, though they had little
authorship in, and no authority whatever over, the works on which they
were engaged. It is true the publisher interfered with some colour of
reason, the plan of all and every of the works alluded to having
originated with himself; and, be it observed, many of his plans were
highly clever and promising, for, as I have already had occasion to say,
the publisher in many points was a highly clever and sagacious person;
but he ought to have been contented with planning the works originally,
and have left to other people the task of executing them, instead of
which he marred everything by his rage for interference. If a book of
fairy tales was being compiled, he was sure to introduce some of his
philosophy, explaining the fairy tale by some theory of his own. Was a
book of anecdotes on hand, it was sure to be half filled with sayings and
doings of himself during the time that he was common councilman of the
City of London. Now, however fond the public might be of fairy tales, it
by no means relished them in conjunction with the publisher's philosophy;
and however fond of anecdotes in general, or even of the publisher in
particular--for indeed there were a great many anecdotes in circulation
about him which the public both read and listened to very readily--it
took no pleasure in such anecdotes as he was disposed to relate about
himself. In the compilation of my Lives and Trials I was exposed to
incredible mortification, and ceaseless trouble, from this same rage for
interference. It is true he could not introduce his philosophy into the
work, nor was it possible for him to introduce anecdotes of himself,
having never had the good or evil fortune to be tried at the bar; but he
was continually introducing--what, under a less apathetic government than
the one then being, would have infallibly subjected him, and perhaps
myself, to a trial,--his politics; not his Oxford or pseudo politics, but
the politics which he really entertained, and which were of the most
republican and violent kind. But this was not all; when about a moiety
of the first volume had been printed, he materially altered the plan of
the work; it was no longer to be a collection of mere Newgate lives and
trials, but of lives and trials of criminals in general, foreign as well
as domestic. In a little time the work became a wondrous farrago, in
which Konigsmark the robber figured by the side of Sam Lynn, and the
Marchioness de Brinvi