r 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 L900 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 "Proverbial Philosophy" having grown up
meanwhile, I concluded to go to Ward & Lock, that my four series might
for wider circulation be all included in one cheap volume, beautifully
got up, and with them I have since had some small success: for though
the royalty is only about a penny a volume, the numbers licensed have
been an edition of 20,000 succeeded in the course of years by another of
30,000; and I still leave the book with them so far as that cheap issue
is concerned.

As, however, I desired to meet the wish of many friends and others of
the public who often asked for a handsomer form, suggesting a
reproduction of Hatchards' quarto, with additional illustrations for the
new matter, I applied to Cassell, and made arrangements to have the
whole four series issued piecemeal in weekly or monthly parts, so as to
meet (as Cassell's manager suggested) a certain demand from the middle
and artisan class; seeing that the aristocracy and gentry had bought the
whole volume so freely, but sixpenny parts in a wider field might bring
on a new sale. I did not then know that Cassell's had numerous serials
already on hand, and that many of them w