be terminable by either party at the end of every five numbers. But a few days afterwards, when Harriet called upon Mr. W. J. Fox to show him her circular inviting subscribers for the series, she found that Mr. Charles Fox had decided to say that he would not publish more than two numbers, unless a thousand copies of No. 1 were sold in the first fortnight! This decision had been arrived at chiefly in consequence of a conversation which W. J. Fox had held with James Mill, in which the distinguished political economist had pronounced against the essential point of the scheme-the narrative form—and had advised that, if the young lady must try her hand at Political Economy, she should write it in the orthodox didactic style.

Mr. Fox lived at Dalston. When Harriet left his house, after receiving this unreasonable and discouraging ultimatum, she

set out to walk the four miles and a half to the Brewery. I could not afford to ride more or less; but, weary already, I now felt almost too ill to walk at all. On the road, not far from Shoreditch, I became too giddy to stand without some support; and I leaned over some dirty palings, pretending to look at a cabbage-bed, but saying to myself as I stood with closed eyes, “ My book will do yet.”

That very night she wrote the long, thoughtful, and collected preface to her work. After she had finished it she sat over the fire in her bedroom, in the deepest depression; she cried, with her feet on the fender, till four o'clock, and then she went to bed, and cried there till six, when she fell asleep. But if any persons suppose that because the feminine temperament finds a relief in tears the fact argues weakness, they will be instructed by hearing that she was up by half-past eight, continuing her work, as firmly resolved as ever that it should be published.

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CHAPTER V.

THE GREAT SUCCESS.

THE work which had struggled into printed existence with such extreme difficulty raised its author at a bound to fame. Ten days after the publication of the first number, Charles Fox sent Harriet word that not only were the fifteen hundred copies which formed the first edition all sold off, but he had such orders in hand that he proposed to print another five thousand at once. The people had taken up the work instantly. The press followed, instead of leading the public in this instance; but it, too, was enthusiastic in praise, both of the scheme and the execution of the stories.

More than one publisher who had previously rejected the series made overtures for it now. Its refusal, as they saw, had been one of those striking blunders of which literary history has not a few to tell. But there is no occasion to cry out about the stupidity of publishers. They can judge well how far a work written on lines already popular will meet the demand of the market; but an entirely original idea, or the work of an original writer, is a mere lottery. There is no telling how the public will take it until it has been

tried. Publishers put into a good many such lotteries, and often lose by them; then nothing more is heard of the matter. But the cases where they decline a speculation which afterwards turns out to have been a good one are never forgotten. Still, the fact remains that it was Harriet Martineau alone who saw that the people needed her work, and whose wonderful courage and resolution brought it out for the public to accept.

Her success grew, as an avalanche gains in volume, by its own momentum. Besides the publishers' communications she had letters, and pamphlets, and bluebooks, and magazines forwarded to her in piles, in order that she might include the advocacy of the senders' hobbies in her series. One day the postmaster sent her a message that she must let a barrow be fetched for her share of the mail, as it was too bulky to come in any other way. Lord Brougham declared that it made him tear his hair to think that the Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge, which he had instituted for the very purpose of doing such work as she was undertaking, seemed not to have a man in it with as much sense of what was wanted as this little deaf girl at Norwich. The public interest in the work was, perhaps, heightened by the fact that so ignorant was everybody of her personality, that this description of Brougham's passed muster. But she was not little, and she was now twenty-nine years of age.

She stayed in Norwich, going on writing hard, until the November of 1832, by which time eight numbers of her series had appeared. Then she went to London, taking lodgings with an old servant of Mrs. Martineau's, who lived in Conduit Street. In the course of a few months, however, Mrs. Martineau settled herself

in London, and her daughter again resided with her, in a house in Fludyer Street, Westminster.

The purely literary success which she had hitherto enjoyed was now turned into a social triumph. However she might strive against being lionised she could not avoid the attentions and honours that were poured upon her. It is little to say that all the distinguished people in town hastened to know her; it was even considered to give distinction to a party if she could be secured to attend it. Literary celebrities, titled people, and members of Parliament, competed for the small space of time that she could spare for society.

This was not very much, for the work she had undertaken was heavy enough to absorb all her energies. She had engaged to produce one of her stories every month. They were issued in small paper-covered volumes of from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty pages of print. She began publication with only two or three numbers ready written. Thus, to keep on with her series, she had to write one whole number every month. It would have been hard work had it been simple story-telling, had she been merely imaginatively reproducing scenes and characters from her past experience, or writing according to her fancy. But it was, in fact, a much more difficult labour upon which she was engaged. Her scheme required that she should embody every shade of variety of the human character; that her scenes should be laid in different parts of the world, with topography and surroundings appropriate to the story; and that the governments and social state of all these various places should be accurately represented. In addition to all this she had to lay down for each tale the propositions which had to be illustrated in it; to assure herself that she

clearly saw the truth and the bearings of every doctrine of Political Economy; and then to work into a connected fiction in a concrete form the abstract truths of the science-representing them as exemplified in the lives of individuals.

Political Economy treats of the production, distribution, and consumption, or use, of all the material objects of human desire, which are called by the general name of wealth. Thus, it is a subject which concerns every one of us in our daily lives, and not merely a matter belonging (as its name unfortunately leads many to suppose) entirely to the province of the legislator. The great mass of mankind are producers of wealth. All are necessarily consumers-for the bare maintenance of existence demands the consumption of wealth. The well-being of the community depends upon the industry and skill with which wealth is produced; upon the distribution of it in such a manner as to encourage future production; and upon the consumption of it with due regard to the claims of the future. It is individuals who, as the business of common life, produce, exchange, divide, and consume wealth; it is, therefore, each individual's business to comprehend the science which treats of his daily life. A science is nothing but a collection of facts, considered in their relationship to each other. Miss Martineau's plan, in her series, was strictly what I have indicated as being always her aim; namely, to deduce from an abstract science rules for daily life-the secondary, practical, or concrete science. It was the union of a scientific basis with practical morals that made this subject attractive to her mind, and led her (in the words of her preface), to "propose to convey the leading truths of Political Economy, as soundly, as systematically, as