NINETEENTH CENTURY.
925
I SIB,
I8M, 18S1, I8S3, 1813,
1824, I81t, 1816, 1817,
I8S8, 1830, 1831,
Tilei of mj LuuDord, thtad seilea, containing the Bride of Lommennore, and Legend of Montroae
Ivtnhoe.
Honuterj i and the Abbot.
Kenilworth) and the Pirate.
Foitnnes of Nigel i—Ralidon Hill, B dramatic poem.*
Feveill ef the Peak) Qolntln Durwardi and St. Ronan'a Well.
RedOaimttet.
Tales of the Cnuadeis.
Woodstock.
Life of Napoleon Bomqnrte, g vols. 8To.t
Cbronlcles of the Canongate, first series.
second series.
Anne of Geiresteini and Tales of a Graudfather.t History of Scotland, 1 vols, for Lardner's Cabinet
C:rriop(£dla. Tales of my Landlord, fomth series. Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft.
Of sir Walter Scott's profits on his works, Mr. Lockhart gives the following statement : " Before sir Walter went to London, in November, 1821, he concluded another negociation of importance with the house of Constable and Co. They ag^reed to give, for the remaining copyright of the four novels published between December, 1819, and January, 1821 — to wit, Ivankoe, the Monastery, the Ahhot, and Kenilworth, — the stun of five thousand guineas. The stipulation about not revealing the author's name, under a penalty of £2,000 was repeated. By these four novels, the fruits of scarcely more than twelve months' labour, he had already cleared at least £10,000 before this bargain was completed. They, like their predecessors, were now issued in a collective shape, under the title of Historical Romances, by the author of Waverley. I cannot pretend to guess what the actual state of Scott's pecuniary afiairs was at the time when John Ballantyne's death relieved them from one great source of complication and difficulty. But I nave said enough to satisfy every reader, that, when he began the second, and far the larger division of his building at Abbotsford, he must have contem- plated the utmost sum it could cost him as a mere trifle in relation to the resources at his command. He must have reckoned on clearing jCSO,000 at least in the course of two years, by the novels written within such a period. The publisher of bis Tales, who best knew how they were produced, and what they brought of gross profit, and who must have had ue strongest interest in keeping the author's name untarnished by any risk or reputation of failure, would wil- lingly, as we have seen, have given him £6,000 more, within a space of two years, for works of a less serious sort, likely to be despatched at leisure hours, without at all interfering with the main manufacture. But, alas ! even this was not all. Messrs. Constable had such faith in the prospective fertility of his imagination, that they
• Constable and Co. gave jf 1000 for the copyright.
^ The Life of Napoleon appears to be too hastily written to bear the test of rigid criticism ; it was understood to produce to its author a sum little short of ^12,000.
X lliese tales were addressed to his grandchild, John Hngh Lockhart, whom he typified under the appellation of Hogh Littlejohn, esq. In 1829, appeared the second, and in 1830, Uie third and concluding series of this charm- ing book, which fairly fulfilled a half- sportive expression that had eac^ied him many years before, in the company of his children, that " he vonld make the history of Scotland as bmiliar in the nurseries of England as Inllaby rhymes."
were by this time quite readv to sign bargaius and grant bills for novels and romances to be produced hereafter, but of which the subjects and the names were alike unknown to them, and to the man from whose pen they were to pro- ceed. A forgotten satirist well says —
The active principle within
Wonka on some brains the eilbct of gin ^
but in his case, every external influence com- bined to stir the flame, and swell the iutoxicsition, of resUess, exuberant energy. His allies knew indeed, what he did not, that the sale of his, novels was rather less than it had been in the days of IvarJioe; and hints had sometimes been dropped to him, that it might be well to try the efiect of a pause. Bat he always thought'— and James Ballantyne had decidedly the same opinion, that his best things were those which he threw ofi' the most easily and swifUjr ; and it was no wonder that his booksellers, seeing how im- measurably even his worst excelled in popularity, as in merit, any other person's best, should have shrunk from the experiment of a decisive dam- per. On the contrary, they might be excused for &om time to time flattenng themselves, that if the books sold at a less rate, this might be coimterpoised by still greater rapidity of produc- tion. They could not make up their minds to cast the peerless vessel adrift; and, in short, after every little whisper of prudential misgiving, echoed the unfailing burthen of Ballantyne's song — ^to push on, hoisting more and more sail as the wind lulled. He was as eager to do as they could be to suggest ; and this I well knew at uie time. I had, however, no notion, until all his correspondence lay before me, of the extent to which he had permitted himself thus early to buUd on the chances of life, health, and continued popularity. Before the Fortunes of Nigel issued from the press, Scott had exchanged instruments, and received his bookseller's bills, for no less than " four works of fiction " — ^not one of them otherwise described in the deeds of agreement — to be produced in unbroken succes- sion, each of them to fill at least three volumes, but with proper saving clauses as to increase of copy-money, in case any of them should run to four. And within two years all this anticipation had been wiped of by Peveril of the Peak, Quin- tin Dunvard, St. Ronan's WeU, and Redgatmtlet; and the new castle was at that time complete, and overflowing with all its splendour ; but by that time the end also was approaching !"
About the same time, the copyright of all his past novels was brought to the nammer, as part of the bankrupt stock of Messrs. Constable and Company. It was bought by Mr. Robert Cadell, of the late firm of Archibald Constable and Company, and who was now once more engaged in the bookselling business, at £8,400, for the purpose of republishing the whole of these delightful works in a cheap uniform series of volumes, illustrated by notes and prefaces, and amended in many parts by the finishing touches of the author. Sir Walter or his creditors were
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