From 1790 to 1820 Edinburgh richly deserved the honourable title of “Modern Athens.” Her University and her High School, directed by men pre-eminently fitted for their duties, capable of firing their pupils’ minds with a noble purpose, endowed with a lofty ideal of a master’s responsibilities—in fact, possessed of all the qualities that Dr. Arnold afterwards displayed elsewhere—attracted and educated a set of young men, unrivalled, perhaps, in modern times for genius and energy, for wit and learning. Nothing, then, was wanting to their due encouragement but a liberal patron, and this position was speedily occupied by a publisher, who, in his munificence and venturous spirit, soon outstripped his boldest English rival—whose one fault was, in fact, that of always being a Mæcenas, never a tradesman.

Archibald Constable was born on the 24th of February, 1776, at Kellie, in the parish of Carnbee in Fifeshire. He was the son of Thomas Constable, who, through his sagacity in rural matters, had risen to the position of land steward or baillie to the Earl of Kellie. The first thirteen or fourteen years of Archibald’s life were passed beneath his father’s roof, and his education, such as the parish school of Carnbee then afforded, consisted of a course of reading in the vernacular tongue, writing, arithmetic, and some elementary lessons in trigonometry, and beyond this humble curriculum, we believe his subsequent acquisitions did not much extend. Still, though he never attained any proficiency in academical studies, his native talents and address generally enabled him to both surmount and conceal it.

From an early age Archibald was possessed of a desire to enter upon a bookseller’s useful career—a desire in his case not altogether unmixed with the hope of acquiring literary distinction. In 1788 therefore, he became apprenticed to Mr. Peter Hill, bookseller of Edinburgh, the old friend and correspondent of Burns. While a lad in Hill’s shop he seems to have devoted his leisure hours to the acquisition of that knowledge of the early and rare productions of the Scottish press, and of all publications relating generally to the history, antiquities, and literature of Scotland, for which, throughout his subsequent career, he continued to exhibit a strong predilection. About the time of the expiration of his apprenticeship he married the daughter of David Willison, a printer, who, though previously very averse to the match, was subsequently of some service in enabling him to start for himself. Having hired a small shop in the High Street, afterwards rendered conspicuous by his celebrity as a publisher, he issued, in November, 1795, the first of his Sale Catalogues of rare and curious books, which soon drew to his shop all the bibliographers and lovers of learning in the city. In this line of trade he speedily acquired considerable eminence, not so much by the extensiveness of his stock, for his capital was of the smallest, as by his personal activity, his congenial curiosity, and his quick intelligence. Here it was that Heber, in the course of his bibliomaniacal prowlings, came across Leyden, perched perpetually on a ladder reading some venerable folio, which his purse forbade him to purchase, but which through Constable’s kindness was placed in this manner at his disposal. Heber soon brought him under Scott’s notice, and thus had the pleasure of introducing the two most promising young men of the day to each other. Constable had, however, an ambition too strong to be satisfied with the routine business of a second-hand book-shop. Even before his shop in the High Street was fairly opened, he had himself offered a book to the trade—a reprint of Bishop Beveridge’s Private Thoughts on Religion, struck off coarsely upon a whitey-brown sort of “tea-paper;” but still it was his first, and, as Archibald proudly said, “it was a pretty enough little bookie!”

Among other publications in which from his first outset he had been engaged, and which at the time he esteemed as by no means inconsiderable, were Campbell’s “History of Scottish Poetry,” Dalzell’s “Fragments of Scottish History,” and Leyden’s edition of the “Complaint of Scotland.” In 1801 he acquired the property of the Scots Magazine, a miscellany which had commenced in 1739, and which was still esteemed as a repository of curious facts. This congenial publication engaged at first a considerable share of his personal attention, and, aided by the talents of Leyden, Murray, and Macneil, its reputation as a critical journal was raised into some importance.

Of all the extraordinary geniuses with whom Constable came into contact, none were more conspicuous to those near enough to judge than Leyden, his first editor of the periodical. A poet, an antiquarian, an Orientalist, he will long be distinguished among those whom the elasticity and ardour of genius have raised to distinction from an obscure and humble origin. The son of a day labourer at Denholm, he had, by sheer force of will, worked his way to the college of Edinburgh, where he at once obtained the friendship of many eminent literary men. His acquaintance with Scott soon introduced him into the best society in Edinburgh—which was then the most intellectual society in Europe—and here his wild uncouthness of demeanour did not at all interfere with the general appreciation of his genius, his gigantic endowments, and his really amiable virtues. Fixing his ambition on the East, where he hoped to rival the achievements of Sir William Jones, he obtained in 1802 the promise of some literary appointment in the East India Company’s service; but when the time drew near it was discovered that the patronage of the season had been exhausted, with the exception of one surgeon-assistant’s commission, and he was informed that if he wished to accept it he must qualify within six months. He grappled at once with the task, and accomplished what takes other men three or four years in attainment within the incredibly short space of six months. He sailed for India in 1803, and died in 1811, at the early age of thirty-six, having in the seven years of his sojourn achieved the reputation of the most marvellous of Orientalists. His poetical remains were collected and given to the public in 1821, and exhibit in some instances a power of numbers which for mere melody of sound has seldom been surpassed in the English language.

In 1802, Constable commenced the Farmer’s Magazine, under the management of an able East Lothian agriculturist, Mr. R. Brown, then of Markle. This work enjoyed a reputation contemporary with the whole of his business life. Altogether, Constable was making fair way as a publisher, when, in 1802, the Edinburgh Review burst like a bombshell upon an astonished world, and gave him just reason to believe that his professional fortune was thoroughly ensured in the most glorious manner.

The origin of the Review, like the beginnings of all things, is wrapped in doubt and mystery. Hitherto in the critical department of English literature, a review had been little more than a peg upon which to hang books for advertisement, and in which the general bearings of science, literature, and politics were left almost untouched. In Scotland, criticism was at a still lower ebb, for the country had possessed no regular review at all since the old Edinburgh Review had expired in 1756, after a flickering existence of a twelvemonth.

“One day,” writes Sydney Smith, “we happened to meet in the eighth or ninth storey (it was the third) of a flat in Buccleuch-place, the elevated residence of the then Mr. Jeffrey. I proposed that we should get up a review. This was acceded to with acclamations. I was appointed editor, and remained long enough in Edinburgh to edit the first number of the Edinburgh Review. The motto I proposed was—

‘Tenui musam meditamur avenâ.’
‘We cultivate literature upon a little oatmeal.’

But this was too near the truth to be admitted, and so we took our present grave motto from Publius Lyrus, of whom none of us had, I am sure, read a single line; and so began what has since turned out to be a very important and able journal. When I left Edinburgh it fell into the stronger hands of Lord Jeffrey and Lord Brougham, and reached the highest point of popularity and success.”

It was resolved to bring out the first number of the work in June, 1802; but its outset was surrounded with many difficulties, arising from want of experience in its chief conductors. The meetings of the conspirators were held in a little room off Willison’s (Constable’s father-in-law’s) office in Craig’s-court, to which each man was requested to steal singly, by whichever way would be least suspicious; and there they examined and criticised each other’s productions, and corrected the proof sheets as they were thrown off. Here it was that Jeffrey once rushed down excitedly into Willison’s printing-office, crying, “Where is your pepper-box, man—your pepper-box?” In vain the printer declared he had no such useful article on the premises; Jeffrey persisted that the proof sheets must have been dusted with commas from a pepper-box, so lavish had the printer been with his points. Through various delays, typographical and otherwise, the first number, as we have seen, did not appear until the following November.

Lord Brougham, in the first volume of his recently-published autobiography, flatly contradicts this account. “Nothing,” he says, “can be more imaginary than nearly the whole of it.” Still, when Sydney Smith published his version of the history, neither Lord Brougham nor any other person interested took the trouble to contradict it; and we are inclined to accept rather an account written within a short time of the foundation of the Review than to receive another version written by an octogenarian at an interval of more than half a century. A letter, moreover, of Sydney Smith’s, first published in the Athenæum of April 1st, 1871, shows clearly that the proprietors of the journal presented him “with books to the value of £100 (corrected to £114) as a memorial of their respect for having planned and contributed to a work which to them has been a source of reputation as well as of emolument.” On the other hand, Sydney Smith’s editorship certainly did not extend beyond the first number, and was probably even in that subject to the direction of Jeffrey.

The list of contributions to the first four numbers may, however, be accepted as indisputable evidence of Brougham’s enormous powers of work. To these four numbers he contributed twenty-one articles, besides portions of four others. Smith contributed eighteen, Jeffrey sixteen, and Horner seven. Brougham, too, kept up this rate of contribution more steadily than any of his colleagues. To the first twenty numbers he contributed no less than eighty articles, Jeffrey seventy-five, Smith twenty-three, and Horner fourteen. By this time the new periodical was fairly launched, and the additional services of such men as Playfair, Thomas Brown, Walter Scott, Hallam, Murray, and Stodhart, had been secured.

The extensive circulation and reputation of the Edinburgh Review was, Scott himself says, due to two circumstances; first that it was entirely uninfluenced by the booksellers; and, secondly, the regular payment of editor and contributors: Jeffrey receiving, from the commencement of his labours, £300 per annum (afterwards increased to £800), whilst every contributor was compelled, even if wealthy, to accept a minimum bonus of £10 (afterwards raised to £16) per sheet.

Never before had the enterprise of young and almost unknown men started so ambitious a scheme, and never since have pluck and learning, talent and genius been so amply rewarded. They found the world of English society, English literature, and English politics warped and dwarfed—scared by the French Revolution and the American Republic into a dormant state of Toryism—they found matters thus, and in an incredibly short time they almost changed the current of the national thought. Jeffrey, with his clear, legal mind, his startling and brilliant manner of expression, his sarcasm cold and sharp-edged as a Toledo blade, unfortunately only too capable of wounding too deeply—won the position of the greatest English critic of all time, and of the most eminent Scottish lawyer of the day—achieving the highest honours open to the advocates of Edinburgh. Brougham, with his ponderous learning, his marvellous versatility, his immense powers of work, became not only the first English lawyer, but one of the first English statesmen of his time. Sydney Smith, the wittiest man certainly of his century, might have attained the highest honours open to his calling, had he not preferred the more humble and more praiseworthy career of being a liberal clergyman at a time when the wearers of his cloth were one and all rank Tories to the backbone.

Constable, who had at first been rather startled and alarmed at the design of the Edinburgh Review, was not prepared, any more than the projectors themselves, for its immediate and splendid success. Without a publisher of his cast of mind the work, however, might have encountered some difficulties, and he was not slow to perceive, nor backward to follow, that line of conduct towards its conductors, without the observance of which the new relations between them could not long have been sustained harmoniously. The present proprietors of the work became, some years after its commencement, sharers of the property, but the publishing department remained, we believe, under his direction for many years.

In 1804 Constable assumed as partner Alexander Gibson Hunter, of Blackness, and from that time the business was carried on under the title of Archibald Constable and Co. In the following year, 1805, he added to the list of his periodicals the Medical and Surgical Journal, a work projected in concert with Dr. Andrew Duncan, and which existed till 1855, when it was united to the Medical Journal of Science. It was in this year, also, that the firm published a poem, which was eventually to do more for the enlargement of their business and the honour of their name than even the famous Review itself.

Walter Scott, as we have seen, while still unknown to fame, had been a frequent visitor at Constable’s old book-shop. The publishers of the first edition of the Lay of the Last Minstrel were Longman and Co. of London, and Archibald Constable and Co. of Edinburgh; the latter firm taking but a small venture in the risk. The profit was to be divided equally between the author and the publishers, and Scott’s portion amounted to £169 6s. Longman, when a second edition was called for, offered £500 for the copyright, which was immediately accepted, but they afterwards added, as the Introduction says, “£100 in their own unsolicited kindness.” In the history of British poetry nothing had ever equalled the demand for the Lay of the Last Minstrel. 44,000 copies were disposed of before Scott superintended the edition of 1830, to which the biographical introductions were prefixed.

In the ensuing year Constable issued a beautiful edition of what he termed Works of Walter Scott, Esq., comprising the poem just mentioned, the “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,” “Sir Tristram,” and a series of “Lyrical Ballads.”

In 1806 it was rumoured that Scott had a new poem in hand. Longman at once opened negotiation as to its purchase, but in vain; and in a short time the London publishers heard with a feeling of jealousy, not unmixed with honest amazement, that Constable had offered one thousand guineas for a poem which had not yet been completed, and of which he had not even seen the scheme.

It may be gathered from the Introduction of 1830 that private circumstances of a delicate nature rendered it desirable for Scott to obtain the immediate command of such a sum; the price was actually paid long before the poem was published; and it suited well with Constable’s character to imagine that his readiness to advance the money may have outstripped the calculations of more experienced dealers.

The bargain having, however, been concluded he was too wary to keep the venture entirely to himself, and he consequently tendered one-fourth of the copyright to Mr. Miller of Albemarle Street, and to Mr. Murray, then of Fleet Street, London, and in both cases the offer was eagerly accepted.

Marmion, the poem in question, which had been announced by an advertisement in 1857, as Six Epistles from Ettrick Forest, met with an immense success, and 2000 copies, at a guinea and a half each, were disposed of in less than a month.

As an instance of the freedom Constable left to Jeffrey in the conduct of the Review, we are not a little astonished to read that the venture, in which he had risked so much, was attacked in a most slashing manner in his own journal. Jeffrey, thinking nothing of so ordinary a circumstance, sent the article to Scott with a note stating that he would come to dinner on the following Tuesday. Scott, though wounded by the tone of the Review, did his best to conceal it. Mrs. Scott, however, was very cool in her manner, and, as Jeffrey was taking leave, could no longer restrain her pique, and in her broken English—“Well, guid night, Mr. Jeffrey; dey tell me you have abused Scott in the Review; and I hope Mr. Constable has paid you well for writing it.” This anecdote, insignificant in itself, prepares us to some extent for the coldness between them, which led Scott to originate the Quarterly Review.

Emboldened still further by the success of Marmion, Constable now engaged Scott to edit the works of Swift, and as Scott had several like engagements on hand—he held, in fact, five separate agreements at the same time, for the London publishers—offered him £1500 for his new undertaking.

Constable was at this time in an apparently assured line of success. Though of a very sanguine nature—a quality without which no projector could possibly succeed—he was one of the most sagacious persons who ever followed his profession. A brother poet of Scott says of him: “Our butteracious friend turns up a deep draw-well;” and another eminent writer still more intimately connected had already christened him “the Crafty”—a title which, of all the flying burrs, was the one that stuck the firmest. His fair and handsome physiognomy was marked by an unmistakable and bland astuteness of expression. He generally avoided criticism as well as authorship, both being out of his “proper line.”

But of this “proper line,” and his own qualification for it, his esteem was ample. The one flaw, and the fatal flaw, in his character as a business man was his hatred of accounts, for he systematically refused during the most vigorous years of his life to examine or sign a balance sheet. Scott, in describing his appearance, says, “Ay, Constable is indeed a grand-looking chield. He puts me in mind of Fielding’s apology for Lady Booby—to wit that Joseph Andrews had an air which to those who had not seen many noblemen, would give an idea of nobility.” His conversation was manly and vigorous, abounding in Scotch anecdotes of the old times, and he could, when he had a mind, control the extravagant vanity which at times made him ridiculous. His advice was often useful to Scott, and more than one of the subjects of the novels, and many of the titles, were due to his recommendations. Cadell, his partner, says that in his high moods he used to stalk up and down the room exclaiming, “By God! I am all but the author of the Waverley novels!”

Of course, as a successful publisher, Constable was overwhelmed with the manuscripts of embryo genius. One or two stories are worth repeating of the men who applied to him, but in vain. Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, had already sold a volume of minor poems to Constable, when setting to work in earnest he went to him again; but “the Crafty” was too wise to buy a pig in a poke, and refused to have anything to do with the matter until he had seen the MS. This reasonable request the poet refused with, “What skill have you about the merit of a book?” “It may be so, Hogg,” replied the Jupiter Tonans of Scottish publishers; “but I know as well how to sell a book as any man, which should be some consequence of yours, and I know too how to buy one.” Hogg, however, easily found another publisher, and the Queen’s Wake was soon as widely popular as its great merits deserved.

The other refusal, unfortunately, did not end in the same happy manner. Robert Tannahill, a Scotch weaver, whose songs in their artless sweetness, their simplicity of diction, their tenderness of sentiment, have long since won distinction, came up to Edinburgh very poor in purse, but rich in the future that poetic aspirations imaged forth. He put his manuscripts into Constable’s hands, offering the whole of them at a very small price. Day after day he waited for an answer, with a mind alternating between hope and fear. Constable, who always distrusted his own judgment in such matters, and who, perhaps, at the moment had no one else to consult, eventually returned the poems. Tannahill in a madness of despair put a period to his existence, adding one to those “young shadows” who hover round the shrine of genius, as if to warn all but the boldest from attempting to approach it.

The business of Constable’s house was now so large and extensive that he thought it a hardship that so much of his wares should pass through the hands of English agents, who not only absorbed a large share of his profits, but who could not be expected to serve him with the same zeal as his own immediate followers. He and his Edinburgh partner, therefore, in 1808, joined with Charles Hunter and John Park in commencing a general bookselling establishment in London, under the designation of Constable, Hunter, Park, and Hunter.

Shortly after this a breach that had been created between Scott and Constable widened until at last they parted. Scott always maintained that the quarrel was directly caused by the intemperate language of Hunter, Constable’s original partner; but the severance was probably in reality due to the influence of a third person—James Ballantyne—and was, perhaps to a certain extent, influenced by a feeling of pique at Jeffrey’s recent conduct. In 1808 he took a part, perhaps as a suggester, certainly as a zealous promoter, in the establishment of the Quarterly Review, as a political and literary counterpoise to the Edinburgh Review. Already, in 1805, he had become a partner in the printing house of James Ballantyne and Company, though the fact remained for the public, and for all his friends but one, a profound secret. “The forming of this connection,” says Lockhart, “was one of the most important steps in Scott’s life. He continued bound by it during twenty years, and its influence on his literary exertions and his worldly fortunes was productive of much good and not a little evil. Its effects were in truth so mixed and balanced during the vicissitudes of a long and vigorous career, that I at this moment doubt whether it ought, on the whole, to be considered with more of satisfaction or regret.” Scott’s wish, openly expressed in his correspondence, of thwarting Constable in his attempts to obtain a monopoly of Scottish literature, resulted in the establishment of a new and rival bookselling firm, under the title of John Ballantyne and Co., to which he appears to have supplied the whole capital—at any rate he subscribed his own half, with one-fourth, the portion of James Ballantyne, and not improbably also the other fourth for John Ballantyne.

John and James Ballantyne were the sons of a merchant at Kelso, and here it was they went to school with Walter Scott, and thus commenced an acquaintance so fraught with interest to all three. Early in life James Ballantyne, though not bred to the trade, nor “to the manner born,” opened a printing house at Kelso and started the Kelso Mail newspaper, in which his brother John soon joined him. Having made some improvements in the art of printing, which rendered their provincial printing famous, they were persuaded to move to Edinburgh, and here they founded a press which, rivalling in its productions the works of a Baskerville or a Bensley, is at this present time as famous as ever. From their first start their old connection with Scott was serviceable, and in 1800 they printed his first important work, the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and from the time, 1805, when he first became commercially interested in their business, they were firm friends and faithful allies. Scott, to his dying day, certainly reciprocated their kindly feelings, though Lockhart, his biographer, has since his death said very harsh things of the evil resulting from the connection. It is only fair to the Ballantynes to remember that both before and after the period of partnership with him, their house was eminently successful. In the meantime, Constable was busy publishing the works of Dugald Stewart, who at this time occupied the same place in metaphysics as Sir Walter did in poetry. The Philosophical Essays, published in 1810, excited great, and even popular, attention. He also became the proprietor of the Encyclopædia Britannica, for which he paid an enormous price, and to which he published an excellent supplement. We shall, however, treat more fully of the Encyclopædia in connection with Mr. Adam Black. We may here mention, as among Constable’s other successful publications, Wood’s excellent edition of Douglas’s Scottish Peerage, and Chalmers’ Caledonia.

The London branch was found to be unattended with the expected advantages, and was given up in 1811. In the early part of this same year Hunter retired from the Edinburgh house, upon which Constable, acting upon the liberal view he always entertained as to the value of his stock, and being, perhaps, not unwilling to impress the world with an exalted idea of his property, allowed his partner a greater amount of actual cash (£17,000 is understood to be the sum) than was really his due. Robert Cathcart, of Drum, writer-to-the-signet, and Robert Cadell, then a clerk in his employ, were admitted as partners. Cathcart, however, dying the following year, Cadell remained Constable’s sole partner.

Constable had, of course, felt considerably hurt at Scott’s desertion. Sometimes it is related he would pace up and down the room, as was his wont, raving grandiloquently of those who kick down the ladder by which they have risen. But now that Hunter had left the firm, and now that it was found that the new Quarterly did not in the least damage the value of the old one, a reconciliation could not but take place between men who had formerly been so friendly, and on the publication of the Lady of the Lake, Constable willingly gave the Ballantynes the value of his experience and trade knowledge, though he was not directly interested in the work.

The new poem was published just before the season for excursions, and thousands rushed off at once to view the scenery of Loch Katrine; and it is a well-ascertained fact that from the date of the appearance of this volume, assisted by subsequent of his publications, the post-horse duty in Scotland rose in an extraordinary degree.

Scott now found out that his move to the Ballantynes had not been attended with the success he expected. John Ballantyne proved but an irregular hand at book-keeping, and James was too much addicted to good cheer (or Lockhart sadly belies him) to be really serviceable as a business man. In vain did Scott write amusing letters of remonstrance; the publisher’s business was neglected, and the firm, as booksellers, fell into difficulties. Constable was appealed to, and, finally, for £2000 consented to purchase most of the stock, and a complete business reconciliation was effected between him and Scott. The Ballantynes, however, still maintained their printing house, in which Scott was secretly the principal proprietor, and at which he insisted that all his own works should at all times, no matter who the publisher, be printed.

About the year 1805 Scott had written a third part of a novel, which was advertised by John Ballantyne, under the title of Waverley, but he was unwilling to risk the loss of his poetical reputation by attempting a new style of composition. He, therefore, threw aside the work, and stumbling upon it in 1811, when his poetical reputation was beginning to wane, and soon after he had threatened, half in fun and half in earnest, “If I fail now I will write prose for life,” he at once completed the story. The current rumour of the new novel having been rejected by several London publishers, is entirely untrue. The work was printed by the Ballantynes, and through the whole series the greatest secrecy as to the author’s name was preserved. James Ballantyne himself transcribed the “copy,” and copied Scott’s corrections on to a duplicate proof sheet; nor was there a single instance of treachery throughout the whole time of the secret.

When the printed volumes of Waverley were put into Constable’s hands, he did not for a moment doubt its authorship, but at once offered £700 for the copyright: this, we must remember, for a work to be published anonymously, at a time when Miss Edgeworth, the most popular novelist of her day, had never realized a like sum. The offer was, however, declined, and ultimately an arrangement was come to by which author and publisher were to share the profits.

Waverley took two or three months to win public favour, and then a perfect furore set in. Sloop-load after sloop-load was sent off to the London market, and on the rumoured loss of one of these vessels, half London was in despair. The interest, too, excited by public curiosity as to the author’s name, was carefully fostered, and in a short time 12,000 copies were disposed of.

Scott employed part of his literary gain in purchasing a property within three miles of Melrose, and gradually enlarged the dwelling-house until it became a castellated mansion of considerable size. The desire of becoming an extensive landed proprietor, became with him a far stronger passion than any craving for literary fame. It was more his desire, according to James Ballantyne himself, to “add as much as possible to the little realm of Abbotsford, in order that he might take his place, not among the great literary names which posterity is to revere, but among the country gentlemen of Roxburghshire.”

Under the influence of this infatuation, Scott produced a series of novels, of which it will suffice to state the names and dates.

To Waverley succeeded, in 1815, Guy Mannering; in 1816, The Antiquary, and the first series of the Tales of My Landlord, containing The Black Dwarf and Old Mortality; in 1818, Rob Roy and the second series of the Tales of My Landlord, containing the Heart of Mid Lothian; and, in 1819, the third series, containing the Bride of Lammermoor and a Legend of Montrose. Ivanhoe was to have been issued as a separate work, by another anonymous author, so as to spur the interest of a public that might possibly be flagging; but the publication of a novel in London, pretending to be a fourth series of the Tales of My Landlord, determined him to produce it as the veritable production of the author of Waverley. This was followed in quick succession by The Monastery and The Abbot, in 1820; Kenilworth and The Pirate, in 1821; The Fortunes of Nigel and Hallidan Hill, a dramatic poem, for the copyright of which Constable gave £1000, in 1822; Peveril of the Peak, Quentin Durward, and St. Ronan’s Well, in 1823; Red Gauntlet, in 1824; and Woodstock, in 1825.

The vast amount of business arising from these publications, produced in Constable’s mind a conviction that he was a wealthy and prosperous man. Though never possessed of much free capital, he saw around him every day such proofs of an enlarging amount of stock, that nothing less than the demonstration of figures—a demonstration he cordially hated—could have given him greater assurance of his affluent condition. Like Scott, he, too, was intoxicated with success. He had a magnificent way of transacting all business, and living rather like a princely father of letters, than a tradesman aiming at making them subservient to his use, he was led into an expenditure beyond his means.

Another error lay in his yielding to Scott’s desire for money, and the means of raising money by pre-payment for literary work yet to be accomplished. Of Scott’s profits on his works, Lockhart makes the following statements: “Before Sir Walter went to London, in November, 1821, he concluded another negotiation of importance with the house of Constable and Co. They agreed to give, for the remaining copyright of the four novels published between December, 1819, and January, 1821—to wit Ivanhoe, The Monastery, The Abbot, and Kenilworth—the sum of five thousand guineas. The stipulation about not revealing the author’s name under a penalty of £2000, was repeated. By these four novels, the fruits of scarcely more than a twelve months’ labour, he had already cleared at least £10,000 before this bargain was completed.... I cannot pretend to guess what the actual state of Scott’s pecuniary affairs was at the time when John Ballantyne’s death relieved them from one great source of complication and difficulty.... He must (in his improvements at Abbotsford) have reckoned on clearing £30,000, at least, in the course of two years, by the novels written within the period, and the publishers, as we have seen, were willing to give him £6000, within the space of two years, for works of a less serious sort, likely to be despatched at leisure hours, without at all interfering with the main manufacture. But, alas! even this was not all.... Before The Fortunes of Nigel issued from the press, Scott had exchanged instruments, and received his bookseller’s bills for no less than “four works of fiction,” not one of them otherwise described in the deeds of agreement. And within two years all this anticipation had been wiped off by Peveril of the Peak, Quentin Durward, St. Ronan’s Well, and Red Gauntlet; and the new castle was at that time complete, and overflowing with all its splendour; but by that time the end was also approaching!”

To return for a moment to Constable’s life as apart from the author of Waverley; he had, as we have seen, entertained in early years strong literary aspirations, and he repeatedly expressed a touching regret at the nonfulfilment of his hopes. The only literary efforts that have been distinctly traced to his pen consist of an edition of Lamont’s Diary, in 1810; a compilation of the poetry contained in the Waverley Novels, and the composition of a small volume which appeared in 1822, under the title of Memoirs of George Heriot, jeweller to King James, containing an account of the hospital founded by him at Edinburgh. In 1816 he lost his wife, and in 1818 he married Miss Charlotte Neale, who survived him. In the early part of 1822 his health suffered so severely that he was obliged to sojourn in the south for a while. In 1823, though professedly a Whig in politics, he was included by the liberal policy of the Government in a list of new magistrates for the city of Edinburgh; and in the same year he moved from the warehouse, which he had occupied for twenty years in the High Street, to an elegant mansion in the New Town, adjacent to the Register House, which had become his own through his second wife.

Constable had at this time all the personal and outward appearance of a successful man. He was stout and portly in body, and rather defiant and imperious in his manner. Among the trade he was known as the “Czar of Muscovy;” of the London potentates, John Murray had earned the sobriquet of the “Emperor of the West,” and Longman and his string of partners as the “Divan.” Constable had christened John Ballantyne the “Dey of Algiers,” but, as John complained, had subsequently deposed him. The “Czar,” however, was too fond of these nicknames. Longman was one day dining with him: “What fine swans you have on your pond there,” quoth the Londoner. “Swans,” cried Constable, “they are only geese, man! There are just five of them, if you please to observe, and their names are Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown.” This skit cost “the Crafty” a good bargain.

About the year 1825, Constable devised a scheme greater than any he had yet floated, and the adoption of which was eventually destined to effect an entire revolution in the bookselling trade. After long study of the annual schedule of tax-payers, he established his premises clearly enough. There was undoubtedly an immense majority of respectable British families who never thought of buying a book. “Look,” he cried to Scott, “at the small class of people who pay the powder tax, what a trifle it is to each, and yet what a fortune it would bring to a bookseller! If I live for half-a-dozen years,” he continued, “I shall make it as impossible that there should not be a good library in every decent house in Great Britain, as that the shepherd’s ingle nook should want the ‘saut poke.’”

“Troth,” said Scott, “if you live you are indeed likely to be

‘The great Napoleon of the realms of print.’”

“If you outlive me,” retorted Constable, “I bespeak that line for my tombstone.... At three shillings or half-a-crown a volume every month, which must and shall sell, not by thousands, and tens of thousands, but by hundreds of thousands, and, ay, by millions! Twelve volumes in the year, a halfpenny of profit on every copy of which will make me richer than all the copyrights of all the quartos that ever were, or ever will be, hot-pressed! Twelve volumes so good that millions must wish to possess them, and so cheap that every butcher callant may have them if he pleases to let me tax him sixpence a week!”

Scott saw the feasibility of the scheme, and it was decided to start at once with a life of the “other Napoleon,” and a portion of one of the “Waverley Novels.”

But, alas! before the plan could be carried into execution, the crisis came. Lockhart received a letter from London stating that Constable’s London banker had thrown up his book, and he galloped over at once to Sir Walter’s, who smiled, re-lit his cigar, took the news coolly, and declined to believe it, and for the moment he was right.

Lockhart’s account of the terrible failure in which Scott was involved is this: Whenever Constable signed a bill for the purpose of raising money among the bankers, for fear of accident, or any neglect in taking the bill up before it fell due, he deposited a counter-bill, signed by Ballantyne, on which, if need were, Constable might raise a sum of money equivalent to that for which he had pledged his word; but these counter-bills were allowed to lie in Constable’s desk till they assumed the size of a “sheaf of stamps;” and when the hour of distress came, Constable rushed with these bills to the money-changers, and thus the Ballantynes who were liable to Constable for, say £25,000, were legally liable for £50,000. Constable, in his turn, carried on the same game with the London house of Hurst, Robinson, and Co., his agents—and upon a much larger scale. They neglected their own business of bookselling and entered heavily into speculation in hops, and in the panic of the close of 1825, availed themselves of Constable’s credit, and he of the Ballantynes, and the loss descended upon their principal partner, Scott.

This account has been contradicted by the representatives of John Ballantyne, in two pamphlets, refuting Lockhart’s history of the affair, and proving their side of the question by reference to the old account books; Cadell, Constable’s quondam partner, and certainly not biassed in his favour, throws his vote in with the Ballantynes. The responsibilities they undertook were solely at the bidding of Scott, and for his benefit; and in proof of this, they quote a clause from the last deed of partnership, dated 1st April, 1822.

“The said Sir Walter Scott shall remain liable for such bills and debts as there shall be due and current.”

When the persons most interested differ vitally, it is hard to decide; however, the result of it all was, that when Hurst, Robinson, and Co. stopped payment in London, Constable failed for upwards of a quarter of a million, and the Ballantynes were also bankrupt to the extent of £88,607 19s. 9d. It was in the middle of January, 1826, that the actual crash came. Splendid and magnificent to the very last, Constable rushed off to town as fast as post-horses could carry him. He drove straight to Lockhart’s house, “and asked me,” says that gentleman, “to accompany him as soon as he could get into his carriage to the Bank of England, and support him (as a confidential friend of the author of the ‘Waverley Novels’) in his application for a loan of £100,000 to £200,000 on the security of the copyrights in his possession”—a proposal that would have rather startled the old lady of Threadneedle-street, who was, at that time of unparalleled panic, according to Mr. Huskisson’s subsequent confession in the House, on the very verge of suspending payment herself. When Lockhart refused—and, of course, without direct instructions from Sir Walter, he could not hazard such a step—Constable became livid with rage, stamped on the ground, and swore that he could and would go alone.

How Scott bore the blow, and, what he dreaded infinitely more than the mere loss of money—the exposure it entailed of his connection with the printing house, we all know; how he declined to accept any compromise; how he sold off his Abbotsford estate, which he had devoted all the efforts of his genius to acquire, and which he loved so well; how he slaved and toiled until the incredible sum was repaid—but, alas! at the expense of a life more precious than all the lucre of creditors; and how his last words on his death-bed were his best epitaph:—“My dear, be a good man, be virtuous, be religious—be a good man! Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here.”

Our matter, however, is with Constable. He saw his fortunes—the strong up-buildings of a gloriously successful lifetime—dashed to the ground at one blow. With a young family growing up around him, sick in body and weary in soul, he too had to begin life afresh. All his “sunshine” friends fell off, Scott was alienated, and his stock, which he had been wont to contemplate as a mine of wealth, was sequestered, and sold for a tithe of its value.13 Cadell, his late partner, purchased the copyrights of the “Waverley Novels” for £8,500, and, securing Scott’s countenance, set up as a fortunate rival.

Constable, however, went manfully to work at his proposed Miscellany. Captain Basil Hall, in kindly consideration, made him a present of his Voyages, and this was brought out in 1827, for the small sum of one shilling, and proved fairly successful. This same year, by-the-by, was commenced the Library of Useful Knowledge, by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, who, following Constable, had the “honour of leading the way in that fearful inroad upon dearness of the good old times of publishing, which first developed itself in the wicked birth of what the literary exclusives called the Sixpenny Sciences.”

Constable’s prospects were brightening; he had now gathered round him all the younger literary men of the day, when, in the midst of his struggles, his old disease of dropsy again attacked him, and he died on the 21st July, 1827.

His widow and family were left in sorry circumstances, but his son Thomas eventually attained the position of an eminent and well-known printer in Edinburgh. The Ballantynes, with whom he had been so intimately connected, disproved many of Lockhart’s assertions, by showing that, by dint of hard work and good business habits, they were capable of success, unaided by the help of Sir Walter Scott.

Constable, if not the most successful, was certainly the most eminent of the Scotch publishers. It is pleasant where the two lives have been so curiously blended to be able to quote Scott’s estimate of his character:—

“His vigorous intellect and vigorous ideas have not only rendered his native country the merit of her own literature, but established there a court of letters which commanded respect even from those most inclined to dissent from many of its canons. The effect of these changes operated, in a great measure, by the strong sense and sagacious calculation of an individual who knew how to avail himself, to an unhoped-for extent, of the various kinds of talents which his country produced, will probably appear much clearer to the generation which shall follow the present.”

The remaining portion of this chapter will in itself bear ample testimony to the truth of this prediction; for we shall have to touch upon two distinct lives, and two long and very successful lives, to trace the progress of the chief works which passed out of Constable’s hands so shortly before his death.

Robert Cadell had been admitted a partner in the house upon his marriage with Constable’s daughter, but she died childless long before the failure, and Cadell was soon married again to a Miss Mylne. Thus the family ties were severed, and, when the crash came, Cadell felt no hesitation in entering the field as a rival to his late partner.

The stock of the Waverley Novels was sold off, far below the market value, and the London publishers, judging from this that the intrinsic worth of the copyright had irretrievably declined, allowed Cadell, as we have seen, in conjunction with Scott, to become the purchaser at the low price of £8500. The success of the republication was astounding, and showed what real life and vivacity was still left in the copyright. By this scheme the whole of the novels were reprinted in five-shilling volumes with excellent illustrations, giving for ten shillings in two volumes what had been originally published in three at a guinea and a half.

After Scott’s death the debt still amounted to £54,000; his life was insured for £22,000, there was £2000 in hand, and now Cadell most handsomely advanced £30,000 in order that the remaining debt might be liquidated, taking as his only security the right to the profit that might accrue from the copyright property. The family, dreading that the term of copyright might expire before the sum could be returned, endeavoured to obtain a special additional term, and on more than one occasion Serjeant Talfourd introduced a bill into the House of Commons to this effect, but without success. Fortunately, however, the event showed that Cadell was commercially fully justified in his generosity, for before his death not only had he been reimbursed his £30,000, but a handsome profit had been earned “for the benefit of all whom it might concern.”

According to Mr. James Mylne, one of Cadell’s executors, the following is the total sale of Scott’s works from the time they came into Cadell’s hands until his death:—

and, as a test of the popularity of the People’s Edition of the writings and Life, he states that the following numbers originally printed in weekly sheets were issued:

Robert Cadell died on January 21st, 1849, after a long career rendered prosperous by this splendid property, and on March 26th, 1851, the novels, poems, prose works, and the “Life” by Lockhart were put up to auction at the London Coffee House by Mr. Hodgson. The sale brought together the largest “trade” gathering that has ever been witnessed; there were publishers from the “Row” and Albemarle Street, booksellers from Ave Maria and Ivy Lanes, and speculators from every corner of the kingdom. The stock had been valued at £10,193 3s., a very low figure, and it was announced that this would be sold only with the copyrights, and that the trustees retained the right of bidding. After much disputing as to these restrictions £5000 was offered, and quickly rose by leaps of £500 to £10,500, when Mr. Bohn and the “Row” retired, and the struggle lay between Mr. Virtue and some imaginary bidder, visible only to the eyes of the auctioneer. At £13,500 the copyright was “bought in” making the price, including the stock, £23,693 3s.

This afforded a wonderful contrast to the former sale at £8500, more especially when we consider that the copyright of the earlier novels had only five or six years more to run.

In a few weeks after this it was announced in the Scotsman that the whole of the copyrights were transferred to the hands of another eminent publishing firm in Edinburgh—Messrs. A. and C. Black, who, in conjunction with their friends, Messrs. Richardson Brothers, became the possessors at the price of £27,000.

Leaving the Waverley Novels for a time, it will be necessary to bring up the narrative of the career of Mr. Adam Black to the period when he was able to become the owner of the most valuable literary property that has ever existed.

Adam Black, the son of Charles Black, a builder of Edinburgh, was born in that town in the year 1784, and was educated primarily at the High School, on his entrance as a pupil at which, tradition says, he was accompanied by his father, who, having just left his employment for the purpose, appeared in full working garb, the mason’s white leathern apron included. At the University his talents speedily procured him admittance into that clique of young Liberals who were afterwards to effect such a change in Edinburgh, indeed in cosmopolitan politics. After serving his apprenticeship to the book trade, in partnership with his nephew, the bookselling business of Adam and Charles Black was founded. In 1817 he married Isabella, only daughter of James Tait, architect (sister of William Tait, the well-known originator of Tait’s Magazine), and at the time of Constable’s failure was in a steady and prosperous way of business. This disaster was the means of making many fortunes, and in 1826 the Edinburgh Review appeared under the joint proprietorship of Thomas Norton Longman and Adam and Charles Black. As we have followed the career of the Review in our history of the Longman family, it will be unnecessary to enter fully into the changes of management and the success of later numbers.

Another work, however, afterwards thrown on the market, which also became the property of Messrs. A. and C. Black, is of such literary importance that we must again for a moment retrace our steps, in order to keep up the proper sequence of our narrative.

The idea of a compilation that should embrace all human knowledge is of very great antiquity. Pliny, in fact claims the name of “Encyclopædia” for his Natural History; but it was not till the sixteenth century that any attempt was made at arranging the matter in a systematic manner, though the Arabians are said to have had a true Encyclopædia centuries before that date. It was long, however, before the idea occurred of employing the lexographic plan as a basis of a universal répertoire of learning, and the first great step in advance was the Lexicon Technicum of Dr. Harris, completed and published at London in the year 1710. The Cyclopædia of Ephraim Chambers, with which we have previously dealt, appeared in 1728, and for a long time was the supreme authority; through its success at home and abroad a new impulse was given to the desire for such publications. In France the Encyclopédie was projected by the Abbé de Gua, and was based originally on an unpublished translation of Chambers’s Cyclopædia, made by an Englishman named Mills. In consequence of a quarrel with the publishers, De Gua threw it up, and it was then transferred to Diderot and D’Alembert; to become the text-book of the French philosophers. The publication of the seventeen volumes extended from 1751 to 1765, and six years after the latter date appeared the first volume of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

The plan and all the principal articles of this now important work were in this first edition devised and written by William Smellie.

Smellie began life as a compositor, and he used to lay down his composing-stick for an hour or two daily to attend the classes of the Edinburgh University. At the age of nineteen he was engaged by Murray and Cochrane as corrector of their press in general and conductor and compiler of the Scots Magazine at a salary of sixteen shillings a week. If the saying that “Edinburgh never had a Grub Street” is true, it must have arisen rather from the perseverance of the writers than from the uniform generosity of the publishers.

The agreement upon which the Encyclopædia was undertaken was still in existence when Kerr wrote Smellie’s Life; as a literary curiosity we quote it:—

“Mr. Andrew Bell to Mr. William Smellie.

“Sir,—As we are engaged in publishing a ‘Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences,’ and as you have informed us that there are fifteen capital sciences, which you will undertake for, and write up the sub-divisions and detached parts of them, conforming to your plan, and likewise to prepare the whole work for the press, &c., &c. We hereby agree to allow you £200 for your trouble.”

The first proprietors were Andrew Bell, engraver, and Colin Macfarquhar, printer. The publication was commenced in weekly numbers in 1771, and completed in 1773, by which time the bulk in all consisted only of three small quarto volumes. A second edition was called for in 1776, and Smellie was offered a share in the property, but he declined to have anything more to do with it, as upon the recommendation of “a very distinguished nobleman” it was resolved to introduce a complete system of biography. The proprietors engaged, instead, James Tytler, a laborious miscellaneous writer, and a man of extraordinary knowledge. A large proportion of the additional matter, by which the work was extended from three to ten volumes, was due to his pen, but the payment for this labour is said to have been very small, and the unfortunate author was not able to support his family in a style superior to that of a common labourer. At one time, during the progress of the work, he lived at the village of Duddingston, in the house of a washerwoman, whose tub inverted formed the only desk at his disposal, and one of his children was frequently despatched with a parcel of “copy” upon which their next meal depended.

This second edition consisted of 1500 copies, and extended to ten volumes quarto. The third edition, to which Tytler also contributed, was commenced in 1789. Till then it had been considered in the south as “a Scots rival of little repute” (to Chambers’s Cyclopædia), but in this edition, beside the method and comprehensiveness of the plan, it rose greatly above its former level in its practical and speculative departments. It was completed in 1797, in eighteen volumes, to which Professor Robison supplied two supplementary volumes to complete the series he had commenced when the principal work was far advanced. The sale of this edition extended to ten thousand copies, and the proprietors are said to have netted £42,000 of clear profit, besides being paid for their respective work—the one as printer, the other as engraver. Much of this, of course, was due to poor Tytler’s labours, who was still living in the utmost penury. He was, however, perfectly regardless about poverty, having no desire to conceal it from the world. He would finish his frugal meal of a cold potato before the eyes of a stranger with as much nonchalance as if it had been a sumptuous repast. He had that contentment with poverty which is so apt to make it permanent, and this, in addition to his imprudent and intemperate habits, cut off all chance of a higher social position. As a proof of his extraordinary stock of general knowledge, his biographer relates a characteristic anecdote.

“A gentleman in this city of Edinburgh once told me he wanted as much matter as would form a junction between a certain history and its continuation to a later period. He found Tytler lodged in one of those elevated apartments called garrets, and was informed by the old woman with whom he resided, that he could not see him, as he had gone to bed rather the worse for liquor. Determined, however, not to depart without his errand, he was shown into Mr. Tytler’s apartment by the light of a lamp, where he found him in the situation described by the landlady. The gentleman having acquainted him with the nature of the business which brought him at so late an hour, Mr. Tytler called for pen and ink, and in a short time produced about a page and a half of letterpress, which answered the end as completely as if it had been the result of the most mature deliberation, previous notice, and a mind undisturbed by any liquid capable of deranging its ideas.”

On the death of Macfarquhar the whole work became the property of Andrew Bell.

The fourth edition, augmented to twenty volumes, was completed in 1810, under the able superintendence of Dr. James Millar; but the editor was prevented from availing himself of Professor Robison’s excellent supplementary articles by a temporary separation of that property from that of the principal work. This issue consisted of three thousand five hundred copies.

With the completion of this edition the progress of improvement was for a time suspended; but in 1814 the copyright of the work was purchased by Archibald Constable, who, with the enterprise that always distinguished him, at once projected a supplement, which extended to six volumes. It was placed under the skilful management of Professor Macney Napier, and the publication lasted from 1815 to 1824. Many very distinguished authors were engaged as contributors, among whom we may specially mention Arago, Biot, and Dugald Stewart; and all the resources of the proprietors were devoted to this favourite undertaking.

In 1829 the whole of the copyrights (including that of Professor Robison’s supplementary articles) passed into the hands of Messrs. A. and C. Black, assisted by their friends; and we are now able to resume our narrative at the point we left it.

The property was at first a joint stock concern, resembling the original proprietorship, and was, we believe, owned in equal shares by Mr. Abraham Thomson, as the binder; Mr. Thomas Allan, as the printer; and Messrs. A. and C. Black, as publishers. Mr. Thomson died shortly afterwards, and the Messrs. Black became the possessors of his interest in the work. Some years afterwards, the share held by Mr. Allan, who was a banker in Edinburgh, and also printer and proprietor of the Caledonian Mercury, also fell into the hands of the Messrs. Black. At this time the new edition was in midway progress, and the enormous expense necessary to complete the work rendered the venture single-handed something more than hazardous. But the ability, tact, immense energy, and unceasing labour of Mr. Adam Black, then in the prime of life, proved equal to the task he had undertaken, and in this case it may truly be said that for years he went on literally scattering bread upon the waters, and most deservedly did he obtain his reward. Previously, we believe, to the completion of this edition, Mr. Charles Black, who had long been in delicate health, died.

Upon Jeffrey’s retirement in 1829, Macney Napier, Professor of Conveyancing in the University of Edinburgh, was promoted to the editorship of the Edinburgh Review, and Mr. Black also secured his services for the management of the seventh edition of the Encyclopædia. Napier was assisted by James Brown, LL.D., as sub-editor, and on his shoulders most of the hard work fell. Brown, who was trained as an advocate at the Scottish bar, relinquished this for literature. His thorough scholarship enabled him to undertake almost any department of literary work, and rendered him invaluable for the revisal of such a work as the Encyclopædia. He was also a ready and slashing political writer, at a time when political feeling was rampant. Remarkable alike for his mental activity and his personal irascibility, the one great difficulty lay in managing the Doctor. As an instance of this, the article “Alphabet” was entrusted to Brown for the new edition of the Encyclopædia. He was at the same time editor of the Caledonian Mercury, and on the appearance of something in that paper which led to a quarrel with Mr. Allan, the proprietor, who was also a shareholder in the Encyclopædia, Brown declined to go on with “Alphabet.” The part in which this was to appear was due, and Brown was inflexible. The subject was a difficult one, peculiarly suited to Brown’s abilities, and it was not easy elsewhere to find so competent a writer. In these circumstances, Mr. Black adopted the experiment of passing over that part and bringing out the succeeding one. Thus circumvented, Brown came to terms, and things again went on smoothly. But, notwithstanding his proverbial kindliness of disposition, he was hasty in coming to conclusions, and was always getting into scrapes of one kind or another; and a duel, in which he and Charles Maclaren, editor of the Scotsman, figured as principals, furnished the Edinburgh gamins with a popular street song. He escaped all duellistic dangers, however, but his unremitting labours brought on a stroke of apoplexy, of which he died in 1841.

The great feature of the new edition was the preliminary “Dissertations,” which were commenced by Professors Stewart and Playfair, who were both carried off in the midst of their labours. Sir James Mackintosh, who undertook to complete his friend’s “History of Ethical and Political Philosophy” (the Metaphysical portion had been completed by Stewart) was also summoned from his labours before the Political division was commenced; and the “History of the Physical Sciences” was brought down by Professor Leslie to the commencement of this century.

“The ‘Dissertations’ produced by these four extraordinary men are still regarded with peculiar pride in Scotland; indeed, few nations can boast of such an intellectual group living at the same time, and adorning the same society; and yet, with powers of mind not far from equality, how various were their gifts, and how diversified their genius!”14

The seventh edition was commenced in monthly parts in March, 1830, and finished in January, 1842. Of its success it is almost unnecessary to speak; with confidence reposed in the proprietors sufficient to command the services of such writers as Young, Malthus, Macculloch, Mill, Roget, Wilson, Empson, De Quincey, and Tytler, while the editor can count on the aid of friends like Scott, Playfair, Stewart, Leslie, Lord Jeffrey, Sir William Hamilton, and Sir John Barrow, it is not difficult to anticipate the result. The mere cost of presentation copies amounted to £416 16s., and the amount of duty on the paper employed exceeded £6000; while, to go into heavier matters, the total expense of the twenty-one quarto volumes was, in a trial in the Jury Court of Scotland, proved to have been no less a sum than £125,667 9s. 3d. This amount, of course, includes every item of expenditure, among which the following are the most important:—

The literary contributions to the first volume of “Dissertations” alone cost upwards of £3450.

The work was eminently successful, and this immense expenditure shows us something of what “success” means in this instance. The commercial management of an undertaking like this was sufficient to occupy the attention of a man of extraordinary diligence; but Mr. Black found time, not only to contribute several articles to his Encyclopædia, but to take a very warm and prominent interest in the government of his native city; and from 1843 to 1848 he occupied the highest position to which a citizen of Edinburgh can aspire—that of Lord Provost.

Enterprise and success, more especially when they are mingled with real desert, and caused by honest service, are qualities of which the Scotch, perhaps more than any other nation, are peculiarly proud; and when the representation of Edinburgh became vacant in 1856, a large and influential party at once nominated Mr. Adam Black to fill the post. Mr. Adam Black was a thorough-going Liberal and a Nonconformist, and a party of the electors received his nomination in a spirit of the greatest bitterness, and an opposition candidate was brought forward. The election came off on the 8th February, 1856, and Mr. Black, the friend of political freedom when friends were few, the champion of religious charity and goodwill when enemies were many, was rewarded for his consistency and his many services by a larger number of votes than had been polled for twenty years—no weak test of popular approbation. As a contemporary opinion, we may quote the Scotsman of that date:—“Honour to the candidate! Sincerely reluctant to compete for the honour, no sooner was he embarked, and saw that the great principles and the reputation of the city were concerned and imperilled in his person, than he threw himself into the work with a vigour that made even the youngest and most energetic of his supporters stand aside. We don’t care who knows it: Mr. Black was the most effective member of his own committee—in word and in act, by day and by night, the veteran was ready with guidance and warning and incentive. In all his many battles in the public cause, he never made a better fight than when achieving this victory which so gloriously crowns his career.”

In the House Mr. Black distinguished himself by his assiduity to business, and in 1864 he introduced his Copyright Bill, which, though it contained much that was good, was ultimately thrown out.

Upon completion of the seventh edition, a number of cheap reprints were issued of the most famous articles of the “Encyclopædia,” and met with a very favourable reception.

We have seen that in 1851 the Messrs. Black, in conjunction with Messrs. Richardson Brothers, became possessed of the Waverley Novels. Ultimately, the Messrs. Black purchased, it is said, the Messrs. Richardsons’ share, and are now believed to be the sole proprietors of Sir Walter Scott’s works. In the management of this property Mr. Adam Black exhibited the same rare sagacity, and reaped the same successful reward as in the former important work. In the middle of 1852, he announced that 120,000 complete sets of the Waverley Novels had been sold in this country alone since their first publication; and in 1858 an ingenious mathematician computed that the weight of the paper used for them was upwards of 3500 tons.

Among the most important editions issued by Messrs. Black we may instance the following:—