What Scott was to Constable, and Byron to Murray, that was Moore to Longman. “Anacreon Moore,” as he loved to be called, had gained a naughty reputation from _Mr. Thomas Little’s Poems_, and, in 1811, we find him writing to Longman--“I am at last come to a determination to bind myself to your service, if you hold the same favourable disposition towards me as at our last conversation upon business. To-morrow I shall be very glad to be allowed half-an-hour’s conversation with you, and as I dare say I shall be _up all night at Carlton House_, I do not think I could reach your house before four o’clock. I told you before that I never could work without a retainer. It will not, however, be of that exorbitant nature which your liberality placed at my disposal the first time.” Soon after this the Prince Regent threw over his old Whig friend, but Moore was so successful in his political warfare that he more than gained as a poet what he lost as a courtier, and his _Two-penny Post Bag_ went through fourteen editions. He was, however, anxious to apply his genius to the creation of some work more likely to raise his reputation than the singing of lascivious songs, or the jerking off of political squibs. Accordingly Perry, the editor of the _Morning Chronicle_, was sent to discuss preliminary matters with Longman. “I am of opinion,” said Perry, “that Mr. Moore ought to receive for his poem the largest price that has been given in our day for such a work.” “That,” replied Longman promptly, “was £3000.” “Exactly so,” rejoined the editor, “and no smaller a sum ought he to receive.” Longman insisted upon a perusal beforehand:-- “Longman has communicated his readiness to terms, on the basis of the three thousand guineas, but requires a perusal beforehand; this I have refused. I shall have no ifs.” Again Moore writes, “To the honour and glory of romance, as well on the publisher’s side as on the poet’s, this very generous view of the transaction was without any difficulty acceded to;” and again, “There has seldom occurred any transaction in which trade and poetry have shone so satisfactorily in each other’s eyes.” So Moore left London to find a quiet resting-place “in a lone cottage among the fields in Derbyshire,” and there _Lalla Rookh_ was written; the snows of two or three Derbyshire winters aiding, he avers, his imagination, by contrast, to paint the everlasting summers and glowing scenery of the East. The arrangement had hitherto been verbal, but on going up to town, in the winter of 1814, he received the following agreement from Longman. “COPY OF TERMS WRITTEN TO MR. MOORE. “That upon your giving into our hands a poem of yours of the length of _Rokeby_, you shall receive from us the sum of £3000. We also agree to the stipulation that the few songs which you may introduce into the work shall be considered as reserved for your own setting.”