After having been so kindly accommodated by you, I am afraid you will think me very troublesome in the present application, but on settling my account with Messrs. Longman & Co.,* I find to my dismay that I have drawn so much from them as to leave me nothing for the payment of many debts which yet remain against me. Before the last two hundred pounds, I had received, according to my memorandum, four hundred on account of the ‘Specimens.’ I have then in all had six. Of the four
* Longman & Co. were the publishers of Campbell’s collected ‘Poems.’ |
| CAMPBELL’S DEBTS. | 335 |
I have already thanked you in person, but feel it due to repeat my acknowledgments for your very handsome and liberal allowance for the ‘Specimens’ beyond our formal contract. It would be the most avaricious and unreasonable spirit in me not to be perfectly satisfied with the honourable and gentlemanlike spirit which you have shown in estimating my remuneration. What I have to say in apology for thus applying to you sooner than I meant to have done, cannot possibly be misunderstood as at variance in the slightest degree with my sense of absolute obligation to you; but as an apology for this application I feel it no excuse to state that the time which I devoted to the ‘Specimens’ has involved me very much in debt. I discovered in truth too late that it was a work which none but an author who possessed an independent fortune, or a collection of books such as Mr. Heber’s, should have undertaken; and that it was impossible in the nature of things that it could remunerate either you or myself at the first edition. I saw through my difficulties, however, so far as to anticipate that, having conquered the first edition, it would ultimately be capable of yielding advantage to both in subsequent editions.* It is a great thing to have made myself master of the subject and acquainted with the books that relate to all its most important parts. On the scheme which you suggested regarding the ‘Dramatic Poets,’ I shall have the pleasure of talking with you fully when we meet.
The length of this letter need not frighten you, as it will require but a very short answer. Whatever answer that should be (and I have not the slightest objection to be treated with a frank refusal if my request should be incon-
* The second edition appeared in 1841, in one thick volume, 8vo. |
| 336 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY |
