The whole matter of publication of the _Life_ was a source of no small worry to our author. He was plunged, at that time, in pecuniary difficulties due to the purchase of an estate for £2500, and it seemed as if he might be obliged to accept the offer of Robinson, the publisher, of £1000 for the copyright of his beloved book. "But it would go to his heart," he said, "to accept such a sum, which he considered far too low", and he avoided the difficulty by borrowing the money. All of these things made him very low-spirited: "I am at present," he says, "in such bad spirits that I have fear concerning it--that I may get no profit, nay, may lose--that the public may be disappointed, and think that I have done it poorly--that I may make many enemies, and even have quarrels. But perhaps the very reverse of all may happen." He worked very hard over all the details connected with the making of the book. "I am within a short walk of Mr. Malone, who revises my 'Life of Johnson' with me. We have not yet gone over quite a half of it, but it is at last fairly in the press. I intended to have printed it upon what is called an _English_ letter, which would have made it look better. I have therefore taken a smaller type, called _Pica_, and even upon that I am afraid its bulk will be very large." He gave much thought to the title-page, and we are told that it was a long time before he could be perfectly satisfied. This statement, we are compelled to assume, refers to the literary composition of the title, rather than to the construction of the page: upon the latter he might have worked much longer and still have been dissatisfied. The work was at last delivered to the world May sixteenth (the "Advertisement" is dated April twentieth), and was sold for two guineas a copy. So successful was it that by August twenty-second, 1200 out of the edition of 1700 copies were disposed of, and the whole edition was exhausted before the end of the year. A supplement was issued in 1793, at one guinea; and a second edition with eight additional sheets appeared in July of the same year.