The result was a momentary hesitation on the part of Mr.
Murray to risk the publication of the work.

On this, says Campbell's biographer, a correspondence ensued between the poet and the publisher, which ended to the satisfaction of both.

Mr.Murray only requested that Mr.Campbell should proceed with greater alacrity in finishing the long projected work.
At length, about the beginning of 1819, fourteen years after the project had been mentioned to Walter Scott, and about ten years after the book should have appeared, according to Campbell's original promise, the "Essays and Selections of English Poetry" were published by Mr.Murray.
The work was well received.

The poet was duly paid for it, and Dr.
Beattie, Campbell's biographer, says he "found himself in the novel position of a man who has money to lay out at interest." This statement must be received with considerable deduction, for, as the correspondence shows, Campbell's pecuniary difficulties were by no means at an end.
It appears that besides the L1,000, which was double the sum originally proposed to be paid to Campbell for the "Selections," Mr.Murray, in October 1819, paid him L200 "for books," doubtless for those he had purchased for the "Collections," and which he desired to retain.
We cannot conclude this account of Campbell's dealing with Murray without referring to an often-quoted story which has for many years sailed under false colours.

It was Thomas Campbell who wrote "Now Barabbas was a publisher," whether in a Bible or otherwise is not authentically recorded, and forwarded it to a friend; but Mr.Murray was not the publisher to whom it referred, nor was Lord Byron, as has been so frequently stated, the author of the joke.
The great burden of the correspondence entailed by the _Quarterly Review_ now fell on Mr.Murray, for Gifford had become physically incapable of bearing it.