how this to any publisher, but only the enclosed, with which you can
take the field as my plenipotentiary. I think this affair will tax your
generalship. I shall be grateful in proportion as you can steer my bark
safe through the shoals. Shall be glad to have a line from you by
return, and will send a part of the sheets out in a fortnight. I think
you may speak with confidence of this work as likely to produce some
sensation in England."

In July he wrote, "You had better agree with them" (Rudd & Carleton)
"for twenty per cent., and let me take care of you, or I foresee you
will get nothing for your trouble. I only want fifteen for myself, and a
_true return_ of the copies sold. That is where we poor authors are
done. Will you look to that? I have placed five pounds to your
credit,--this with the double object of enabling you to buy me an
American scrap-book or two (no poetry, for God's sake!) of
newspaper-cuttings, and also to reimburse a number of little expenses
you have been at for me and too liberal to mention."

On September 12, 1861, he wrote, "I send you herewith the first
instalment of early sheets of my new novel. The title is 'The Cloister
and the Hearth.' I am ashamed to say the work will contain fifteen
hundred of these pages. If you are out of it, I will take fifteen per
cent.; if you are in it, twelve. But I look to you to secure a genuine
return, for that is the difficulty with these publishers. There is
considerable competition among publishers here to have the book, and I
am only hanging back to get you out the sheets. Now you know the number
of pages (for the work is written), it would be advisable to set up
type."

On September 26, 1861, he wrote, "As we shall certainly come out next
week, I shall be in considerable anxiety until I hear from you that all
the instalments sent by me have safely arrived and are in type. To
secure despatch, I have sent them all by post, and, owing to the
greediness of the United States government, it has cost me five pounds.
I do not for a moment suppose the work will sell well during the civil
war; but it is none the less important to occupy the shops with it, and
then perhaps on the return of peace and the fine arts it will not be
pirated away from us. I hope I have been sufficiently explicit to make
you master of this book's destiny."

On October 18, 1861, he wrote, "We have now been out a fortnight, and,
as it is my greatest success, we are gone coons if you are