January 4, 1820.
"I have found Sir Walter Scott in grand health and spirits, and have had much conversation with him on his hill-side about all our concerns. I shall keep a world of his hints and suggestions till we meet; but meanwhile he has agreed to write almost immediately a one volume biography of the great Earl of Peterborough, and I think you will agree with me in considering the choice of this, perhaps the last of our romantic heroes, as in all respects happy. … He will also write now an article on some recent works of Scottish History (Tytler's, etc.) giving, he promises, a complete and gay summary of all that controversy; and next Nov. a general review of the Scots ballads, whereof some twenty volumes have been published within these ten years, and many not published but only printed by the Bannatyne club of Edinburgh, and another club of the same order at Glasgow…. I am coaxing him to make a selection from Crabbe, with a preface, and think he will be persuaded."
January 8, 1829.
"Sir Walter Scott suggests overhauling Caulfield's portraits of remarkable characters (3 vols., 1816), and having roughish woodcuts taken from that book and from others, and the biographies newly done, whenever they are not in the words of the old original writers. He says the march of intellect will never put women with beards and men with horns out of fashion—Old Parr, Jenkins, Venner, Muggleton, and Mother Souse, are immortal, all in their several ways."
By 1829 Scott and Cadell had been enabled to obtain possession of all the principal copyrights, with the exception of two one-fourth shares of "Marmion," held by Murray and Longman respectively. Sir Walter Scott applied to Murray through Lockhart, respecting this fourth share. The following was Murray's reply to Sir Walter Scott:
John Murray to Sir Walter Scott.
June 8, 1829.
My Dear Sir,
Mr. Lockhart has at this moment communicated to me your letter respecting my fourth share of the copyright of "Marmion." I have already been applied to by Messrs. Constable and by Messrs. Longman, to know what sum I would sell this share for; but so highly do I estimate the honour of being, even in so small a degree, the publisher of the author of the poem, that no pecuniary consideration whatever can induce me to part with it. But there is a consideration of another kind, which, until now, I was not aware of, which would make it painful to me if I were to retain it a moment longer. I mean, the knowledge of its being required by the author, into whose hands it was spontaneously resigned in the same instant that I read his request. This share has been profitable to me fifty-fold beyond what either publisher or author could have anticipated; and, therefore, my returning it on such an occasion, you will, I trust, do me the favour to consider in no other light than as a mere act of grateful acknowledgment for benefits already received by, my dear sir,
Your obliged and faithful Servant,