“Will you pardon a well-meant line? Have you finally concluded about the ‘Columbus’? If not, will you excuse me if, from the extract I see in the Literary Gazette, I am induced to ask, What has it of that superb degree as to make it fully safe for you to give the price you intend for it? I see no novelty of fact, and, though much ability, yet not that overwhelming talent which will give a very great circulation to so trite a subject. I merely take the liberty of suggesting a caution, which I do with great diffidence; for I know you have such an admirable tact of judgment about works and their probable success, that there is no one on whose prospective opinion I should rely more confidently than on yours. Yet the sum compared with the subject, and with the small part that I have seen of the execution makes me send you these hints, as a mere question for your consideration. . . . Could you make part of the price depend upon the editions or the number sold?”
