4000, and I remain proprietor of the mine when the first ore is cropped
out. This promises a good harvest, from what we have experienced. Now,
to become a stipendiary editor of a New-Year's Gift-Book is not to be
thought of, nor could I agree to work for any quantity of supply to such
a publication. Even the pecuniary view is not flattering, though these
gentlemen meant it should be so. But one hundred of their close-printed
pages, for which they offer L400, is not nearly equal to one volume of a
novel, for which I get L1300, and have the reversion of the copyright.
No, I may give them a trifle for nothing, or sell them an article for a
round price, but no permanent engagement will I make. Being the
Martyrdom, there was no Court. I wrought away with what appetite I
could.

_January_ 31.--I received the young gentlemen to breakfast and expressed
my resolution, which seemed to disappoint them, as perhaps they expected
I should have been glad of such an offer. However, I have since thought
there are these rejected parts of the _Chronicles_, which Cadell and
Ballantyne criticised so severely, which might well enough make up a
trifle of this kind, and settle the few accounts which, will I nill I,
have crept in this New Year. So I have kept the treaty open. If I give
them 100 pages I should expect L500.

I was late at the Court and had little time to write any till after
dinner, and then was not in the vein; so commentated.

FOOTNOTES:

[109] To whom Scott addressed the fifth canto of _Marmion_.

[110] See letter to R. Cadell, _Life_, vol. ix. p. 209.

[111] "The first _Tales of a Grandfather_ [as has already been said]
appeared early in December, and their reception was more rapturous than
that of any one of his works since _Ivanhoe_. He had solved for the
first time the problem of narrating history, so as at once to excite and
gratify the curiosity of youth, and please and instruct the wisest of
mature minds. The popularity of the book has grown with every year that
has since elapsed; it is equally prized in the library, the boudoir, the
schoolroom, and the nursery; it is adopted as the happiest of manuals,
not only in Scotland, but wherever the English tongue is spoken; nay, it
is to be seen in the hands of old and young all over the civilised
world, and has, I have little doubt, extended the knowledge of Scottish
history in quarters where little or no interest had ever before been
awakened as to any other parts of t