My gorge at length rose within me. I took up my manuscript; thrust it
into my pocket, and walked out of the room: making some noise as I
went, to let my departure be heard. The publisher, however, was too
much busied in minor concerns to notice it. I was suffered to walk
down-stairs without being called back. I sallied forth into the street,
but no clerk was sent after me, nor did the publisher call after me
from the drawing-room window. I have been told since, that he
considered me either a madman or a fool. I leave you to judge how much
he was in the wrong in his opinion.

When I turned the corner my crest fell. I cooled down in my pride and
my expectations, and reduced my terms with the next bookseller to whom
I applied. I had no better success: nor with a third: nor with a
fourth. I then desired the booksellers to make an offer themselves; but
the deuce an offer would they make. They told me poetry was a mere
drug; everybody wrote poetry; the market was overstocked with it. And
then, they said, the title of my poem was not taking: that pleasures of
all kinds were worn threadbare; nothing but horrors did now-a-days, and
even these were almost worn out. Tales of pirates, robbers, and bloody
Turks might answer tolerably well; but then they must come from some
established well-known name, or the public would not look at them.

At last I offered to leave my poem with a bookseller to read it and
judge for himself. "Why, really, my dear Mr.--a--a--I forget your
name," said he, cutting an eye at my rusty coat and shabby gaiters,
"really, sir, we are so pressed with business just now, and have so
many manuscripts on hand to read, that we have not time to look at any
new production, but if you can call again in a week or two, or say the
middle of next month, we may be able to look over your writings and
give you an answer. Don't forget, the month after next--good morning,