Constable, however, went manfully to work at his proposed Miscellany. Captain Basil Hall, in kindly consideration, made him a present of his _Voyages_, and this was brought out in 1827, for the small sum of one shilling, and proved fairly successful. This same year, by-the-by, was commenced the _Library of Useful Knowledge_, by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, who, following Constable, had the “honour of leading the way in that fearful inroad upon dearness of the good old times of publishing, which first developed itself in the wicked birth of what the literary exclusives called the _Sixpenny Sciences_.” Constable’s prospects were brightening; he had now gathered round him all the younger literary men of the day, when, in the midst of his struggles, his old disease of dropsy again attacked him, and he died on the 21st July, 1827. His widow and family were left in sorry circumstances, but his son Thomas eventually attained the position of an eminent and well-known printer in Edinburgh. The Ballantynes, with whom he had been so intimately connected, disproved many of Lockhart’s assertions, by showing that, by dint of hard work and good business habits, they were capable of success, unaided by the help of Sir Walter Scott. Constable, if not the most successful, was certainly the most eminent of the Scotch publishers. It is pleasant where the two lives have been so curiously blended to be able to quote Scott’s estimate of his character:-- “His vigorous intellect and vigorous ideas have not only rendered his native country the merit of her own literature, but established there a court of letters which commanded respect even from those most inclined to dissent from many of its canons. The effect of these changes operated, in a great measure, by the strong sense and sagacious calculation of an individual who knew how to avail himself, to an unhoped-for extent, of the various kinds of talents which his country produced, will probably appear much clearer to the generation which shall follow the present.” The remaining portion of this chapter will in itself bear ample testimony to the truth of this prediction; for we shall have to touch upon two distinct lives, and two long and very successful lives, to trace the progress of the chief works which passed out of Constable’s hands so shortly before his death. Robert Cadell had been admitted a partner in the house upon his marriage with Constable’s daughter, but she died childless long before the failure, and Cadell was soon married again to a Miss Mylne. Thus the family ties were severed, and, when the crash came, Cadell felt no hesitation in entering the field as a rival to his late partner.