Longman
& Co. have agreed to sell their stock on hand of the Poetry, in which
they have certain shares, their shares included, for L8000. Cadell
thinks he could, by selling off at cheap rates, sorting, making waste,
etc., get rid of the stock for about L5000, leaving L3000 for the
purchase of the copyrights, and proposes to close the bargain as much
cheaper as he can, but at all events to close it. Whatever shall fall
short of the price returned by the stock, the sale of which shall be
entirely at his risk, shall be reckoned as the price of the copyright,
and we shall pay half of that balance. I had no hesitation in
authorising him to proceed in his bargain with Owen Rees of Longman's
house upon that principle. For supposing, according to Cadell's present
idea, the loss on the stock shall amount to L2000 or L3000, the
possession of the entire copyright undivided would enable us,
calculating upon similar success to that of the Novels, to make at least
L500 per cent. Longman & Co. have indeed an excellent bargain, but then
so will we. We pay dear indeed for what the ostensible subject of sale
is, but if it sets free almost the whole of our copyrights, and places
them in our own hands, we get a most valuable _quid pro quo_. There is
only one-fourth, I think, of _Marmion_ in Mr. Murray's hands, and it
must be the deuce if that cannot be [secured].[331] Mr. Cadell proposed
that, as he took the whole books on his risk, he ought to have
compensation, and that it should consist in the sum to be given to me
for arranging and making additions to the volumes of Poetry thus to be
republished. I objected to this, for in the first place he may suffer no
loss, for the books may go off more rapidly than he thinks or expects.
In the second place, I do not know what my labours in the Poetry may be.
In either case it is a blind bargain; but if he should be a sufferer
beyond the clear half of the loss, which we agree to share with him, I
agreed to make him some compensation, and he is willing to take what I
shall think just; so stands our bargain. Remained at home and wrote
about four pages of _Tales_. I should have done more, but my head, as
Squire Sullen says, "aiked consumedly."[332] Rees has given Cadell a
written offer to be binding till the twelfth; meantime I have written to
Lockhart to ask John Murray if he will treat for the fourth share of
_Marmion_, which he possesses. It can be worth but little to him, and
gives us all the copy