the MS. away and not publish at all.
‘With regard to his offer, I can only say that some
weeks ago he even pressed it upon me so far as (after I had returned his draft)
to lay the money upon the table if I would consent to a separate publication: this I refused, because the pieces were in my
opinion better adapted for, and at any rate safer in, the collection he had got
together, and for this purpose I told him he was welcome
to them for nothing. I never said, nor meaned to say, that if he was permitted
to publish separately, that the purchase of the
copyrights would not be accepted. When you sent me Mackintosh’s letter, I felt inclined to comply with its
suggestion, and went to Murray, at the
same time telling him my reason; in this at the time he
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‘I am sorry for the trouble you have had on this occasion, and still more that I have failed in being of any use to Mr. Gn. Pray explain to Sir J. Mackintosh for me, and believe me,
