Long after, when Mr.Murray was in correspondence with an author who wished him to pay a sum of money down before he had even seen the manuscript, the publisher recommended the author to publish his book on a division of profits, in like manner as Hallam, Milman, Mahon, Croker, and others had done.

"Under this system," he said, "I have been very successful.

For Mr.Croker's 'Stories from the History of England,' selling for 2_s_._6d_., if I had offered the small sum of twenty guineas, he would have thought it liberal.

However, I printed it to divide profits, and he has already received from me the moiety of L1,400.

You will perhaps be startled at my assertion; for woeful experience convinces me that not more than one publication in fifty has a sale sufficient to defray its expenses." The success of Scott's, and still more of Byron's Poems, called into existence about this time a vast array of would-be poets, male and female, and from all ranks and professions.