It was certainly this beautiful framework which assured the immediate success and permanent charm of the poem; and the immediate success was for that day something marvellous.

The magnificent quarto edition of 750 copies was soon exhausted, and an octavo edition of 1500 copies was sold out within the year.

In the following year two editions, containing together 4250 copies, were disposed of, and before twenty-five years had elapsed, that is, before 1830, 44,000 copies of the poem had been bought by the public in this country, taking account of the legitimate trade alone.

Scott gained in all by _The Lay_ 769_l._, an unprecedented sum in those times for an author to obtain from any poem.

Little more than half a century before, Johnson received but fifteen guineas for his stately poem on _The Vanity of Human Wishes_, and but ten guineas for his _London_.