This was not the last application for acceptances, and it will be found that in the end it led to an entire separation between the firms.

The Ballantynes, however, were more sanguine than prudent.  In spite of Mr. Murray’s warning that they were proceeding too rapidly with the publication of new works, they informed him that they had a “gigantic scheme” in hand—­the “Tales of the East,” translated by Henry Weber, Walter Scott’s private secretary—­besides the “Edinburgh Encyclopaedia,” and the “Secret Memoirs of the House of Stewart.”  They said that Scott was interested in the “Tales of the East,” and in one of their hopeful letters they requested Mr. Murray to join in their speculations.  His answer was as follows: 

John Murray to Messrs. Ballantyne & Co.

October 31, 1809.

“I regret that I cannot accept a share in the ‘Edinburgh Encyclopaedia.’  I am obliged to decline by motives of prudence.  I do not know anything of the agreement made by the proprietors, except in the palpable mismanagement of a very exclusive and promising concern.  I am therefore fearful to risk my property in an affair so extremely unsuitable.

“You distress me sadly by the announcement of having put the ’Secret Memoirs’ to press, and that the paper for it was actually purchased six months ago!  How can you, my good sirs, act in this way?  How can you imagine that a bookseller can afford to pay eternal advances upon almost every work in which he takes a share with you?  And how can you continue to destroy every speculation by entering upon new ones before the previous ones are properly completed?...  Why, with your influence, will you not urge the completion of the ‘Minstrelsy’?  Why not go on with and complete the series of De Foe?...  For myself, I really do not know what to do, for when I see that you will complete nothing of your own, I am unwillingly apprehensive of having any work of mine in your power.  What I thus write is in serious friendship for you.  I entreat you to let us complete what we have already in hand, before we begin upon any other speculation.  You will have enough to do to sell those in which we are already engaged.  As to your mode of exchange and so disposing of your shares, besides the universal obloquy which attends the practice in the mind of every respectable bookseller, and the certain damnation which it invariably causes both to the book and the author, as in the case of Grahame, if persisted in, it must end in serious loss to the bookseller....  If you cannot give me your solemn promise not to exchange a copy of Tasso, I trust you will allow me to withdraw the small share which I propose to take, for the least breath of this kind would blast the work and the author too—­a most worthy man, upon whose account alone I engaged in the speculation.”

Constable, with whom Murray had never entirely broken, had always looked with jealousy at the operations of the house of Ballantyne.  Their firm had indeed been started in opposition to himself; and it was not without a sort of gratification that he heard of their pecuniary difficulties, and of the friction between them and Murray.  Scott’s “Lady of the Lake” had been announced for publication.  At the close of a letter to Murray, Constable rather maliciously remarks: