There was no end to Byron’s wit and playfulness. Sometimes Murray would act as a mentor and adviser in more serious matters, but his advice would be pleasantly turned off with a jest. At the time when Byron was most calumniated, when there were cruel stories afloat about the life he led and the opinions he held (though none so cruel as have since been promulgated by a well-known American authoress), Murray’s soul was comforted by the present of a Bible--a gift from the illustrious poet. “Could this man,” he asked, “be a deist, an atheist, or worse, when he sent Bibles about to his publishers?” Turning it over in wonderment, however, some inquisitive member of his four-o’clock clique found a marginal correction--“Now Barabbas was a robber,” altered into “Now Barabbas was a _publisher_.” A cruel stab, a “palpable hit,” maybe, at some publishers, but, as regards Murray, an uproarious joke to be gleefully repeated to every comer. As a refutation of this playful libel, and as the clearest and most succinct way of showing what amounts of money Byron really did receive, we append the following account:-- £ 1807 _Hours of Idleness_ 1809 _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ 1812 _Childe Harold_, I. II.[A] 600 1813 _The Gaiour_ 525 ” _Bride of Abydos_ 525 1814 _Corsair_[15] 525 ” _Lara_ 700 1815 _Hebrew Melodies_[16] 1816 _Childe Harold_, III. 1,575 ” _Siege of Corinth_ 525 ” _Parisina_ 525 ” _Prisoner of Chillon_ 525 1817 _Manfred_ 315 ” _Lament of Tasso_ 315 1818 _Beppo_ 525 ” _Childe Harold_, IV. 2,100 1819 _Mazeppa_ 525 ” _Don Juan_, I. II. 1,525 1820 _Don Juan_, III. IV. V. 1,525 ” _Marino Faliero_ ” _Doge of Venice_ 1,050 1821 _Sardanapalus_, _Cain_, and _Foscari_ 1,100 ” _Vision of Judgment_[17] 1822 _Werner_; _Deformed Transformed_; _Heaven and Earth_, to which were added _Hours of Idleness_, _English Bards_, _Hints from Horace_, &c. 3,885 Sundries 450 1822 _Don Juan_, VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. 1823 _Age of Bronze_, _The Island_, and more cantos of _Don Juan_ ------ Total £19,340 _Life_, by Thomas Moore 4,200 ------ £23,540