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It might be thought indelicate in me to quote at length the many pleasant greetings of the press to my first odd volumes; suffice it to say, that the kind critics were with few exceptions unanimous in commendation; and some great names, as Heraud, Leigh Hunt, and St. John particularly favoured me,--the latter prophesying a tenth edition: but I must still condescend to pick out at the end of this paper a few of the plums of praise wherewith my early publication was indulged, if only to please the numerous admirers of my chief 'lifework.' One comfort is that no one of my reviewers all my life through has ever been bought or rewarded. As to the less fulsome style of criticism, I was supposed by the _Spectator_ to have 'written in hexameters,'--as if David or Solomon had ever imitated Homer or some more ancient predecessor of his; and the _Sun_ fancied that I had 'culled from Erasmus, Bacon, Franklin, and Saavedra,' whereas I was totally ignorant of their wisdoms: Saavedra I have since learned is Cervantes. The _Sunday Times_ finds 'Proverbial Philosophy' 'very like Dodsley's Economy of Human Life,
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[I have since heard that some of it has been.] Let this be enough as to those first fruits of criticism, which might be extended to satiety; but I decline to become
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Gifts, wherewith I made the quarrel up and he was delighted: one or two others following. However, I was too quick and too impatient to wait for piecemeal publication month by month,--seeing I soon had my second series ready: and so, leaving Rickerby as an unfruitful publisher (though, as will soon appear, he produced other books for me) I went to Hatchards; with whom I had a long and prosperous career--receiving annually from £500 to £800 a year, and in the aggregate having benefited both them and myself--for we shared equally--by something like, £10,000 a piece. But in the course of time, the old grandfather and the father of the house, excellent men both, went severally to the Better Land, and I had published other books elsewhere, as will be seen, anon: and, amongst other things, Mr. Bertrand Payne, who represented the respectable poetic house of Moxon, desired to include me in his Beauties of the Poets, and in order to that, having previously obtained license both from me and Messrs. Hall & Virtue to select specimens of my lyrics for his volume, asked me to let him add a few bits of Proverbial; to this I willingly assented, but found myself repulsed by the temporary chief at Hatchards'--lately a subordinate--with a direct refusal to permit any portion of my book, of which they had a three years' lease then nearly out, to be included in the specimen volume until, the whole remainder copies were sold off. Mr. Payne on that immediately bought all they had, writing a cheque of £900 in payment down,--whereof I got one-half, as I should have done if sold at Hatchards'. I then of course went equitably over to Moxon's,--and not long after published my third series with that house, at Mr. Payne's suggestion and solicitation: it was not a financial success, any more than others in that quarter; but I was paid by having my later thoughts on topics of the day so handsomely published at no cost of mine. The house of Moxon having its reverses,--and a fourth and final series of
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Proverbial Philosophy