"It is easy," he said, "no doubt for any friend to blame me for entering into connexion with commercial matters at all.

But I wish to know what I could have done better--excluded from the bar, and then from all profits for six years, by my colleague's prolonged life.

Literature was not in those days what poor Constable has made it; and with my little capital I was too glad to make commercially the means of supporting my family.

I got but 600_l._ for _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, and--it was a price that made men's hair stand on end--1000_l._ for _Marmion_.

I have been far from suffering by James Ballantyne.