It was _too_ good, and not good enough; and the advice of the younger Pliny: "Aim at pleasing either _all_, or _the few,"_ is as prudentially good as it is philosophically accurate.

I wrote to Mr.
Longman before the work was published, and foretold its fate, even to a detailed accuracy, and advised him to put up with the loss from the purchase of the MSS and of the Translation, as a much less evil than the publication.

I went so far as to declare that its success was, in the state of public Taste, impossible; that the enthusiastic admirers of "The Robbers," "Cabal and Love," etc., would lay the blame on me; and that he himself would suspect that if he had only lit on _another_ Translator then, etc.

Everything took place as I had foretold, even his own feelings--so little do Prophets gain from the fulfilment of their Prophecies! On the other hand, though I know that executed as alone I can or dare do it--that is, to the utmost of my power (for which the intolerable Pain, nay the far greater Toil and Effort of doing otherwise, is a far safer Pledge than any solicitude on my part concerning the approbation of the PUBLIC), the translation of so very difficult a work as the "Faustus," will be most inadequately remunerated by the terms you propose; yet they very probably are the highest it may be worth your while to offer to _me_.

I say this as a philosopher; for, though I have now been much talked of, and written of, for evil and not for good, but for suspected capability, yet none of my works have ever sold.