As early as September, 1849, there was already sufficient material for going to press; but though Panizzi continually wrote to his Lordship urging the necessity of beginning to print, a year elapsed without any communication on the subject, and without any progress with the work. From a letter in the month of June, 1851, Lord Vernon appears to have been somewhat discouraged; the booksellers not having taken up the matter in so spirited a manner as he anticipated, and Panizzi complaining, not without reason, that the work seems to have come almost to a stand still, consoled himself by addressing the following letter to Mr. E. White, his Lordship’s solicitor:—
“British Museum, May 5th, 1852.
“Dear Sir,
It is not for me to suggest to his Lordship any course of proceeding; as, however, I am not totally indifferent with respect to the determination he may come to, I hope to be forgiven for saying a very few words on the subject.
When I undertook to carry out Lord Vernon’s wishes expressed in the memorandum handed to me by Mr. Pickering, and confirmed by his Lordship’s subsequent letters, I was not only moved by the pecuniary remuneration which Lord Vernon was pleased to propose to me, I looked forward to the time when the work should be published, from which I expected some credit. I cannot, therefore, feel indifferent to his Lordship’s determination as to publishing; nor can I receive without some slight observation the sum which Lord Vernon proposed to me as a remuneration for a certain work, without fulfilling on my part the obligations I have incurred. These I am most anxious to perform, but it is impossible for me to do so if Lord Vernon does not order a printer to print the manuscript which I have not failed to prepare as agreed, and in a manner which his Lordship had fully approved of.
I am not less desirous to perform what I have undertaken, than I am of receiving the remuneration which I was led to expect for it; and it would be very painful to me if his Lordship merely performed his part of the agreement without enabling me to perform mine.
Yours, &c., &c.,
A. Panizzi.”
Much to the editor’s delight, however, work was resumed; and by the summer of 1854 Mr. Whittingham had already sent in a bill for printing the Inferno.
Such was the beauty of the work that it deeply impressed Lord Vernon’s sensitive nature, and in the following year he desired that the Purgatorio should be forthwith proceeded with, but as the first portion approached completion, his Lordship became anxious as to the title of the book and its disposal, as the following letter clearly testifies:—