2
THE BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1827-
sum in either form, especially in the original boards, with the paper label.
The two brothers were Charles and Alfred Tennyson, then at the Louth Grammar-School together. The Messrs. Jackson purchased the copyright of their joint volume for ten pounds, and retained the original manuscript, which, in later years, was exhibited as a curiosity. And an attempt was made, unsuccessfully, by the late Mr. B. M. Pickering, in the middle sixties (after the publishers had discovered and reported a small remainder stock of the original issue), to induce the proprietors of the copyright to dispose of it to him. The small bundle of copies left, in both sizes, was purchased by Mr. Pickering, and the book gradually rose in price, as the number of copies dwindled, and at last disappeared; but the negotiations for the purchase of the copyright fell through, owing to the influence of the Poet's family in the county, to the prestige of his own great fame, and to the fact that the transfer of copyright had taken place in his minority, when he was entirely unknown and still a school-boy and, in the eyes of the law, an infant. Whether any pecuniary compensation or indemnification was made to the Jacksons by the Poet or his friends, is uncertain. But Mr. Pickering held the original bargain to be morally if not legally valid, unless cancelled by subsequent redemption on the part of the authors by mutual consent with the original publishers; and, had he succeeded in effecting and completing the purchase, which he travelled down to Lincolnshire to negotiate, he would have published a