Memoir of John Murray
Allan Cunningham to John Murray, April 1837
Sleepest thou, or wakest thou, O John Murray? Thou art foremost of the honourable and the
generous of the ancient tribe of publishers; yet verily thou art a sloth in
motion, a snail in correspondence, and the most dilatory of all Conservatives.
Enoch was thy ancestor, for he took twenty-seven years
to answer his first love-letter; that ![]()
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Irish horse was thy
relative, who had to be awakened with a stick or a stone; one of the Seven
Sleepers had his roost high in the tree of thy genealogy, and thou art more
than cousin to that drowsiest of all diplomatists, Lord
Glenelg, who has slept through the noisiest administration since
the first parliament of Babel. Still your cry is, Leave me, leave me to repose.
To repose I shall assuredly leave you, if you will but say Yes or No to the
communication which I made to you some month or so ago.
Yours always,
Allan Cunningham [Hidallan] (1784-1842)
Scottish poet and man of letters who contributed to both
Blackwood's and the
London Magazine; he was author of
Lives of the most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and
Architects (1829-33).
Charles Grant, baron Glenelg (1778-1866)
Educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and Lincoln's Inn, he was a member of the
Speculative Society, MP, Irish chief secretary (1818), and colonial secretary (1835),
created Baron Glenelg in 1835.
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.
