"MARMION"--CONSTABLES AND BALLANTYNES--THE "EDINBURGH REVIEW"
Mr. Murray was twenty-nine years old at the time of his marriage. That
he was full of contentment as well as hope at this time may be inferred
from his letter to Constable three weeks after his marriage:
_John Murray to Mr. Constable_.
_March 27, 1807_.
"I declare to you that I am every day more content with my lot. Neither
my wife nor I have any disposition for company or going out; and you may
rest assured that I shall devote all my attention to business, and that
your concerns will not be less the object of my regard merely because
you have raised mine so high. Every moment, my dear Constable, I feel
more grateful to you, and I trust that you will over find me your
faithful friend.--J.M."
Some of the most important events in Murray's career occurred during the
first year of his married life. Chief among them may perhaps be
mentioned his part share in the publication of "Marmion" (in February
1808)--which brought him into intimate connection with Walter Scott--and
his appointment for a time as publisher in London of the _Edinburgh
Review_; for he was thus brought into direct personal contact with those
forces which ultimately led to the chief literary enterprise of his
life--the publication of the _Quarterly Review_.
Mr. Scott called upon Mr. Murray in London shortly after the return of
the latter from his marriage in Edinburgh.
"Mr. Scott called upon me on Tuesday, and we conversed for an hour....
He appears very anxious that 'Marmion' should be published by the
King's birthday.... He said he wished it to be ready by that time for
very particular reasons; and yet he allows that the poem is not
completed, and that he is yet undetermined if he shall make his hero
happy or otherwise."
The other important event, to which allusion has been made, was the
transfer to Mr. Murray of part of the London agency for the _Edinburgh
Review_. At the beginning of 1806 Murray sold 1,000 copies of the
_Review_ on the day of its publication, and the circulation was steadily
increasing. Constable proposed to transfer the entire London publication
to Murray, but the Longmans protested, under the terms of their existing
agreement. In April 1807 they employed as their attorney Mr. Sharon
Turner, one of Murray's staunchest allies. Turner informed him, through
a common friend, of his having been retained by the Longmans; but Murray
said he could not in any way "feel hurt at so proper and indispensable a
pursuit of his profession." The opinion of counsel was in favour of the
Messrs. Longman's contention, and of their "undisputable rights to
one-half of the _Edinburgh Review_ so long as it continues to be
published under that title."
Longman & Co. accordingly obtained an injunction to prevent the
publication of the _Edinburgh Review_ by any other publisher in London
without their express consent.
Matters were brought to a crisis by the following letter, written by the
editor, Mr. Francis Jeffrey, to Messrs. Constable & Co.:
_June 1_, 1807.
GENTLEMEN,
I believe you understand already that neither I nor any of the original
and regular writers in the _Review_ will ever contribute a syllable to a
work belonging to booksellers. It is proper, however, to announce this
to you distinctly, that you may have no fear of hardship or
disappointment in the event of Mr. Longman succeeding in his claim to
the property of this work. If that claim be not speedily rejected or
abandoned, it is our fixed resolution to withdraw entirely from the
_Edinburgh Review_; to publish to all the world that the conductor and
writers of the former numbers have no sort of connection with those that
may afterwards appear; and probably to give notice of our intention to
establish a new work of a similar nature under a different title.
I have the honour to be, gentlemen,
Your very obedient servant,
F. JEFFREY.
A copy of this letter was at once forwarded to Messrs. Longman.
Constable, in his communication accompanying it, assured the publishers
that, in the event of the editor and contributors to the _Edinburgh
Review_ withdrawing from the publication and establishing a new
periodical, the existing _Review_ would soon be of no value either to
proprietors or publishers, and requested to be informed whether they
would not be disposed to transfer their interest in the property, and,
if so, on what considerations. Constable added: "We are apprehensive
that the editors will not postpone for many days longer that public
notification of their secession, which we cannot help anticipating as
the death-blow of the publication."
Jeffrey's decision seems to have settled the matter. Messrs. Longman
agreed to accept £1,000 for their claim of property in the title and
future publication of the _Edinburgh Review_. The injunction was
removed, and the London publication of the _Review_ was forthwith
transferred to John Murray, 32, Fleet Street, under whose auspices No.
22 accordingly appeared.
Thus far all had gone on smoothly. But a little cloud, at first no
bigger than a man's hand, made its appearance, and it grew and grew
until it threw a dark shadow over the friendship of Constable and
Murray, and eventually led to their complete separation. This was the
system of persistent drawing of accommodation bills, renewals of bills,
and promissory notes. Constable began to draw heavily upon Murray in
April 1807, and the promissory notes went on accumulating until they
constituted a mighty mass of paper money. Murray's banker cautioned him
against the practice. But repeated expostulation was of no use against
the impetuous needs of Constable & Co. Only two months after the
transfer of the publication of the _Review_ to Mr. Murray, we find him
writing to "Dear Constable" as follows:
_John Murray to Mr. Archd. Constable_.
_October 1, 1807_.
"I should not have allowed myself time to write to you to-day, were not
the occasion very urgent. Your people have so often of late omitted to
give you timely notice of the day when my acceptances fell due, that I
have suffered an inconvenience too great for me to have expressed to
you, had it not occurred so often that it is impossible for me to
undergo the anxiety which it occasions. A bill of yours for £200 was due
yesterday, and I have been obliged to supply the means for paying it,
without any notice for preparation.... I beg of you to insist upon this
being regulated, as I am sure you must desire it to be, so that I may
receive the cash for your bills two days at least before they are due."
Mr. Murray then gives a list of debts of his own (including some of
Constable's) amounting to £1,073, which he has to pay in the following
week. From a cash account made out by Mr. Murray on October 3, it
appears that the bill transactions with Constable had become enormous;
they amounted to not less than £10,000.
The correspondence continued in the same strain, and it soon became
evident that this state of things could not be allowed to continue.
Reconciliations took place from time to time, but interruptions again
occurred, mostly arising from the same source--a perpetual flood of
bills and promissory notes, from one side and the other--until Murray
found it necessary to put an end to it peremptorily. Towards the end of
1808 Messrs. Constable established at No. 10 Ludgate Street a London
house for the sale of the _Edinburgh Review_, and the other works in
which they were concerned, under the title of Constable, Hunter, Park &
Hunter. This, doubtless, tended to widen the breach between Constable
and Murray, though it left the latter free to enter into arrangements
for establishing a Review of his own, an object which he had already
contemplated.
There were many books in which the two houses had a joint interest, and,
therefore, their relations could not be altogether discontinued.
"Marmion" was coming out in successive editions; but the correspondence
between the publishers grew cooler and cooler, and Constable had
constant need to delay payments and renew bills.
Mr. Murray had also considerable bill transactions with Ballantyne & Co.
of Edinburgh. James and John Ballantyne had been schoolfellows of Walter
Scott at Kelso, and the acquaintance there formed was afterwards
renewed. James Ballantyne established the _Kelso Mail_ in 1796, but at
the recommendation of Scott, for whom he had printed a collection of
ballads, he removed to Edinburgh in 1802. There he printed the "Border
Minstrelsy," for Scott, who assisted him with money. Ballantyne was in
frequent and intimate correspondence with Murray from the year 1806, and
had printed for him Hogg's "Ettrick Shepherd," and other works.
It was at this time that Scott committed the great error of his life.
His professional income was about £1,000 a year, and with the profits of
his works he might have built Abbotsford and lived in comfort and
luxury. But in 1805 he sacrificed everything by entering into
partnership with James Ballantyne, and embarking in his printing concern
almost the whole of the capital which he possessed. He was bound to the
firm for twenty years, and during that time he produced his greatest
works. It is true that but for the difficulties in which he was latterly
immersed, we might never have known the noble courage with which he met
and rose superior to misfortune.
In 1808 a scheme of great magnitude was under contemplation by Murray
and the Ballantynes. It was a uniform edition of the "British
Novelists," beginning with De Foe, and ending with the novelists at the
close of last century; with biographical prefaces and illustrative notes
by Walter Scott. A list of the novels, written in the hand of John
Murray, includes thirty-six British, besides eighteen foreign authors.
The collection could not have been completed in less than two hundred
volumes. The scheme, if it did not originate with Walter Scott, had at
least his cordial support.
Mr. Murray not unreasonably feared the cost of carrying such an
undertaking to completion. It could not have amounted to less than
twenty thousand pounds. Yet the Ballantynes urged him on. They furnished
statements of the cost of printing and paper for each volume. "It really
strikes me," said James Ballantyne, "the more I think of and examine it,
to be the happiest speculation that has ever been thought of."
This undertaking eventually fell through. Only the works of De Foe were
printed by the Messrs. Ballantyne, and published by Mr. Murray. The
attention of the latter became absorbed by a subject of much greater
importance to him--the establishment of the _Quarterly Review_. This for
a time threw most of his other schemes into the shade.