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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
was, in a trial in the Jury Court of Scotland, proved to have been no
less a sum than £125,667 9s. 3d. This amount, of course, includes
every item of expenditure, among which the following are the most
important:—

£ s. d.
Contributions and Editing 22,590 2 11
Printing 18,610 1 4
Stereotyping 3,317 5 8
Paper 27,854 15 7
Bookbinding 12,739 12 2
Engraving and Plate-printing 11,777 18 1

The literary contributions to the first volume of “Dissertations” alone

cost upwards of £3450.
The work was eminently successful, and this immense
expenditure shows us something of what “success” means in this
instance. The commercial management of an undertaking like this
was sufficient to occupy the attention of a man of extraordinary
diligence; but Mr. Black found time, not only to contribute several
articles to his Encyclopædia, but to take a very warm and prominent
interest in the government of his native city; and from 1843 to 1848
he occupied the highest position to which a citizen of Edinburgh can
aspire—that of Lord Provost.
Enterprise and success, more especially when they are mingled
with real desert, and caused by honest service, are qualities of which
the Scotch, perhaps more than any other nation, are peculiarly
proud; and when the representation of Edinburgh became vacant in
1856, a large and influential party at once nominated Mr. Adam
Black to fill the post. Mr. Adam Black was a thorough-going Liberal
and a Nonconformist, and a party of the electors received his
nomination in a spirit of the greatest bitterness, and an opposition
candidate was brought forward. The election came off on the 8th
February, 1856, and Mr. Black, the friend of political freedom when
friends were few, the champion of religious charity and goodwill
when enemies were many, was rewarded for his consistency and his
many services by a larger number of votes than had been polled for
twenty years—no weak test of popular approbation. As a
contemporary opinion, we may quote the Scotsman of that date:
—“Honour to the candidate! Sincerely reluctant to compete for the
honour, no sooner was he embarked, and saw that the great
principles and the reputation of the city were concerned and
imperilled in his person, than he threw himself into the work with a
vigour that made even the youngest and most energetic of his
supporters stand aside. We don’t care who knows it: Mr. Black was
the most effective member of his own committee—in word and in
act, by day and by night, the veteran was ready with guidance and
warning and incentive. In all his many battles in the public cause, he
never made a better fight than when achieving this victory which so
gloriously crowns his career.”
In the House Mr. Black distinguished himself by his assiduity to
business, and in 1864 he introduced his Copyright Bill, which,
though it contained much that was good, was ultimately thrown out.
Upon completion of the seventh edition, a number of cheap
reprints were issued of the most famous articles of the
“Encyclopædia,” and met with a very favourable reception.
We have seen that in 1851 the Messrs. Black, in conjunction with
Messrs. Richardson Brothers, became possessed of the Waverley
Novels. Ultimately, the Messrs. Black purchased, it is said, the
Messrs. Richardsons’ share, and are now believed to be the sole
proprietors of Sir Walter Scott’s works. In the management of this
property Mr. Adam Black exhibited the same rare sagacity, and
reaped the same successful reward as in the former important work.
In the middle of 1852, he announced that 120,000 complete sets of
the Waverley Novels had been sold in this country alone since their
first publication; and in 1858 an ingenious mathematician computed
that the weight of the paper used for them was upwards of 3500
tons.
 Among the most important editions issued by Messrs. Black we
may instance the following:—

£ s. d.
A Re-issue of the “Cabinet 1853–
in at
Edition” 54 3 15 0
” ” ” 1860 ” 3 10 0
The “People’s Edition” in 5 1855
” ”
vols. 2 2 0
“Railway Edition” in 25 vols. 1858–
” ”
60 1 17 6
New Illustrated Edition in 48 1859–
vols. founded on ” 61 ”
“Author’s Favourite” 10 13 0
“Shilling Edition” in 25 vols. 1862–
” ”
63 1 5 0

At our present writing a beautiful new edition, the “Centenary,” is

being published.
The moment that the copyrights of the earlier novels expired the
market was flooded with cheap reprints; but the Messrs. Black were
equal to the occasion. They issued a trade reminder to the public
that the edition of 1829 was thoroughly revised by the author, was
altered in almost every page and largely augmented by notes, and
that it still was copyright, and as a death-blow to the reprints by rival
houses they brought out the “sixpenny edition” in monthly volumes,
each volume containing a complete tale with all the matter that had
appeared in the more expensive editions. Thanks to former
stereotypes they were thus enabled to present a series of the
cheapest and most valuable books that any house in the country has
yet been able to produce. The publication lasted from November,
1866, to November, 1868, and the complete issue consisted of
twenty-five volumes, and thus the public were able to purchase for
twelve shillings and sixpence what had originally cost upwards of
forty pounds. Constable himself in his wildest dreams of cheap
publishing never imagined such a marvellous feature as this.
As a proof of their popularity we quote from a contemporary
writer in the Illustrated Times, 25th of September, 1867. The writer
was travelling down to Wales, and, at the London station, he said,
“‘Boy, where are the Scott novels?’ ‘Don’t keep them,’ he replied.
‘Don’t keep them! Why not?’ ‘Because, if we did, we should not sell
anything else.’ Here then, to begin with, is a small fact worth
reflection. Some of the novels were first published fifty years ago.
Can you point out any other series of books, or even any single
book, a sixpenny edition of which Mr. Smith would be afraid to lay
upon his bookstalls for fear the public might refuse to buy anything
else?” At every station the writer made the same inquiry and met
with the same result.
As through the business talents of the publishers, the printed
works of Sir Walter Scott were reduced in price, so through the fame
of the author did the autograph remains rise to a very wonderful
fictitious value. Mr. Cadell made a remarkable collection of all the
manuscripts he could purchase, and on the 9th of July, 1868, his
collection was sold for £1073; while even a corrected proof of
“Peveril of the Peak” realized £25.
The seventh edition of the “Encyclopædia Britannica” was
finished, as we have previously stated, in 1842, and met with, not
only an immediate, but also a continuous sale, but human
knowledge refuses to be stereotyped, and at the close of 1852 the
eighth edition was commenced, occupying nine years in the
publication. The proprietors justly claim for it the proud title of “the
largest literary enterprise ever undertaken by any single house in
Great Britain.” The editorial charge was entrusted to Dr. Thomas
Stewart Trail, professor of medical jurisprudence in the University of
Edinburgh; and, among the more important new contributors, we
may mention Archbishop Whately, Professor Blackie, and Dr. Forbes,
the latter of whom contributed a new “Dissertation” to the
introductory volume. Lord Macaulay contributed five of the leading
biographies “as a token of friendship to the senior proprietor.” “Any
article of any value in any preceding edition,” says the editor, “has
been reprinted in this—in all cases with corrections, and frequently
with considerable additions. Besides these, it has received so great
an accession of original contributions, that nine-tenths of its
contents may be said to be absolutely new,” and this will probably
apply with the same force to the ninth edition, which is to be
commenced next year.
Long before this date Mr. Adam Black was assisted in his
business by his sons. He retired from the house in 1865, and now
laden with honours in public, and successes in business, life, he may
fairly claim to be the Nestor of publishers. He must have seen many
changes in the literary world, and marked many vicissitudes in the
“realms of print;” but the changes as far as they operated for him
were for the better, and vicissitudes seem invariably to have kept
outside his charmed circle.
In the year 1861, a very valuable work—the “Collected Writings
of the late Thomas De Quincey”—came into the hands of Messrs.
Black; but, as the public are almost entirely indebted to the laborious
care and patient perseverance of another publisher, Mr. James Hogg,
then of Edinburgh, for the production of this collection, which then
consisted of fourteen volumes, we have thought it better that this
account should form a kind of supplement to our present chapter.
For a period of about forty years De Quincey had been an
extensive contributor to periodical literature, and it is scarcely
surprising that, during such a length of time, the sources even
where many of his contributions originally appeared had been
forgotten, and that the very existence of a few had altogether
escaped the author’s recollection. Various attempts had been made
to induce De Quincey to draw together and revise a selection from
the more important of his scattered writings, but from his varying
state of health and, consequent on this, his inveterate habit of
procrastination, the work was always postponed; and from his
advanced years, all hope was given up of the collected works ever
appearing under the superintendence of the author.
In the year 1845, the well-known periodical, Hogg’s Instructor,
was started under the management and sole responsibility of Mr.
Hogg. Sixteen volumes of the Instructor as a weekly serial were
published, and among many other contributors of note was the
“Opium-Eater,” and from the commencement of their intercourse De
Quincey and Mr. Hogg became firm friends.
About this time several volumes of De Quincey’s writings had
been collected and published by Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, of
Boston, U.S., without, of course, the advantage of the author’s own
revisal; and, as the papers had been originally hurriedly written for
magazines, and as, during the lapse of time, many changes had
become unavoidable, the author felt that, in justice to himself,
extensive additions and, in some cases, suppressions were
necessary. Arrangements were accordingly entered into for bringing
out the collected works at home in a thoroughly revised and
amended form, Mr. Hogg undertaking all the responsibility, and
engaging to give his aid both in collecting the materials, and in
generally seeing the volumes through the press. On the
announcement of the publication it was confidently predicted by
some of those who had been engaged in the previous attempts that
not a single volume would ever appear. In order to afford ample time
for the thorough revision of the work it was arranged that the
publication should be spread over three years. The first volume
appeared in 1853; but, instead of three years bringing the series to
a close, eight years had elapsed before the thirteenth volume was
completed, and then De Quincey died—the remainder of the
thirteenth, and the whole of the fourteenth, being due to Mr. Hogg.
During these eight years almost daily interviews or correspondence
occurred between De Quincey and Mr. Hogg. To use the author’s
words, “the joint labour and patient perseverance spent in the
preparation of these volumes was something perfectly astounding.”
In addition to the frequent and protracted interviews, the
correspondence which passed during the progress of the work would
fill a goodly volume.
In order to account for the delays which so frequently occurred,
De Quincey remarks upon one occasion:—“I suffer from a most
afflicting derangement of the nervous system, which at times makes
it difficult for me to write at all, and always makes me impatient, in a
degree not easily understood, of recasting what may seem
insufficiently or even incoherently expressed.” But, while suffering
under this cause, he laboured under a daily and more formidable bar
to progress, as annoying and perplexing to himself as to others. For
many years he had been in the habit of correcting manuscript or of
jotting down on loose sheets, more frequently on small scraps of
paper, any stray thoughts that occurred to him, intending to use
them as occasion might afterwards offer. These papers, however,
instead of being methodically arranged and preserved, were
carelessly laid aside, and were soon mixed up with letters, proofs,
old and new copy, newspapers, periodicals, and other confusing
litter, and the numerous volumes he received from literary friends
and admirers, all huddled together on chairs, tables, or wherever
they at the moment might be stowed. Placing a high value on many
things in this heterogeneous mass, and feeling assured in his own
mind that strange hands would only render confusion worse
confounded, he would allow no one to endeavour to put the things
in order. Indeed, if anything could have ruffled his gentle nature into
the use of an angry word it would have been the attempt to meddle
with these papers. They very rapidly increased, and every search
after missing copy or proofs made matters worse. When a dead
block occurred his invariable practice was to build them up, as they
lay, against the wall of the room, and, as a consequence, everything
went astray. A few extracts from notes to Mr. Hogg will show the
labour, suffering, and worry which this state of chaos entailed:—“My
dear Sir,—It is useless to trouble you with the ins and outs of the
process—the result is, that, working through most part of the night,
I have not yet come to the missing copy. I am going on with the
search, yet being walled up in so narrow an area (not larger than a
postchaise as regards the free space), I work with difficulty, and the
stooping kills me. I greatly fear that the entire day will be spent in
the search.”
“Yesterday, suddenly, I missed the interleaved volume. I have
been unrolling an immense heap of newspapers, &c., ever since six
a.m. How so thick a vol. can have hidden itself, I am unable to
explain.”
“The act of stooping has for many years caused me so much
illness, that in this search, all applied to papers lying on the floor,
entangled with innumerable newspapers, I have repeatedly been
forced to pause. I fear that the seventeen or eighteen missing pages
may have been burned suddenly lighting candles; and I am more
surprised at finding so many than at missing so few.”
“I am utterly in the dark as to where this paper is—whether chez
moi, or chez la presse (I use French simply as being the briefest way
of conveying my doubts). Now mark the difference to me, according
to the answer. 1. On the assumption that the paper is in my
possession, then, of course, I will seek till I find it, and no labour will
be thrown away. But 2. On the counter assumption that the paper is
all the while in the possession of the press, the difference to me
would be this: That I should be searching for perhaps half a day,
and, as it is manifestly not on my table, I should proceed on the
postulate that it must have been transferred to the floor,
consequently the work would all be unavoidably a process of
stooping, and all labour lost, from which I should hardly recover for
a fortnight. This explains to you my earnestness in the matter.
Exactly the same doubt applies (and therefore exactly the same
dilemma or alternative of stoop or stoop not) to some other papers.”
How keenly De Quincey felt in consequence of these continually
recurring delays, the following sentences will show:—“It distracts me
to find that I have been constantly working at the wrong part. It is
most unfortunate, nor am I able to guess the cause, that I who am
rendered seriously unhappy whenever I find or suppose myself to
have caused any loss of time to a compositor, whose time is
generally his main estate, am yet continually doing so unintentionally
and in most cases unconsciously. It seems as if to the very last my
destiny were to cause delays.”
The frequency of the communications and personal interviews
which occurred during the eight years in which the works were in
progress may be inferred from the following:—“My dear Sir,—I have
been in great anxiety through yesterday and to-day as to the cause
of a mysterious interruption of the press intercourse with me. Now,
it has happened once before that we were at cross purposes, each
side supposing itself stopped by the other. As the easiest way,
therefore, of creeping out of the mystery I repeat it to you.”
Notwithstanding the continual interruptions and the difficulty of
dragging the volumes through the press, the cordial and friendly
feeling which existed between De Quincey and Mr. Hogg was never
interrupted by a single jarring word.
Since the fourteen volumes passed into the hands of Messrs.
Black, they have added other two volumes, made up of biographies
contributed by De Quincey to the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” and a
number of papers which remained in Mr. Hogg’s hands.
 JOHN MURRAY:
BELLES-LETTRES AND TRAVELS.

T HE foundation of the great publishing houses of London is co-

temporary in date with the origin of the private banks and
famous breweries; for, as in the case of these
establishments, the connections requisite were so extensive, and the
needful capital, to render venture a success, so large, that in many
instances the present great publishing firms have been the work of
three, in some cases even of five, generations. There have, of
course, been isolated exceptions, as in the instance of Archibald
Constable, of Edinburgh; but these rare cases, though often
beneficial to the world at large, have seldom been individually
successful.

John McMurray, the founder of the great London house of

Murray, was born in Edinburgh about the year 1795, of very
respectable parents, who not only gave him a good education, but
enlisted for him the sympathies of Sir George Yonge, then an official
in high favour. Through Sir George’s influence a commission was
obtained in the Royal Marines, and in 1762, we find from the Navy
List, that John McMurray joins his frigate full, probably, of hopeful
anticipations of the promotion that sometimes came so speedily in
the days of the old French wars. The Peace of Paris, however, was
signed in the following year, and, spite of patronage and merit,
McMurray was, in 1768, still a second lieutenant, and, in point of
seniority, thirty-fourth on the list. Disgusted with a profession from
which he could hope so little, and eager for a more useful career in
life, in this same year he embraced an opportunity that seemed to
give him a chance of exchanging the lounging idleness of Chatham
barracks for the busy activity of London business, in a trade very
congenial to his tastes, and not unaccompanied with hopes of solid
emolument.
Among the friends he had made either afloat or at his Chatham
quarters was William Falconer, who, a sailor boy “before the mast,”
had in the very year of McMurray’s first entry into the service,
published the beautiful poem of the “Shipwreck.” This poem attracted
great attention, and the author was promoted to the more
honourable than lucrative position of midshipman. Fellow-townsmen
—and in those days blood was thicker than water—and in some
degree fellow-students, for both were lovers of books, they became
firm friends; and McMurray’s first thought, when the offer of a
bookseller’s business was put before him, was to secure the aid of
his literary friend in his new venture; and an interesting letter, still
preserved, gives the history of his commencement as a bookseller.
Addressed to “Mr. William Falconer, at Dover,” it runs as follows:—

“Brompton, Kent, 16th Oct., 1768.

“Dear Will,—Since I saw you, I have had the intention of
embarking in a scheme that I think will prove successful, and
in the progress of which I had an eye towards your
participating. Mr. Sandby, bookseller, opposite St. Dunstan’s
church, has entered into company with Snow and Denne,
bankers. I was introduced to this gentleman about a month
ago, upon an advantageous offer of succeeding him in his old
business, which, by the advice of my friends, I propose to
accept. Now, although I have little reason to fear success by
myself in this undertaking, yet I think so many additional
advantages would accrue to us both, were your forces and
mine joined, that I cannot help mentioning it to you, and
making you the offer of entering into company. He resigns to
me the lease of the house; the goodwill ——; and I only take
his bound stock, and fixtures, at a fair appraisement, which
will not amount to more than £400, and which, if I ever mean
 to part with, cannot fail to bring in nearly the same sum. The
shop has long continued in the trade; it retains a good many
old customers; and I am to be ushered immediately into
public notice by the sale of a new edition of Lord Lyttelton’s
‘Dialogues;’ and afterwards by a like edition of his ‘History.’
These works I shall sell by commission, upon a certain profit
without risque; and Mr. Sandby has promised to continue to
me, always, his good offices and recommendations. These are
the general outlines; and if you entertain a notion that the
conjunction would suit you, advise me, and you shall be
assumed upon equal terms.
“Many blockheads in the trade are making fortunes; and
did we not succeed as well as they, I think it must be imputed
only to ourselves.... Consider what I have proposed, and send
me your answer soon. Be assured in the meantime that I
remain, dear Sir,
“Your affectionate and humble Servant,
“John McMurray.
“P.S.—My advisers and directors in this affair have been
Thomas Cumming, Esq., Mr. Archibald Paxton, Mr. Samuel
Paterson, of Essex House, and Messrs. J. and W. Richardson,
printers. These, after deliberate reflection, have unanimously
thought that I should accept of Mr. Sandby’s offer.”

From some reason or other the offer was declined; perhaps, as

Falconer’s biographer asserts, he was at this time (though absent for
a while at Dover) living with his pretty little wife in an attic in Grub
Street, toiling at his “Marine Dictionary,” and with no prospect of
raising the money requisite for the partnership proposed; perhaps he
had already accepted the pursership of the “Aurora” frigate. At all
events, immediately after the publication of the third edition of his
“Shipwreck,” which was to have contained some lines addressed to
McMurray, which, in the hurry of departure were omitted, he sailed in
the “Aurora” for India. The Cape was safely reached, but after
leaving it the “Aurora” was never heard of again. Ship, crew, and
passengers were all lost, and, through the untimely death of the
author, the “Shipwreck” acquired a melancholy and almost prophetic
interest, which speedily exhausted the third and many future
editions.
In the meantime John McMurray had commenced bookselling in
earnest. It was at a time when, through Wilkes and Bute, national
feeling seems to have run very high, and to be a Scotchman was
hardly a recommendation to a beginner, and we find that, though
McMurray headed all his trade bills with a ship, as a proud testimony
to his naval antecedents, he found it convenient to drop the Scotch
prefix of Mc. The following copy of a trade card issued at the time is
the first record we have of this alteration of title.

JOHN MURRAY (successor to Mr. Sandby),

Bookseller and Stationer,
At No. 32, over-against St. Dunstan’s Church,
in Fleet Street,
London.
Sells all new Books and Publications. Fitts up Public or Private
Libraries in the neatest manner with Books of the choicest
editions, the best Print, and the richest Bindings.
Also,
Executes East India or Foreign Commissions by an assortment of
Books and Stationary suited to the Market or Purpose for which
it is destined; all at the most reasonable rates.

Murray found that Sandby’s connection at Fleet Street was a

good one—Mr. William Sandby, indeed, could have been no ordinary
bookseller, for his father was a prebendary of Gloucester, and his
brother a master of Magdalen College, while he was accepted as
partner in a wealthy banking firm—the trade were inclined to “back
him up,” and he was able to extend his business considerably in India
and Edinburgh, where he had many friends. The new edition of Lord
Lyttelton’s “History” was brought out in stately quarto volumes, as
befitted the rank of the author, and was completely issued in 1771–2,
and, published “with a certain profit, without risque,” must have
proved much more remunerative than the original “Henry II.” was to
Sandby, who generously offered to pay for the author’s corrections,
and who found to his cost that not a single line was left as originally
printed.
Murray seems to have kept up his connection with Edinburgh, for
in 1773 we find him London agent for the Edinburgh Magazine and
Review, and in the following year, when it was proposed to separate
the Magazine from the Review, Stuart writes to Smellie:—“Murray
seems fully apprised of the pains and attentions that are necessary,
has literary connections, and is fond of the employment; let him,
therefore, be the London proprietor.” Murray consented to “take a
share,” if his advice were attended to; but the scheme of a review
came to nothing, and even the existing Edinburgh Magazine and
Review died, in 1776, of a violent attack on Lord Monboddo’s “Origin
of Language.” Murray offered his condolence in the following laconic
note:—

“Dear Smellie,—I am sorry for the defeat you have met

with. Had you praised Lord Monboddo instead of damning
him, it would not have happened.
“Yours, &c.
“John Murray.”

Murray, now that the Edinburgh scheme had come to nothing,

commenced in 1780 a volume of annual intelligence of his own under
the title of the London Mercury; and in January, 1783, with the
assistance of a staff of able writers, among whom were Dr. Whittaker
and Gilbert Stuart, who had lately come from Scotland, he started
the English Review.
 A great portion of Murray’s retail stock was medical books, and
for many years the house had a reputation in the medical world. Of
the books, however, which he published, those more latterly issued
proved by far the most successful, such as Langhorne’s “Plutarch’s
Lives,” Mitford’s “Greece,” and, in 1791, a thin octavo in which the
elder Disraeli first gave the public his “Curiosities of Literature”—all of
them works which have since been annual sources of revenue to the
firm.
Murray found time, however, amidst all this business, to indulge
his own literary tastes and aspirations, which had at one time been
strong. Some of his pamphlets—such as the “Letter to Mr. Mason on
his Edition of Gray’s Poems, and the Practice of Booksellers” (1777);
his “Considerations on the Freight and Shipping of the East India
Company” (1786), and “An Author’s Conduct to the Public, stated in
the Behaviour of Dr. William Cullen” (1784)—acquired much transient
reputation.
After a career, as successful we imagine as his wishes could
desire, John Murray died on the 6th November, 1793, leaving behind
him a widow, two daughters, and an only son, and bequeathing to
the latter a business which was destined to carry the name of John
Murray wherever the English language was spoken, and wherever
English books were read, as the most venturesome and yet the most
successful publisher who has ever, in London at all events,
encouraged the struggles of authorship and gratified the tastes of
half a world of readers.
John Murray, the son, the more immediate object of our memoir,
was born in 1778, and was consequently only fifteen at the time of
his father’s death. He had been educated primarily at the High
School of Edinburgh, doubtless with a view of keeping up the Scotch
connection, and had afterwards been removed to “various English
seminaries”—among others to Dr. Burney’s academy at Gosport,
where, through the carelessness of a writing-master, while making a
pen with a penknife, he lost the sight of one of his eyes. The founder
of the house not only left the business to his son, but left also a
council of regency to manage affairs until he came to the natural
years of discretion. By a last will, dated about one month before his
death, the elder John Murray appointed four executors—among them
his widow, Hester Murray, and Archibald Paxton, who in his letter to
Falconer he had named as one of his principal advisers in adopting
the bookselling trade. For a year or two after 1793 the name of “H.
Murray” figures at the top of the bills and trade circulars, and then
disappears from them, Mrs. Murray having, it seems, in 1795,
married “Henry Paget, Lieutenant in the West Norfolk Militia,” and
retired entirely from the management of the business. Murray was
still too young to carry on the shop unaided, so his guardians
admitted Mr. Highley, for a long time chief factotum in the shop and
manager of the medical department, to a partnership with him. By
the agreement the title of the new firm was to be “Murray and
Highley;” the latter was solely to conduct the business, and to
receive half the profits until young John came of age, after which
they were to enjoy equal powers and “share and share” alike.
 John Murray—reading a newspaper.
1778–1843.

Mr. Highley, who seems to have been a steady, plodding man

with much latent exertion against all speculative venture, did little to
increase the standing of the firm; probably he imagined that the
trade in medical books, as it was attended with the least risk, was
the most remunerative portion of the business. His worthy soul was
vexed at the anger excited by Whitaker’s slashing articles in the
English Review. “Enraged authors,” it appears, took to sending huge
parcels of defiant, contemptuous, and, worse still, unpaid MSS. to
the publisher of the Review, complaining of the treatment which their
books suffered at the hands of his critics, and “enraged authors”
seem at this time to have been about the only readers of the savage
periodical in question. One of the last numbers contains a notice that
all unpaid post parcels may be inquired for again at the General Post
Office; and soon after Mr. Highley eased his shoulders of this burden
by merging the English Review in the Analytical.
Young Murray was at this time of a very different temperament
to his partner—full of youth, fire, and energy, and uncommonly gifted
with that speculative spirit which must have caused the elder man
many a time to shake his head sagely, and to lift his gravely
deprecating eyebrows. In fact, youth and age can never see matters
with the same eyes;—the one looks as through a telescope
magnifying all things within vision some hundred-fold; the other
peers cautiously through spectacles, misty and begrimed, more used
in guiding immediate footsteps than in gazing far ahead. Murray had
attained his majority in 1799, and in four years the two partners
resolved to sever their connection in a pleasant and friendly manner.
By the formal deed of separation, dated 25th March, 1803, Highley
retained all the medical business. But the principal act of parting was
of anything but a formal nature. They drew lots for the old house
and Murray was fortunate enough to secure the winning prize.
Highley moved to No. 24, Fleet Street, but was able afterwards, in
1812, when Murray migrated to Albemarle Street, to move back
again, and here he increased his medical connection, leaving a
thriving business to his son.
In this very year of separation the Edinburgh Review was started,
and Murray was probably reminded of the scheme in which his father
had once been concerned with Smellie to produce a periodical under
a similar title, but the time was not yet ripe for his own projects.
In 1806, at the age of twenty-four, he married Miss Elliot of
Edinburgh, a young lady descended from one of the best-known
publishers in the Modern Athens, and this, perhaps, drawing his
attention to household matters, led to the publication of Mrs.
Rundell’s “Domestic Cookery Book.” It is said that the receipts came
from the note-book of the mother of the late Admiral Burney, with
whose family, be it remembered, he had been at school at Gosport.
This was the first and one of the most lucrative “hits” that Murray
made, and perhaps in the important items of £ s. d. rivalled “Childe
Harold” itself. Byron sings of it in playful jealousy:—
“Along thy sprucest book-shelves shine
The works thou deemest most divine,
The Art of Cookery and mine,
My Murray!”

Murray’s ambition however was not to be satisfied with the sop

of a successful cookery book. His marriage may be supposed to have
strengthened his interests in the Scotch metropolis, for in the
following year we find Constable offering him a fourth share in
Scott’s forthcoming poem of “Marmion.” “I am,” writes Murray on the
6th Feb., 1807, “truly sensible of the kind remembrance of me in
your liberal purchase. You have rendered Mr. Miller no less happy by
your admission of him; and we both view it as honourable, profitable,
and glorious to be concerned in the publication of a new poem by
Walter Scott.” For an account of the success of “Marmion” we must
refer the reader to the life of Archibald Constable; it is enough for
our present purpose to know that Murray afterwards said that this
fourth share, for which he paid £250, brought him in a return of fifty-
fold.
The publication of “Marmion” was followed by a connection with
Scott, who in the succeeding year edited for him Strutt’s “Queen Hoo
Hall.”
Scott had before this been concerned with Campbell in a
projected series of “Biographies of the Poets,” which had however
come to nothing. Murray now thought that Scott’s talents, and more
especially perhaps his name, would bestow certain success upon the
project; and we find Campbell, who had just made a “poet’s
marriage”—with love enough in his heart and genius enough in his
brain, but “with only fifty pounds in his writing desk”—inditing to
Scott as follows:—

“My dear Scott,—A very excellent and gentlemanly man—

albeit a bookseller—Murray of Fleet Street, is willing to give
 for our joint ‘Lives of the Poets,’ on the plan we proposed to
the trade a twelvemonth ago, a thousand pounds.... Murray is
the only gentleman in the trade except Constable.... I may
perhaps also except Hood. I have seldom seen a pleasanter
man to deal with. Our names are what he principally wants,
especially yours.... I do not wish even in confidence to say
anything ill of the London booksellers beyond their deserts;
but I can assure you that to compare this offer of Murray’s
with their usual offers is magnanimous indeed. Longman and
Rees and a few of the great booksellers have literally
monopolized the trade, and the business of literature is
getting a dreadful one indeed. The Row folks have done
nothing for me yet; I know not what they intend. The fallen
prices of literature—which is getting worse by the horrible
complexion of the times—make me often rather gloomy at the
life I am likely to lead. You may guess, therefore, my anxiety
to close with this proposal; and you may think me charitable
indeed to retain myself from wishing that you were as poor as
myself, that you might have motives to lend your aid.”

Scott, however, was too busy on higher paid work and was
obliged to decline the offer, and for the present Campbell went back
to his “hack-work.” Poor Campbell had suffered much from the
publishers. His “Pleasures of Hope” had been rejected by every
bookseller in Glasgow and Edinburgh; not one of them would even
risk paper and printing upon the chance of its success. At last
Messrs. Mundell and Son, printers to the University of Glasgow, with
much reluctance undertook its publication, upon the liberal condition
of allowing the author fifty copies at trade price, and, in the event of
its reaching a second edition, a gratuity of ten pounds. A few years
afterwards, when Campbell was present at a literary dinner party, he
was asked to give a toast, and without a moment’s hesitation he
proposed “Bonaparte.” Glasses were put down untouched, and
shouts of “The Ogre!” resounded. “Yes, gentlemen,” said Campbell
gravely, “here is to Bonaparte; he has just shot a bookseller!” Amid
shouts of applause, for the dinner was in “Bohemia,” the glasses
were jangled and the toast was drank, for the news had but just
arrived that Palm, a bookseller of Nuremburg, had been shot by the
Emperor’s orders.
Constable scarcely thought, when he offered the fourth share of
“Marmion” to Murray, that he was fostering a dangerous rival. Yet in
the very year after the publication of “Marmion” he was projecting a
rival quarterly, and the following letter to Canning, first printed in
“Barrow’s Autobiography,” shows that Murray is entitled to the whole
credit of the new scheme.

“September 25th, 1807.

“Sir,—I venture to address you upon a subject that is
perhaps not undeserving of one moment of your attention.
“There is a work entitled the Edinburgh Review, written
with such unquestionable talent that it has already attained an
extent of circulation not equalled by any similar publication.
The principles of this work are, however, so radically bad, that
I have been led to consider the effect which such sentiments,
so generally diffused, are likely to produce, and to think that
some means equally popular ought to be adopted to
counteract their dangerous tendency. But the publication in
question is conducted with so much ability, and is sanctioned
and circulated with such high and decisive authority by the
party of whose opinions it is the organ, that there is little hope
of producing against it any effectual opposition, unless it arise
from you, sir, and from your friends. Should you, sir, think the
idea worthy of encouragement I should, with equal pride and
willingness, engage my arduous exertions to promote its
success; but as my object is nothing short of producing a
work of the greatest talent and importance, I shall entertain it
no longer, if it be not so fortunate as to obtain the high
patronage which I have thus, sir, taken the liberty to solicit.
“Permit me to add, sir, that the person who thus
addresses you is no adventurer, but a man of some property,
 including a business that has been established for nearly half
a century. I therefore trust that my application will be
attributed to its proper motives, and that your goodness will
at least pardon its intrusion.
“I have the honour to be, Sir, &c., &c.,
“John Murray.”

Canning read the letter, and though for the present it was put
away in his desk unanswered, the contents were not forgotten, for a
few years before this he had heard Murray’s name mentioned in a
very honourable way. Some Etonians, among them Canning’s
nephew, had started a periodical called the Miniature, which brought
them some fame, but left them under a pecuniary loss. Murray, with
his usual good nature, and with something of the tact which
afterwards made him so many powerful friends, took all copies off
their hands, paid all their expenses, and though he found little
demand for the work, offered to print a new edition. This was a trait
of character that, with a clear-headed, far-seeing man like Canning,
would probably go far. As yet, however, the Principal Secretary for
Foreign Affairs, though he gave the matter careful consideration, did
not care to commit himself upon paper.
Two months, however, before this letter Scott and Southey had
been corresponding about the Edinburgh Review, Southey stating
that he felt himself unable to contribute to a periodical of such
political views, and Scott heartily agreeing in deprecating the general
tone of the Review.
Early in 1808, a very severe article came out in the Review anent
“Marmion.” Murray pricked up his ears, and, as he afterwards told
Lockhart, “When I read the article on ‘Marmion,’ and another on
general politics in the same number of the Review I said to myself,
‘Walter Scott has feelings both as a gentleman and as a Tory, which
those people must now have wounded. The alliance between him
and the whole clique of the Edinburgh Review, the proprietor
included, is shaken,’” “and,” adds Lockhart, “as far at least as the
political part of the affair was concerned, John Murray’s sagacity was
not at fault.”
Murray saw that the right way to approach Scott was through the
Ballantynes’ printing press, in which Scott at this time was a secret
partner, and in which he always expressed openly the greatest
interest. So urgent did Murray’s tenders of work become that a
meeting at Ferrybridge, in Yorkshire, was arranged; and here Murray
received from Ballantyne the gratifying news that Scott had
quarrelled with Constable, and that it was resolved to establish a rival
firm. Murray, who never wasted an opportunity from lack of decision,
posted on to Ashestiel and had an interview with Scott himself, and
the proposal of a new quarterly Tory periodical was eagerly snatched
at. Strangely enough Murray arrived just as Scott, after reading an
article on Spanish matters, had written to have his name erased from
the list of subscribers to the Edinburgh. Murray was able to
announce, too, that Gifford, the editor of the late Anti-Jacobin, had
promised co-operation, and in a letter to Gifford we see Scott’s
satisfaction clearly enough:—
“John Murray of Fleet Street, a young bookseller of capital and
enterprize, and with more good sense and propriety of sentiment
than fall to the share of most of the trade, made me a visit at
Ashestiel a few weeks ago, and as I found he had had some
communication with you on the subject, I did not hesitate to
communicate my sentiments to him on these and some other points
of the plan, and I thought his ideas were most liberal and
satisfactory.”
Soon after Canning wrote to the Lord Advocate on the subject,
and the Lord Advocate communicated with Scott, who recommended
that in all things save politics the Edinburgh should be taken as a
model, especially in the liberal payment of all contributors, and in the
unfettered judgment of the editor. Gifford was unanimously fixed on
as fitted for the editorial chair. That he possessed vigour was
apparent from his success—a plough-boy, a sailor, a cobbler, then a
classical scholar, the translator of “Juvenal,” the biting satirist of the
“Baviad and Mæviad,” the brilliant editor of the Anti-Jacobin, who so
well suited to out-rival Jeffrey?
All the talent available was secured. Scott came to town to be
present at the birth of the expected prodigy, and well he might, for
three of the articles in the first number were his own. Rose, and
young Disraeli, and Hookham Frere, and Robert Southey—the future
back-bone of the Review—were all represented, and on 1st February,
1809, the first number of the Quarterly Review was published.
According to tradition there were high jinks at Murray’s shop in Fleet
Street when the first numbers arrived from the binders; a triumphal
column of the books “was raised aloft in solemn joy in the counting-
house, the best wine in the cellar was uncorked, and glasses in hand
John Murray and assistants danced jubilant round the pile.” The pile,
however, did not long remain, as so many famous columns have
done to mock the hope of its builders, but the whole issue was sold
almost immediately, and a second edition was called for.
To the second number Canning himself contributed, and received
his payment of ten guineas per sheet. Barrow, too, was introduced,
who contributed, in all, no less than one hundred and ninety-five
articles, “on every subject, from ‘China’ to ‘Life Assurance.’” After
Barrow and Croker, Southey was, perhaps, the most prolific; to the
first hundred and twenty-six numbers he contributed ninety-four
articles—many of them of great permanent value—and to him Murray
uniformly exhibited a generosity almost without parallel. For an
article on the “Lives of Nelson,” he received twenty guineas a sheet,
double what Southey himself acknowledged to be ample, and he was
offered £100 to enlarge the article into a volume, and having
exceeded the estimated quantity of print, Murray paid him double the
amount stipulated, adding another 200 guineas when the book was
revised for the “Family Library.” For the review of the “Life of
Wellington,” Southey got £100, and he thought the sum so large that
he himself calls it “a ridiculous price;” yet this ridiculous price he
continued to receive, and he was in the habit of saying that he was
as much overpaid for his articles by Murray, as he was underpaid for
the rest of his work for other publishers. “Madoc,” of which he had
great hopes, brought him £3 19s. 1d. for the first twelvemonth, and
the three volumes of the “History of the Brazils,” scarcely paid their
expenses of publication.
Of the other contributors it is unnecessary to speak fully here;
but the Review, now that it was established, gave Murray at once a
pre-eminence in the London trade, by bringing him into connection
with the chief Conservative statesmen, and with the principal literary
men in England.
The alliance that Murray had formed with the Ballantynes was
soon dissolved, for Murray, though venturous enough, was a man of
business, and their loose, slip-shod way of general dealings, did not
at all satisfy his requirements. William Blackwood, then a dealer in
antiquarian books, was chosen instead as Edinburgh agent, and, in
conjunction with him, Murray purchased the first series of the “Tales
of My Landlord.” This was in 1816, and some payments for Quarterly
Review articles was well-nigh the last business communication
between Scott and Murray.
Now that Murray had so completely rivalled Constable in one line
—that of the Review—he wished to rival him in another. Constable
had made an apparent fortune out of Scott’s poetry, in which Murray
had in one case, to the extent of one quarter, participated. Scott had,
it is true, left Constable, but was for the present unalienable from the
Ballantynes, who at this moment enjoyed the dubious services of a
London branch.
Looking round among the young and rising writers of the day, for
one who was likely to enhance the fame and increase the wealth of
his house, Murray mentally selected Lord Byron, then known, not
only as the noble poetaster of the “Hours of Idleness,” but as the
bitterest satirist who had dipped pen in gall since Pope had lashed
the hack-writers of his time in the “Dunciad.” Murray made no secret
of his wish to secure Byron as a client, and the rumour of this desire
reached the ears of Mr. Dallas, the novelist, who happened at that
very moment to be seeking a publisher for a new poem in two
cantos, by his distant cousin and dear college chum, Lord Byron.
Byron had just arrived from the East, bringing with him a satire,
entitled “Hints from Horace,” of which he was not a little hopeful, and
also, as he casually mentions, a “new attempt in the Spenserian
stanza.” Dallas read the “new attempt,” and, enthralled by its beauty,
forthwith undertook securing its publication. But, even in those days
of venturous publishers and successful poems, the matter looked
easier than it proved. Longman declined to publish a poem by a
writer who had so recently lashed his own favourite authors. Miller, of
Abermarle Street, a notable man in his day, and generous withal
(had he not given the widow of the late Charles James Fox £1500 for
her defunct husband’s historical fragments, and did he not eagerly
snatch at one-fourth share of “Marmion?”) would have none of it, his
noble patron, Lord Elgin, being abused in the very first canto. Dallas
then appears to have heard a rumour of Murray’s willingness; the
manuscript was taken to him, and £600 was offered, there and then,
for the copyright. Byron was at that time unwilling to receive money
for work done solely for love and fame; he had lately attacked Scott
in a directly personal manner, as “Apollo’s venal son:”—
“Though Murray with his Miller may combine
To yield thy Muse just half-a-crown per line!”

and generously made a present of the copyright to Dallas—a brother

author, less gifted in purse and brain—and thus the bargain was
concluded. This was the commencement of a friendship between
author and publisher which has, perhaps, only one parallel in literary
annals—that of Scott and Constable. From the letters between Byron
and Murray we can discern clearly that the connection, tinged as it
was with much generous feeling on both sides, was far from being of
a purely commercial nature.
“Childe Harold,” for this, of course, is the poem referred to, was
“put in hand” at once. Quartos were then in vogue for all books likely
to attract attention, and Murray insisted that profit as well as
portliness was to be found therein. Byron was for octavos and
popularity; but as he said wofully at the end of one of his letters,
“one must obey one’s bookseller.” During the progress of the printing,
Byron would lounge into the shop in Fleet Street, fresh from Angelo’s
and Jackson’s. “His great amusement,” says Murray, “was in making
thrusts with his stick, in fencer’s fashion, at the ‘sprucebooks,’ as he
called them, which I had arranged upon my shelves. He disordered a
row for me in a short time, always hitting the volume he had singled
out for the exercise of his skill. I was sometimes, as you will guess,
glad to get rid of him.” As for correction, Byron was willing enough to
defer at any time to Murray’s advice, upon all questions but politics,
though only to a limited extent: “If you don’t like it, say so, and I’ll
alter it, but don’t suggest anything instead.” In one letter we find a
strange absence of a young writer’s anxiety anent the importance of
typography. “The printer may place the notes in his own way, or in
any way, so that they are out of my way.” In another: “You have
looked at it? to much purpose, to allow so stupid a blunder to stand;
it is not ‘courage,’ but ‘carnage,’ and if you don’t want to see me cut
my own throat see it altered!” Again, but later, “If every syllable were
a rattlesnake, or every letter a pestilence, they should not be
expunged.” “I do believe the Devil never created or perverted such a
fiend as the fool of a printer.” “For God’s sake,” he writes in another
place, “instruct Mr. Murray not to allow his shopman to call the work
‘Child of Harrow’s Pilgrimage!!!’ as he has done to some of my
astonished friends, who wrote to inquire after my sanity on the
occasion, as well they might!” To John Murray we imagine Lord Byron
must have appeared as much of a contradiction as he did to the
world outside.
Byron was extremely anxious that no underhand means should
be used to foster the success of “Childe Harold.” “Has Murray,” he
writes to Dallas, “shown the work to any one? He may—but I will
have no traps for applause.” On receipt of a rumour from Dallas, he
indites a stormy letter to Murray, absolutely forbidding that Gifford
should be allowed to look at the book before publication. Before the
letter arrived, however, Gifford had expressed a very strong opinion,
indeed, as to the merit of the poem, which he declared to “be equal
to anything of the present day.” Byron wrote again to Murray, “as
never publisher was written to before by author:”—“It is bad enough
to be a scribbler, without having recourse to such shifts to escape
from or deprecate censure. It is anticipating, begging, kneeling,
adulating—the devil! the devil! the devil! and all without my wish,
and contrary to my desire.”
In the early spring of 1812, “Childe Harold” was ready, and three
days before its appearance, Byron made his maiden speech in the
House of Lords; a speech which was received with attention and
hailed with applause, from those whose applause was in itself fame.
It is needless here to recapitulate the success of “Childe Harold,”
how, on the day after publication, Lord Byron awoke, and, as he
himself phrased it, found himself famous.
The publication of “Childe Harold,” was not the only important
event of this year, 1812, to the subject of our memoir. In this same
year, Murray purchased the stock-in-trade of worthy Mr. Miller, of 50,
Albemarle Street, and migrated thither, leaving the old shop, east of
Temple Bar, to be re-occupied by-and-by (in 1832) by the Highley
family.
Here it was, at Albemarle Street, that Murray attained the highest
pinnacle of fame on which ever publisher stood. His drawing-room,
at four o’clock, became the favourite resort of all the talent in
literature and in art that London then possessed, and there were
giants in those days. There it was his “custom of an afternoon,” to
gather together such men as Byron, Scott, Moore, Campbell,
Southey, Gifford, Hallam, Lockhart, Washington Irving, and Mrs.
Somerville; and, more than this, he invited such artists as Laurence,
Wilkie, Phillips, Newton, and Pickersgill to meet them and to paint
them, that they might hang for ever on his walls. Famous tales, too,
are told of the “publisher’s dinners;” of tables surrounded as never
any king’s table but that of the “Emperor of the West’s” had ever
been. As Byron makes Murray say, in his mock epistle to Dr.
Palidori—
 “The room’s so full of wits and bards,
Crabbes, Campbells, Crokers, Freres, and Wards,
And others, neither bards nor wits,
My humble tenement admits
All persons in the dress of gent,
From Mr. Hammond to Dog Dent.
A party dines with me to-day,
All clever men who make their way;
Crabbe, Malcolm, Hamilton, and Chantrey
Are all partakers of my pantry.
* * * * *
My room’s so full—we’ve Gifford here,
Reading MS. with Hookham Frere,
Pronouncing on the nouns and particles
Of some of our forthcoming articles.”

Mr. Planché, in his recently-published “Recollections,” gives us an

amusing account of one of these literary réunions; this time,
however, at the house of Horace Twiss. Murray, James Smith, and
others remained in the dining-room very late, and the party grew
noisy and merry, for Hook was giving some of his wonderful
extempore songs. Pressed for another, he declared that the subject
should be “John Murray;” but the “Emperor of the West” objected
most vehemently, and vainly chased Hook round the table in furtive
endeavours to stop a recitative, of which Planché only remembers
the beginning:—
“My friend, John Murray, I see, has arrived at the head of the table,
And the wonder is, at this time of night, that John Murray should be
able.
He’s an excellent hand at supper, and not a bad hand at lunch,
But the devil of John Murray is, that he never will pass the punch!”

Among the many instances of Murray’s munificence was the offer

of £3000 to Crabbe for his “Tales of the Hall,” and the copyright of
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