(1) What plea could Polidori advance for having the MS. and the right of publishing it? (2) Why did he sell for "a small sum" a work which, if written by the world-famous Lord Byron, would be worth a very considerable sum? (3) Why did the Editor pay to Polidori a sum, whether small or large, for a book which, according to this assumption, was avowedly not the writing of himself, but the writing and property of Byron? All these difficulties are avoided, and no other serious difficulties arise, if we assume that the account given by Polidori is the true one, viz. that he offered the tale to the Editor as being his own composition, strictly modelled upon a series of incidents invented by Byron.
Polidori's letter, addressed to the Editor of The Morning Chronicle, was, as I have already said, delivered to the office of that paper. It was not however published there, as Messrs. Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, the publishers of The Vampyre in its book-form, represented to Polidori that the appearance of such a letter would tend to compromise them, and he therefore, out of consideration for this firm, withdrew the letter unprinted. This is Polidori's own statement, contained in the Introduction to another romantic tale of his, Ernestus Berchtold, published in 1819; being the tale by Polidori which, as stated by the Editor of The New Monthly Magazine, had been
