[A Publisher and His Friends by Samuel Smiles]@TWC D-Link book
A Publisher and His Friends

CHAPTER XIII
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Like the creaking gate that hangs long on its hinges, Gifford continued to live, though painfully.

He became gradually better, and in October 1816 Mr.Murray presented him with a chariot, by means of which he might drive about and take exercise in the open air.
Gifford answered: "I have a thousand thanks to give you for the pains you have taken about the carriage, without which I should only have talked about it, and died of a cold.

It came home yesterday, and I went to Fulham in it.

It is everything that I could wish, neat, easy, and exceedingly comfortable." Among the other works published by Mr.Murray in 1816 may be mentioned, "The Last Reign of Napoleon," by Mr.John Cam Hobhouse, afterwards Lord Broughton.

Of this work the author wrote to Mr.Murray: _January_, 1816.
"I must have the liberty of cancelling what sheets I please, for a reason that I now tell you in the strictest confidence: the letters are to go to Paris previously to publication, and are to be read carefully through by a most intimate friend of mine, who was entirely in the secrets of the late Imperial Ministry, and who will point out any statements as to facts, in which he could from his _knowledge_ make any necessary change." The first edition, published without the author's name, was rapidly exhausted, and Hobhouse offered a second to Murray, proposing at the same time to insert his name as author on the title-page.
"If I do," he said, "I shall present the book to Lord Byron in due form, not for his talents as a poet, but for his qualities as a companion and a friend.


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