In this crisis Rogers and Moore called upon
Murray, and made enquiries on the subject of Crabbe's poems. "Oh, yes,"
he said, "I have heard from Mr. Crabbe, and look upon the matter as
settled." Crabbe was thus released from all his fears. When he received
the bills for L3,000, he insisted on taking them with him to Trowbridge
to show them to his son John.
It proved after all that the Longmans were right in their offer to
Rogers; Murray was far too liberal. Moore, in his Diary (iii. 332),
says, "Even if the whole of the edition (3,000) were sold, Murray would
still be L1,900 minus." Crabbe had some difficulty in getting his old
poems out of the hands of his former publisher, who wrote to him in a
strain of the wildest indignation, and even threatened him with legal
proceedings, but eventually the unsold stock, consisting of 2,426
copies, was handed over by Hatchard & Colburn to Mr. Murray, and nothing
more was heard of this controversy between them and the poet.
"Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Modern Greek, written at the Close of the
18th Century," was published anonymously, and was confidently asserted
to be the work of Lord Byron, as the only person capable of having
produced it.
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