The 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.
[Illustration: 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 19_s._ 1_d._ 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 his prior
works. Some zealous friends, however, thought this too small a sum,
and opened negotiations with another firm, but the other firm offered
considerably less; and Crabbe, fearing that Murray might consider the
bargain as out of his hands entirely now, went straightway to Albemarle
Street with Rogers and Moore as mediators. Murray, however, assured
them that he had from the first considered the matter as entirely
settled.
Lord Byron’s personal connection with the Albemarle Street clique
was of comparatively short existence, for, in 1816, he left England
for the last time; but to the time of his death he kept up a regular
correspondence with Murray of the frankest and most cordial kind. Now,
Murray hearing that Lord Byron was in difficulties, sends him a draft
for £1500, promising another for the same amount in the course of a few
months, and offering to sell the copyright of his works for his use,
if that were not sufficient. Then, again, in a freak, Byron presents
Murray with “Parisina” and the “Siege of Corinth,” and returns the
cheque for £1000 which the publisher had forwarded.
“Your offer is liberal in the extreme, and much more than the two poems
can possibly be worth; but I cannot accept it, nor will not. You are
most welcome to them as an addition to the collected volumes, without
any demand or expectation on my part whatever.
“P.S.--I have enclosed your draft, _torn_, for fear of accidents by the
way. I wish you would not throw temptation in mine; it is not from a
disdain of the universal idol, nor from a present superfluity of his
treasures, I can assure you, that I refuse to worship him; but what is
right is right, and must not yield to circumstances.”