Memoir of John Murray
John Murray to Lord Byron, 2 January 1816
I tore open the packet you sent me, and have found in it a
Pearl. It is very interesting, pathetic, beautiful—do you know, I would
almost say moral. I am really writing to you before the billows of the passions
you excited have subsided. I have been most agreeably disappointed (a word I
cannot associate with the poem) at the story, which—what you hinted to me
and wrote—had alarmed me; and I should not have read it aloud to my wife
if my eye ![]()
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had not traced the delicate hand that
transcribed it. This poem is all action and interest: not a line but what is
necessary. Now, I do think that you should fragmentize
the first hundred, and condense the last thirty, of ‘Corinth,’ and then you have, in words of
the highest compliment, two poems (as Mr. H. said) as good as any you have
written. I admire the fabrication of the “big Tear,”* which is very
fine—much larger, by the way, than Shakespeare’s. I do think you thought of Ney in casting off his
bandage. The close is exquisite: and you know that all’s well that ends
well—with which I stop. I will answer for Mr.
Gifford: and, to conclude (a bargain), say that they are mine
for the enclosed, and add to the obligations of,
My Lord, your faithful Servant,
William Gifford (1756-1826)
Poet, scholar, and editor who began as a shoemaker's apprentice; after Oxford he
published
The Baviad (1794),
The Maeviad
(1795), and
The Satires of Juvenal translated (1802) before becoming
the founding editor of the
Quarterly Review (1809-24).
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
Michel Ney, first Duc d'Elchingen (1769-1815)
Marshall of France who covered Napoleon's retreat from Moscow and led the Old Guard at
the battle of Waterloo, for which he was tried and executed by firing squad.
