"In the year 1828, when under Mr. Holt's roof at Albury (anno ætatis meæ 18), I bethought myself, for the special use and behoof of my cousin Isabella, who seven years after became my wife, that I would transcribe my notions on the holy estate of matrimony; a letter was too light, and a formal essay too heavy, and I didn't care to versify my thoughts, so I resolved to convey them in the manner of Solomon's Proverbs or the 'Wisdom' of Jesus the Son of Sirach: and I did so,—successively, in the Articles first on Marriage, then Love, then Friendship, and fourthly on Education: several other pieces growing afterwards. Whilst at Albury, my cousin showed some of these to our rector, Hugh M'Neile, who warmly praised them, and recommended their publication; but, regarding them as private and personal, I would not hear of it, and in fact it was nine years before they saw print; thus literally, though I meant it not then, exemplifying the Horatian advice, 'nonumque premantur in annum.' However, one day in August 1838, Mr. Stebbing, whose chapel, in the Hampstead Road I used to attend when living at Gothic Cottage, Regent's Park, in my first years of marriage, visiting me and urging me to write something for the Athenæum, which he was then editing, I was induced to show him these earliest essays; but I declined to give them to him, whereat he was angered; perhaps the rather in that I objected to piecemeal publication, possibly also casting some reproach (as the fashion of the day then was) upon magazine and journalistic literature generally. That I made an enemy of him was evidenced by a spiteful little notice in the Athenæum of April 21st (three months after my first series was published) stating that it was 'a book not likely to please beyond the circle of a few minds as eccentric as the author's.' The same false friend excluded me altogether from any notice in the Examiner wherein he had some literary influence." To this day these reviews have been my foes, which I regret.
"Still, Mr. Stebbing did me substantial good; he praised the idea as 'new, because a resuscitation of what was very old,'—and as of my own origination in these latter days, and as a good vehicle for thoughts on many matters: and he promised his valuable assistance to a young author's fame,—performing as above. So, after a last interview with him at his house, wherein I conclusively refused him, I wrote my Preface at once, jotting down (as I recollect at the street corner post opposite Hampstead Road Chapel) on the back of an old letter my opening paragraph,—
"'Thoughts that have tarried in my mind, and peopled its inner chambers,' &c., &c.
"In ten weeks from that day I had my first series ready,—supposing it then all I should ever write;—the same assurance of a final end having been my delusion at the close of each of my four series. My first publisher was Rickerby of Abchurch Lane, who produced a beautifully printed small folio volume with ornamental initials, and now very scarce: it came to a second edition, but brought me no money,—and the third edition failing to sell, it was in great part sent to America; where N. P. Willis finding a copy, fancied the book that of some forgotten author of the Elizabethan era, and quoted it week after week in a periodical of his, The Home Journal, as such: years afterwards, when he met me in London, he was scared to find that one whom he had thought dead three hundred years was still alive and juvenile and ruddy.
"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,"' but I may say I never saw that neat little book of maxims till my brother Dan gave it to me fourteen years after my Philosophy was public property; I am also by this critic supposed to have 'imitated the Gulistan or Bostan of Saadi,'—whereof I need not profess my total ignorance: however, the writer kindly says of me, 'if he fail to make himself heard, the fault will be rather in the public than in him.' The Metropolitan propounds that 'a book like this would make a man's fortune in the East, but we are afraid that philosophy in proverbs has no great chance in the West: we should recommend the author to get it translated into Arabic.'" [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 "inebriated with the exuberance of my own verbosity," as Beaconsfield has it about Gladstone.
To carry on the story of my old book, its second series was due to Harrison Ainsworth, at all events instrumentally. For, just as he was establishing his special magazine, he asked me to help him with a contribution in the style of that then new popularity, my Proverbs. This I sturdily declined; for in my young days, it was thought ungentlemanlike to write in magazines, though dukes, archbishops, and premiers do so now: even authorship for money was thought vulgar: but, when there greeted me at home a parcel of well-bound books as a gift from the author, being all that were then extant of Ainsworth's, I was so taken aback by his kindly munificence that I somewhat penitentially responded thereto by an impromptu chapter on "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 "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 were unremunerative; and so I was a little surprised and vexed to find that my book was after all to appear as a whole and not in numbers, and that at a higher price, half-a-guinea, in these cheap times quite prohibitive, I protested vainly as to this; as I did also at the unsatisfactory character of the illustrations to the third and fourth series, promised to be equal to Hatchards' first and second, which had cost £2000: but Cassell's additions were cheaply and insufficiently supplied by old German plates, adapted as much as might be to my words for illustration. This manifest inferiority of the last half of the volume, as well as its too great price, stopped the sale,—and after a time with a high hand all the copies were sold off by auction, to the loss of both publisher and author. As I had supplied gratis the plates of Hatchards' edition, buying up the half not mine and giving the other, I found myself thus mulcted in a large sum, for which I have only to show in return about a hundredweight of wood-blocks and stereotypes:—which may be bought by any publisher at bargain price. Altogether the whole affair was unsatisfactory and disappointing. Individuals may be genial, honest, and considerate, but a company or a partnership simply looks to the hardest bargain in the shrewdest way. Of all this I'll complain, vainly enough, no more.
In their several places, many anecdotes about "Proverbial Philosophy" shall duly appear: I may mention one or two now, as timely. When that good old man, Grandfather Hatchard, more than an octogenarian, first saw me, he placed his hand on my dark hair and said with tears in his eyes, "You will thank God for this book when your head comes to be as white as mine." Let me gratefully acknowledge that he was a true prophet. When I was writing the concluding essay of the first series, my father (not quite such a prophet as old Hatchard) exhorted me to burn it, as his ambition was to make a lawyer of me, the Church idea having failed from my stammering, and he had very little confidence, as a man of the world, in poetry bringing fortune. However, it did not get burnt, though I had some difficulty in persuading him to let me get it printed instead. The dear good man lived to bless me for it, especially for my essay on Immortality, which I know affected him seriously, and he gave me £2000 as a gift in consequence.
As I may have been only too faithfully frank in mentioning this curious literary anecdote,—which, as known to others, I could scarcely have suppressed,—it is only fair to the memory of my dear and honoured father that I should here produce one of his very few letters to me, just found among my archives and bearing upon this same subject. It was written to me at Brighton, and is dated Laura House, Southampton, October 16, 1842:—
"My dearest Martin,—Anything that I could say, or any praise that I could give respecting your last volume would, in my estimation, fall very far short indeed of its merits. I shall therefore merely say that I look upon your chapter upon Immortality, not only as a most exquisite specimen of fine, sound, and learned composition, but as combating in the most satisfactory manner the wisdom of infidelity, almost perfect. I only hope that you may receive the just tribute of the literary community: your own feelings as the author of that chapter must be very enviable. God bless you, dearest, dearest Martin.—Believe me, ever your affectionate father and sincere friend,