yclopaedia.'
I am obliged to decline by motives of prudence. I do not know anything
of the agreement made by the proprietors, except in the palpable
mismanagement of a very exclusive and promising concern. I am therefore
fearful to risk my property in an affair so extremely unsuitable.

"You distress me sadly by the announcement of having put the 'Secret
Memoirs' to press, and that the paper for it was actually purchased six
months ago! How can you, my good sirs, act in this way? How can you
imagine that a bookseller can afford to pay eternal advances upon almost
every work in which he takes a share with you? And how can you continue
to destroy every speculation by entering upon new ones before the
previous ones are properly completed?... Why, with your influence, will
you not urge the completion of the 'Minstrelsy'? Why not go on with and
complete the series of De Foe?... For myself, I really do not know what
to do, for when I see that you will complete nothing of your own, I am
unwillingly apprehensive of having any work of mine in your power. What
I thus write is in serious friendship for you. I entreat you to let us
complete what we have already in hand, before we begin upon any other
speculation. You will have enough to do to sell those in which we are
already engaged. As to your mode of exchange and so disposing of your
shares, besides the universal obloquy which attends the practice in the
mind of every respectable bookseller, and the certain damnation which it
invariably causes both to the book and the author, as in the case of
Grahame, if persisted in, it must end in serious loss to the
bookseller.... If you cannot give me your solemn promise not to exchange
a copy of Tasso, I trust you will allow me to withdraw the small share
which I propose to take, for the least breath of this kind would blast
the work and the author too--a most worthy man, upon whose account alone
I engaged in the speculation."

Constable, with whom Murray had never entirely broken, had always looked
with jealousy at the operations of the house of Ballantyne. Their firm
had indeed been started in opposition to himself; and it was not without
a sort of gratification that he heard of their pecuniary difficulties,
and of the friction between them and Murray. Scott's "Lady of the Lake"
had been announced for publication. At the close of a letter to Murray,
Constable rather maliciously remarks:

_January_ 20, 1810.

"I have no particular an