JAMES SMITH. The mention of this gentleman by your Correspondent J. in
your "Current Notes" for January (p. 7), reminds me that no author in
the English language ever received so high a remuneration "per line"
for his verses as James Smith. Longman's famous payment to Moore of a
guinea a line for "Lalla Rookh" is as nothing to it, for Mr. Strachan,
the King's printer, was so pleased with an epigram by Smith of eight
lines, that he actually, in a codicil to his will bequeathed him £3000,
or £375 per line.