| ( 61 ) |
It was in 1817 that Mr. Hallam applied to Mr. Murray to become the publisher of his ‘View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages;’ but it cannot now be ascertained whether he was originally introduced to the publisher by any one of their common friends. The early negotiations respecting the work—which was immediately accepted, and published in two volumes quarto in 1818—were conducted chiefly by means of personal interviews, and the correspondence of this period is confined to matters of no general interest; but the acquaintance thus formed led to a close friendship, which lasted unbroken till Mr. Murray’s death.
Towards the end of 1817, Mr. Murray
received a letter from a new correspondent respecting the publication of his ‘Voyage to the West Coast of Corea and the
Loo-choo Islands.’ This was from Captain Basil
Hall, son of Sir James Hall of
Dunglas, whose work on ‘Gothic
Architecture’ Mr. Murray had published some years
before. Captain Hall was a popular writer, and kept the public amused
as well as instructed by his descriptions of life at sea and on land, in his numerous
‘Fragments of Voyages and
Travels.’ He first wrote to Mr. Murray from
Portsmouth, immediately on landing from the East.
| 62 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY |
“It is a serious annoyance to lose such a document, and I am half tempted to advertise for it. Your note of the 11th gave me very great pleasure indeed, and I have now no more anxiety on the subject. The personal regard which you express towards me is not, I fully trust, thrown away on a man who will trifle with it. As to terms about the book, I will see you upon this subject when I come up—probably on Tuesday morning. I do want some ready money, certainly, to pay off a plaguey debt, but I have a strong desire to keep up some kind of interest in this ‘Cruize’—not, as you may believe, from any avaricious motive, but from a feeling that I could act along with you pleasantly and disinterestedly, and that the purposes of both would be better answered than by our cutting the connection. But you must be the best judge, and, as I have no concealment at any time, I shall not use any ceremony with you on this occasion. My heart is quite broken about the poor Princess!* I cry like a child still any moment over the papers.
A year later he wrote:—
“I wish you joy of your Three Voyages of Discovery.† Happy ‘Loo-choo,’ to have come a year before! I don’t know how to thank you for your very kind and interesting letter. It gave me exactly the sort of information I valued most, and happened at that moment to be in want of. If you could snatch a spare moment to let me know about this affair of Ellis’s, it would be a great favour.”
|
* Princess Charlotte, who died on November 6. |
|
† Captain Tuckey’s ‘Voyage to the Congo,’ Dr. Macleod’s ‘Voyage of the Alceste,’ William Mariner’s ‘Voyage to the Tonga Islands.’ |
| ELLIS’S EMBASSY TO CHINA | 63 |
Mr. Murray having sent some works to the Marquess of Abercorn—amongst them Mr. (afterwards Sir) Henry Ellis’s ‘Proceedings of Lord Amherst’s Embassy to China,’* which is alluded to in the previous extract—the Marchioness, at her husband’s request, wrote to the publisher as follows:—
“He returns Walpole, as he says since the age of fifteen he has read so much Grecian history and antiquity that he has these last ten years been sick of the subject. He does not like Ellis’s account of ‘The Embassy to China,’† but is pleased with Macleod’s‡ narrative. He bids me tell you to say the best and what is least obnoxious of the [former] book. The composition and the narrative are so thoroughly wretched that he should be ashamed to let it stand in his library. He will be obliged to you to send him Leyden’s ‘Africa.’ Leyden was a friend of his, and desired leave to dedicate to him while he lived.”
|
† Ellis seems to have been made very uncomfortable by the publication of his book. It was severely reviewed in the Times, where it was said that the account (then in the press) by Clark Abel, M.D., Principal Medical Officer and Naturalist to the Embassy, would be greatly superior. On this Ellis wrote to Murray (19th October, 1817): “An individual has seldom committed an act so detrimental to his interests as I have done in this unfortunate publication; and I shall be too happy when the lapse of time will allow of my utterly forgetting the occurrence. I am already indifferent to literary criticism, and had almost forgotten Abel’s approaching competition.” The work went through two editions. |
| 64 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY |
Mr. Murray, in his reply, deprecated the severity of the Marquess of Abercorn’s criticism on the work of Sir H. Ellis, who had done the best that he could on a subject of exceeding interest.
“I am now printing Captain Hall’s account (he commanded the Lyra), and I will venture to assure your Ladyship that it is one of the most delightful books I ever read, and it is calculated to heal the wound inflicted by poor Ellis. I believe I desired my people to send you Godwin’s novel, which is execrably bad. But in most cases book readers must balance novelty against disappointment.”
Lady Abercorn having asked Mr. Murray to send her ‘Rob Roy’ and the Fourth Canto of ‘Childe Harold,’ he quietly asked her:—
“Shall I withhold ‘Rob Roy’ and ‘Childe Harold’ from your Ladyship until their merits have been ascertained? Even if an indifferent book, it is something to be amongst the first to say that it is bad. You will be alarmed, I fear, at having provoked so many reasons for sending you dull publications. I would have added more, did I not flatter myself that you are aware that my business is to buy, and publish, and scatter books by the thousand among the retail dealers, and that it is rather as an amusement and a pleasure that I send them to those individuals only whom I know to be lovers of and encouragers of literature; and so I entreat you to send back all those you do not like. I have not received the Fourth Canto. Mr. Hobhouse is to be the bearer of it, and proposes to arrive some time this month. I am printing two short but very clever novels by poor Miss Austen, the author of ‘Pride and Prejudice.’ I send Leyden’s ‘Africa’ for Lord Abercorn, who will be glad to hear that the ‘Life and Posthumous Writings’ will be ready soon.”
The Marchioness, in her answer to the above letter, thanked Mr. Murray for his very entertaining answer to her letter, and said:—
| Proposed ‘Monthly Register.’ | 65 |
“Lord Abercorn says he thinks your conduct with respect to sending books back that he does not like is particularly liberal. He bids me tell you how very much he likes Mr. Macleod’s book; we had seen some of it in manuscript before it was published. We are very anxious for Hall’s account, and I trust you will send it to us the moment you can get a copy finished.
“No, indeed! you must not (though desirous you may be to punish us for the severity of the criticism on poor Ellis) keep back for a moment ‘Rob Roy’ or the fourth canto of ‘Childe Harold.’ I have heard a good deal from Scotland that makes me continue surmising who is the author of these novels. Our friend Walter paid a visit last summer to a gentleman on the banks of Loch Lomond*—the scene of Rob Roy’s exploits—and was at great pains to learn all the traditions of the country regarding him from the clergyman and old people of the neighbourhood, of which he got a considerable stock. I am very glad to hear of a ‘Life of Leyden.’ He was a very surprising young man, and his death is a great loss to the world. Pray send us Miss Austen’s novels the moment you can. Lord Abercorn thinks them next to W. Scott’s (if they are by W. Scott); it is a great pity that we shall have no more of hers. Who are the Quarterly Reviewers? I hear that Lady Morgan suspects Mr. Croker of having reviewed her ‘France,’ and intends to be revenged, &c.
From many communications addressed to Mr. Murray about the beginning of 1818, it appears that he had proposed to start a Monthly Register,† and he set up in
* Cf. allusion in Mrs. Graham’s letter, p. 38. |
| 66 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY |
Our friend Sepping* says, “Nothing is stronger than its weakest part,” and this is as true in book-making as in shipbuilding. I am sorry to say your Register has, in my opinion, a great many weak parts. It is for nobody’s use; it is too popular and trivial for the learned, and too abstruse and plodding for the multitude. The preface is not English, nor yet Scotch or Irish. It must have been written by Lady Morgan. In the body of the volume, there is not one new nor curious article, unless it be Lady Hood’s ‘Tiger Hunt.’ In your Mechanics there is a miserable want of information, and in your Statistics there is a sad superabundance of American hyperbole and dulness mixed together, like the mud and gunpowder which, when a boy, I used to mix together to make a fizz. Your Poetry is so bad that I look upon it as your personal kindness to me that you did not put my lines under that head. Your criticism on Painting begins by calling West’s very pale horse “an extraordinary effort of human genius.” Your criticism on Sculpture begins by applauding before-hand Mr. Wyatt’s impudent cenotaph. Your criticism on the Theatre begins by denouncing the best production of its kind, ‘The Beggar’s Opera.’ Your article on Engraving puts under the head of Italy a stone drawing made in Paris. Your own engraving of the Polar Regions is confused and dirty; and your article on the Polar Seas sets
human knowledge. To be printed uniformly with the Quarterly Review. The price by the year will be £2 2s.” |
* A Naval surveyor. |
| FATE OF THE ‘MONTHLY REGISTER.’ | 67 |
The letter from Thomas Murdoch was equally severe. He observed:—
“I return the Journal, but I cannot regret that it is a still-born bantling. Had it come into the world alone, it has such incurable constitutional defects as must have hurried it to an early grave, after occasioning an infinity of trouble and sorrow to its parents and relations.
Could save it from that worst of curses, The curse (unread, unsold, each number) Of being left your shelves to cumber.’ |
“Yet there are many good articles—nay, some that are
excellent in it; but there is, even in this first number, a portion of ‘such
reading as is never read’—heavy rubbish, which would soon overcome the
buoyancy of the better materials, and sink the journal down to the level of a common
gossipy magazine. . . . The admirable article on the ‘Polar Ice’ ought to
be published in some publication whose character is respectable, and whose circulation
is
| 68 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY |
After a good deal more satire on the proposed monthly, Murdoch concludes: “I have written—read who can.” The project was eventually abandoned. Murray entered into the arrangement, already described, with Blackwood, of the Edinburgh Magazine. The article on the “Polar Ice” was inserted in the Quarterly.
Murray’s faithful friend Mr. Isaac D’Israeli had now finished his ‘Literary Character, illustrated by the History of Men of Genius.’ Shortly after the publication of the work, in August 1818, he went to Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire, and remained there for about three months.
Although we are agreeably enough buried alive at this place,
perhaps you may expect me to give some signs of life. We are, it is said, not
above twenty-three miles from London, but, to all intents and purposes, if you
add one or two hundred more, you will be nearer the fact. My hairdresser makes
a circuit of eight miles every day to smooth my chin, and sometimes we are in
danger of wanting a dinner. It was with your usual kindness that you sent us
the ‘Heart of
Midlothian,’ which we return with our best thanks. All that
concerns the Deans family, David and Jeanie, is the
masterly production of the same genius, and I like the broad and natural humour
of many of the characters. Character-painting is his forte, and he is both pathetic and humorous. With all these
excellences there is too much alloy of modern romance-writing in the fourth
volume, where the incidents are heaped together with little more ability than
in Lane’s circulators. But the
first of
| STOKE-POGES. | 69 |
Mr. Stewart [Mr. Murray’s clerk] has been so attentive as to send me down the Observer, without which I should scarcely know that such a place as the Metropolis existed. We have here most elegant pleasure-grounds, with a good imitation of Lord Grenville’s Dropmore, which is not above two miles and a half from us, and our out-gardens and orchards; but, in consequence of the heavens refusing us a drop of water for three months, our two cows will give us no butter, and our vegetable gardens will not furnish us with a meal. So that the country has its disappointments as well as the town. . . .
P.S.—The most remarkable thing here is Mr. Penn’s house at Stoke. It has an air of magnificence in its architectural appearance, its library, and its ornamental grounds. He has raised a fine monument to the poet Gray, with a very fortunate inscription, for it stands in the midst of the scenery which is identified with his poetry. Gray resided at Stoke, and the churchyard, in the midst of Mr. Penn’s grounds, is the one which inspired the ‘Elegy.’ In the churchyard is the tombstone raised by the poet to his aunt and his mother—and there he lies, the spot unmarked by a stone! The yew-tree and the mouldering heaps, &c., are all before you.
Mr. Murray, however, was too busy to make many
country visits. He was asked at the same time by Lady
Mackintosh to visit her at Murdocks, near Ware, Herts. “Do
come,” she said, “and visit us in our solitude. Malthus will meet you if you come.” He was also
urgently invited to visit Lady Caroline Lamb at
Brockett Hall. She held out the great inducement that he should see the loveliest woman in
England. Mr. W. S. Rose, whose ‘Letters from the North of Italy’
Murray had published, invited him to “come down and visit
him at Gundimore, near Christ Church, Hants, where he would be
| 70 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY |
The next letter he received from Isaac D’Israeli referred to his Northern visit:—
On Saturday we were greatly surprised by a letter from Mrs. Murray, dated at London, and with an account of your return from your Northern expedition. Yesterday we passed anxiously in expectation of your appearance; and this day is beautiful—so you have lost a day. We wish much to see you, and whenever you come you can be always certain of an excellent bedroom.
I long to hear how your new enterprise [Blackwood’s Magazine] is unfolding itself. On their side they have sent forth their note of gratulation, in their whimsical poet, on “this league with Mr. Murray.” Some young men of great promise they have got, and some I think do rather promise than perform. Three months are now closing on me, in which I am innocent of having once dipped into ink, and I believe I may promise I shall not again. But though engaging in no glorious adventures with a ship of my own any more, I’ll be glad to be useful to you, as a pilot about the narrow coast in which I have foolishly spent my days.
I congratulate you on your absence from the place this day; a
storm of wind and rain is playing about my ears, which may hinder me from
sending off this letter, as we are above a mile from the village. But I can
find no subject for congratulation in regard to next week. We are very
reluctantly obliged to deny ourselves the pleasure of receiving Mrs. Murray and yourself on next Sunday; for
| THE REV. GEORGE CRABBE. | 71 |
I am gratified to hear of any honourable mention of myself, but I have long been expecting others of a different cast. Pray, has any notice whatever been taken in the Reviews of ‘The Literary Character’? Here I am quite out of the reach of anything of this sort. My Verse will never give you any trouble, and I think my Prose will end as has my Verse. It is true, I have some things respecting Books and Authors which are new to the lovers of books, and I might give them with propriety, could I hit upon some plan; but the days of enterprise are closed. It is true that I have not dipped my pen here for literary purposes; but I have passed three months in pretty close reading of some of the best divinity which I found at my hands in Mr. Slingsby’s library. Blackwood’s was always a favourite work of mine; but a little too much personality; too much firing at small birds. Believe me, with warm attachment,
Towards the end of 1818, Mr. Crabbe
called upon Mr. Murray, and offered to publish
through him his ‘Tales of the
Hall,’ consisting of about twelve thousand lines. He also proposed to
transfer to him from Mr. Colburn his other poems, so
that the whole might be printed uniformly. Mr. Crabbe, who up to this
period had received very little for his writings, was surprised when Mr.
Murray offered him no less than £3000 for the copyright of his poems.
It seemed to him a mine of wealth compared to all that he had yet received. The following
morning (6th December) he breakfasted with Mr.
Rogers, and Tom Moore was present. Crabbe told them of
his good fortune, and of the magnificent offer he had received. Rogers
thought it was not enough, and that Crabbe should have received
| 72 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY |
When Crabbe was informed of this, he was in a state of great consternation. As Rogers had been bargaining with another publisher for better terms, the matter seemed still to be considered open; and in the meantime, if Murray were informed of the event, he might feel umbrage and withdraw his offer. Crabbe wrote to Murray on the subject, but received no answer. He had within his reach a prize far beyond his most sanguine hopes, and now, by the over-officiousness of his friends, he was in danger of losing it. In this crisis Rogers and Moore called upon Murray, and made enquiries on the subject of Crabbe’s poems. “Oh, yes,” he said, “I have heard from Mr. Crabbe, and look upon the matter as settled.” Crabbe was thus released from all his fears. When he received the bills for £3000, he insisted on taking them with him to Trowbridge to show them to his son John.
It proved after all that the Longmans were right in their offer to Rogers; Murray was far too liberal. Moore, in his ‘Diary’ (ii. 332), says, “Even if the whole of the edition (3000) were sold, Murray would still be £1900 minus.” Crabbe had some difficulty in getting his old poems out of the hands of his former publisher, who wrote to him in a strain of the wildest indignation, and even threatened him with legal proceedings, but eventually the unsold stock, consisting of 2426 copies, was handed over by Hatchard
* ‘Memoirs, Journals, Correspondence, of Thomas Moore,’ by Lord John Russell, ii. 237. |
| ’EMMELINE.’ | 73 |
Among the novels published by Mr. Murray in 1819, were Mrs. Brunton’s ‘Emmeline,’ and Mr. Hope’s ‘Anastasius.’ Mrs. Brunton was the daughter of Colonel Balfour, of Barra, in Orkney, and the wife of the Rev. Dr. Brunton, minister of Bolton, in Haddingtonshire. She had published her novel ‘Self-Control’ anonymously in 1811, and it proved successful. Her next work was ‘Discipline,’ in 1814, which was also successful. Her third was ‘Emmeline,’ which she did not live to finish, but which was published in 1819 by Mr. Murray, with an introductory memoir by her husband. Dr. Brunton’s letter to Mr. Murray was full of gratitude:—
I know not how to thank you for the real kindness towards me which your letters to Messrs. Manners and Miller express. My brother-in-law, Capt. Balfour, who is to spend a few days with his uncle in Curzon Street, will present this note to you. I am quite sure that I can count upon your exertions to befriend my poor little orphan volume. But you have little leisure to inform me of its success. I may be able to do it more easily through Capt. Balfour. The vanity of authorship is wellnigh dead in me, but I have a very strong wish that this book should prosper for its subject’s sake. . . . With respectful compliments to Mrs. Murray, and very grateful recollections of her and your kindness to one who was deeply sensible of it, and who often dwells on the remembrance with pleasure, I am, my dear Sir,
The letter of the Edinburgh publishers, acknowledging receipt of the then balance of profit for ‘Emmeline,’ was equally satisfactory. It was from Manners and Miller:—
| 74 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY |
We had this morning the pleasure to receive your very polite letter of the 4th inst., enclosing statement of the sales of ‘Emmeline,’ and your promissory note at six months from 20th January for £305 14s. 6d. being the balance due on this work. We cannot sufficiently express the high sense we entertain of the very handsome manner in which you have settled this account, and we feel it to be the more gratifying as it was entirely unsolicited on our part. We beg you will accept of our best thanks for the kind interest you have taken in the success of ‘Emmeline,’ in which we are cordially joined by our friend Dr. Brunton, who has just been with us, and who desires to be particularly remembered to you.
‘Anastasius, or
Memoirs of a Modern Greek, written at the Close of the 18th Century,’ was
published anonymously, and was confidently asserted to be the work of Lord Byron, as the only person capable of having produced it.
It displayed great ability, vivid imagination, remarkable powers of graphic description,
and a cultivated classical taste. When it was stated to be by Mr. Thomas Hope, of Deepdene—a gentleman of great accomplishments,
who had published some books on Art designs, household furniture, and internal
decorations—a writer in Blackwood
ridiculed the idea of such work proceeding from such a gentleman. “Mr.
Hope,” the reviewer said, “is a very respectable and
decorous gentleman—he can write, with some endeavour, passably about chests of
drawers, paper-hangings, and cushions as soft as his own or any other brains; but that
he has either the courage or the power to compile such a work as ‘Anastasius,’ I utterly and entirely
deny.” Mr. Hope, however, in the next number of the
magazine, claimed the sole authorship
| ’ANASTASIUS.’ | 75 |
It does not appear that Mr. Murray expected much from ‘Anastasius,’ judging from the slowness with which the work was printed and published. He received a letter from Mr. Hope, in which he wrote:—
I have been intending for some time to write to you, and
always put it off, in hopes of having the pleasure of seeing you in Town; but
as Mrs. Hope’s health leaves it
very uncertain when I shall be able to go, I do not wish any longer to delay
stating how very slowly the printing of ‘Anastasius’ goes on. I have always
made it a rule to return the sheets sent to me to correct or to revise the same
day, or perhaps the next, by the coach; and yet there is scarce one-fourth of
the work printed off thus far, and, at this rate of proceeding, it certainly
cannot be published under a twelvemonth. I am far from saying there has been
any unnecessary delay, for I do not understand anything of the business of
printing; but I should think that by not waiting to send me a new sheet to
correct until after the preceding one has been revised, and perhaps printed
off, some more despatch might be obtained. I have thus far only revised twelve
chapters; and there are
| 76 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY |
When the book was published, Mr. Murray sent a copy to Mr. Hobhouse, and another to Mr. Croker. The former said, “Anastasius, then, is a Greek in London. If so, I know him. It must be Schinas.” Murray informed Croker of the name of the author. He replied:—
I have read just twenty pages of ‘Anastasius,’ and thank you for the information you gave me as to the author. Of course you know best, and what you volunteered to tell must be the truth, but then also I must believe in the ‘Metempsychosis,’ and that Tom Hope’s late body is now the tabernacle of Lord Byron’s soul.
The Countess of Blessington, in her ‘Conversations with Lord Byron,’ says: “Byron spoke to-day in terms of high commendation of Hope’s ‘Anastasius;’ said he had wept bitterly over many pages of it, and for two reasons—first, that he had not written it; and, secondly, that Hope had; for that it was necessary to like a man excessively to pardon his writing such a book—a book, he said, excelling all recent productions as much in wit and talent as in true pathos. He added that he would have given his two most approved poems to have been the author of ‘Anastasius.’” The work was greatly read at the time, and went through many large editions.
|
* ‘Life and Adventures of Antar, a celebrated Bedowen chief warrior, and poet, who flourished a few years previous to the Mahommedan Era,’ translated by Terrick Hamilton, Esq. |
| ’Rejected Addresses.’ | 77 |
The refusal of the ‘Rejected Addresses,’ by Horace and James Smith, was one of Mr. Murray’s few mistakes. Horace was a stockbroker, and James a solicitor. They were not generally known as authors, though they contributed anonymously to the New Monthly Magazine, which was conducted by Campbell the poet. In 1812 they produced a collection of supposed ‘Rejected Addresses, presented for competition at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre.’ They offered the collection to Mr. Murray for £20, but he declined to purchase the copyright. The Smiths were connected with Cadell the publisher, and Murray, thinking that the MS. had been offered to and rejected by him, declined to look into it. The ‘Rejected Addresses’ were eventually published by John Miller, and excited a great deal of curiosity. They were considered to be the best imitations of living poets ever made. Byron was delighted with them. He wrote to Mr. Murray that he thought them “by far the best thing of the kind since the ‘Rolliad.’” Crabbe said of the verses in imitation of himself, “In their versification they have done me admirably.” When he afterwards met Horace Smith, he seized both hands of the satirist, and said, with a good-humoured laugh, “Ah! my old enemy, how do you do?” Jeffrey said of the collection, “I take them, indeed, to be the very best imitations (and often of difficult originals) that ever were made, and, considering their extent and variety, to indicate a talent to which I do not know where to look for a parallel.” Murray had no sooner read the volume than he spared no pains to become the publisher, but it was not until after the appearance of the sixteenth edition that he was able to purchase the copyright for £131.
Towards the end of 1819, Mr. Murray
was threatened with an action on account of certain articles which had
| 78 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY |
Macirone gave notice of an action for damages, and
| MACIRONE v. MURRAY. | 79 |
Macirone’s case may come on next Monday. We must therefore now seriously prepare. I have just left Mr. Gurney. He thinks it very important that I should have an interview with Captain Bastard, to learn from him the facts he can speak to as to Macirone’s conduct towards him, that counsel may know what questions to put to him that will benefit us, and not injure. The same reason, he says, makes it expedient, if it can be done, that I should have an interview with his Grace [the Duke of Wellington], otherwise, counsel will not know what questions to put, and will be afraid of putting any, lest they should prejudice your case instead of assisting it. As the damages that are claimed are £10,000, and it will be quite in the breast of the jury what they will give, no precaution ought to be omitted. It is quite in course to ask witnesses what they know of the case in question. If you can procure any appointment to be made, I will attend at any hour between eight morning and six evening, on any day, excepting to-morrow at twelve, when I am to see the Solicitor-General.
It appeared that Colonel Macirone had published an account of himself and his adventures* through the Ridgways, and that the counsel for the defence desired to introduce this volume as evidence in support of their case. On this subject Mr. Turner’s son addressed Mr. Murray:—
|
* ‘Memoirs of the Life and Adventures of Colonel Macirone.’ 2 vols. London, 1818. |
| 80 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY |
Counsel are of opinion that Macirone must produce his book himself; but if he does not, we must; and my father, who wishes to provide against every possible accident, thinks it would perhaps be as well to subpœna one of the Ridgways to prove the publication and the identity of the copy we produce, should we require it. Can you inform us of the Christian names of the Ridgways, and when it would be the best time to meet them at home to subpœna them. Let us have an early answer, as it must be done to-morrow. I am, dear Sir,
As you have not sent me Capt. B.’s address, I have not been able to call upon him, but I think he ought to be at Westminster Hall by ten. Will you write to him to request it? or shall my clerk leave him a subpoena? He brings one with him. He will tell you whether he has seen Ridgway; if not, assist him how to subpœna him. All is arranged for to-morrow. There is no occasion for you to attend, unless you like it. If you do, I shall be there by half-past nine, though it may not be on until eleven, twelve, one, or two.
Another letter from Mr. Croker as to the Duke of Wellington’s evidence:—
I certainly should most strongly recommend you to call the
Duke, if Macirone does not, if it were only to prove that the letter
quoted by Macirone of the Duke’s was not the real
one, for the Duke had the original, which he promised to send for. The reason
the Duke does not wish to see your counsel is that it appears like collusion,
and it would appear singular to a jury that he should have so far
| MACIRONE v. MURRAY. | 81 |
The case came on, and on the Bench were seated the Duke of Wellington, Lord Liverpool, and other leading statesmen, who had been subpœnaed as witnesses for the defence. One of the Ridgways, publishers, had also been subpoenaed with an accredited copy of Macirone’s book; but it was not necessary to produce him as a witness, as Mr. Ball, the counsel for Macirone, quoted passages from it, and thus made the entire book available as evidence for the defendant, a proceeding of which Serjeant Copley availed himself with telling effect.
Mr. Turner, when sending Murray a copy of the names of the jury, in the midst of the trial, said:—
I send you below the names of your Jury. Your danger was
rather more than usual yesterday, because from the non-attendance of enough to
the Special Jury, there were eight of the Common Westminster Jury among them.
This made us at first anxious to have the Duke and Capt. B. ready to give
evidence if wanted, till from the plaintiffs counsel leading the cause towards
our strong point of defence, we felt that they would not be necessary, and that
it was better to avoid calling them, that we might preclude another speech in
reply. The attacking speech
| 82 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY |
The defence of Serjeant Copley was admirable. He substantiated the facts stated in the Quarterly article by passages quoted by Colonel Macirone’s own ‘Memoirs.’ Before he had concluded his speech, it became obvious that the Jury had arrived at the conclusion to which he wished to lead them; but he went on to drive the conclusion home by a splendid peroration.* The Jury intimated that they were all agreed; but the Judge, as a matter of precaution, proceeded to charge them on the evidence placed before them; and as soon as he had concluded, the Jury, without retiring from the box, at once returned their verdict for the defendant.
Although Mr. Murray had now a house in the country, he was almost invariably to be found at Albemarle Street. We find, in one of his letters to Blackwood, dated Wimbledon, 22nd May, 1819, the following: “I have been unwell with bile and rheumatism, and have come to a little place here, which I have bought lately, for a few days to recruit.”
At No. 50, Albemarle Street, his drawing-room was the daily resort of visitors of distinction, while his dinner parties became highly popular from the pains which he took and the tact which he displayed in assorting and drawing out
* Given in Sir Theodore Martin’s ‘Life of Lord Lyndhurst,’ p. 170. |
| MURRAY’S DRAWING-ROOM. | 83 |
“We did not know,” she says, “that Mr. Murray held daily from about three to five
o’clock a literary levée at his house. In this way he gathered round him
many of the most eminent men of the time. On calling, we sent up our cards, and finding
he was engaged, proposed to retreat, when Mr. Murray himself
appeared and insisted on our coming up. I was introduced to him by my husband, and
welcomed by him with all the cordiality of an old acquaintance. He said Sir Walter Scott was there, and he thought that we should
like to see him, and to be introduced to him. ‘You will know him at once,’
added Mr. Murray, ‘he is sitting on the sofa near the
fire-place.’ We found Sir Walter talking to Mr. Gifford, then the Editor of the Quarterly Review. The room was filled with men and women,
and among them several of the principal authors and authoresses of the day; but my
attention was so fixed on Sir Walter and Mr.
Gifford that I took little notice of the rest. Many of those present
were engaged in looking at and making remarks upon a drawing, which represented a
Venetian Countess (Guiccioli), the favourite,
but not very respectable friend of Lord Byron.
Mr. Murray made his way through the throng in order to lead us
up to
| 84 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY |
“Gifford looked very aged, his face much wrinkled, and he seemed to be in declining health; his dress was careless, and his cravat and waistcoat covered with snuff. There was an antique, philosophic cast about his head and countenance, better adapted to exact a feeling of curiosity in a stranger than the head of Sir Walter Scott; the latter seemed more a man of this world’s mould. Such, too, was his character; for, with all his fine genius, Sir Walter would never have been so successful an author, had he not possessed so large a share of common sense, united to a business-like method of conducting his affairs, even those which perhaps I might venture to call the affairs of imagination. We took our leave; and before we got further than the first landing, we met Mr. Murray conducting Sir Walter downstairs; they were going to have a private chat before the departure of the latter.”*
Such was the first introduction of Mrs. Bray to Mr. Murray, who afterwards published for her the well-known work on ‘The Borders of the Tamar and the Tavy.’
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* ‘Mrs. Bray’s Autobiography,’ pp. 145-7. |
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