You may go on printing as many and as fast as you can; for we certainly need not stop until we come to the end of our, unfortunately, limited 6,000....

My copies are more than gone, and if you have any to spare pray send them up instantly." On the following day Mr.Murray wrote to Mr.Scott: _John Murray to Mr.Scott_.
_December_ 14, 1816.
DEAR SIR, Although I dare not address you as the author of certain Tales--which, however, must be written either by Walter Scott or the devil--yet nothing can restrain me from thinking that it is to your influence with the author of them that I am indebted for the essential honour of being one of their publishers; and I must intrude upon you to offer my most hearty thanks, not divided but doubled, alike for my worldly gain therein, and for the great acquisition of professional reputation which their publication has already procured me.

As to delight, I believe I could, under any oath that could be proposed, swear that I never experienced such great and unmixed pleasure in all my life as the reading of this exquisite work has afforded me; and if you witnessed the wet eyes and grinning cheeks with which, as the author's chamberlain, I receive the unanimous and vehement praise of them from every one who has read them, or heard the curses of those whose needs my scanty supply would not satisfy, you might judge of the sincerity with which I now entreat you to assure the author of the most complete success.

After this, I could throw all the other books which I have in the press into the Thames, for no one will either read them or buy.

Lord Holland said, when I asked his opinion: "Opinion?
we did not one of us go to bed all night, and nothing slept but my gout." Frere, Hallam, and Boswell; Lord Glenbervie came to me with tears in his eyes.