Memoir of John Murray
John Murray to Lord Byron, 16 June 1818
June 16th, 1818.
My Lord,
Having waited, from day to day, in the incessant expectation
of the opportunity of sending my letters and various packages by Hanson’s clerk, I gathered from
Mr. Hobhouse yesterday the continued
uncertainty of his setting out, but I can therefore delay no longer to thank
you, in the first instance, for your several kind as well as entertaining
letters. Mr. Hobhouse told me yesterday that
Hanson had not yet been paid any sums upon your
account by your bankers; and I have therefore sent this morning to Messrs.
Ransom, Morland, and Co. a
thousand guineas, ![]()
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desiring them
to remit it to you by this evening’s post. With the remaining 1.500
guineas I shall be prepared against your order; indeed, if you drew upon me for
this sum, at sixty days’ sight, it would settle this matter at once; but
this as you may find most convenient. I received very safely, a few days ago,
by the care of Signor Gio. Bata.
Missiaglia* (I was very much obliged indeed by the books and
periodicals which you were so good as to send me), the curious collection of
letters described in the above-mentioned letter belonging to the Dr. Aglietti, which I gave, in the first
instance, to Mr. Gifford to read. He
thinks them very interesting as autographs; but with the exception of those
pointed out by you, there are few that would afford more than extracts, to be
selected by a judicious editor. I think D’Israeli, from the nature of his studies, might be
trusted with their selection; and I shall be able to send them to him
to-morrow, and, by this day week, I will propose a sum for them to your friend
the proprietor. Pope, whose unmanly
persecution of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
and of her friend Lord Hervey arose from
disappointed love, is, you see, no less insidiously spoken of by Lord
Hervey, whose letters are good but not of the first water.
Lord Orford beats them all.
Gray’s letter excellent; and Lady M. W.
Montagu’s ideas equal to her literary character. I have
been lately reading again her letters, particularly her latest ones in her old
age to her daughter, which are as full of wisdom, almost proverbial, as of
beauty. I should think you may stumble upon a letter full of anecdotes of hers,
which I beg you to hoard up, as I am the proprietor of her Works, and would like to introduce a new
edition with any variety of this kind.
Mr. Frere is at length satisfied that
you are the author of ‘Beppo.’ He had no conception that you possessed the protean
talent of Shakespeare, thus to assume at
will so different a character. He, and every one, continues in the same very
high opinion of its great beauties. I am glad to find that you are disposed to
pursue this strain, which has occasioned so much delight. Do you never think of
prose?
* The proprietor of the Apollo Library and the
principal publisher and bookseller in Venice, to whom Lord Byron gave an introduction to
Murray, April 12, 1818. See
Moore’s
Life. |
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—though, like Lord
Hervey, I suspect your thoughts fall so naturally into rhyme
that you are obliged to think twice to put them in prose. Yet the specimen of
prose, in the dedication to Hobhouse,*
is so much admired and talked of, that I should much like to surprise the world
with a more complete sample,—to be given at first anonymously. None of
the dons in criticism have yet taken the field for Canto IV., but the next numbers of the Edinburgh and
Quarterly will certainly contain papers upon it, which I shall
put into a cover and send to you at once. The whole canto has been quoted ten
times over, in the different scraps which diversity of taste has selected, in
the monthly, weekly, and daily journals of the metropolis and country—so
that some have selected each part as the best; and, in conclusion, the public
will be as eager to receive anything from your pen as ever. I am now
meditating, or rather have made preparation, to print a uniform edition of your
poems in three octavo volumes. ‘Childe Harold,’ four cantos, with your own notes, will form
the first volume; all the ‘Tales,’ including ‘Beppo,’ will constitute the second; and the
‘Miscellaneous Poems,’ ‘Manfred,’ &c., will fill the third.
These I intend to print very handsomely, and to sell very cheap, so that every
facility shall be given for their popularity. I propose to print at the same
time the whole works in five small volumes; in which size, when I print the 3rd
and 4th cantos and ‘Beppo,’ they will
occupy seven, which is, perhaps, too many. Westall has nearly completed twenty-five beautiful designs to
accompany these editions; and I trust that you will have no objection to my
engraving again Phillips’s
portrait, which every unbiassed person thinks by far the finest. I have just
put forth two more cantos of Whistlecraft—which the knowing ones think excellent, and of
which the public think nothing, for they cannot see the drift of it. I have not
sold 500 copies of the first parts yet; and of ‘Beppo’ I have sold six times that quantity in a sixth part of
the time, and before, indeed, it is generally known to be yours. I have heard
no word more from Mr. Sotheby; and as to
my having ventured upon any alteration or omission, I should as soon have
scooped one of my eyes out. I am anxious to know if you are satisfied with
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Mr. Hobhouse’s notes. The parts he thinks best of
are those upon the Antiquities; but we feel very little interest for them, and
much prefer the ‘Essay
on Italian Literature,’ which, if enlarged with your
Lordship’s assistance and with the addition of translations, would become
a popular work, as well as one much wanted. Hobhouse set
out last night for Dorchester (worn absolutely to skin and bone in a vexatious
and hopeless canvass of Westminster for Mr.
Kinnaird), in the neighbourhood of which he has some prospect of
parliamentary success. I am glad he avoided Westminster, for after swallowing
Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage by Ballot, what scope can a man have
left himself?
Your Lordship’s obliged Servant,
Francesco Aglietti (1757-1836)
Venetian physician and man of letters; he edited the
Opere of
Algarotti (Venice, 1791-94).
Isaac D'Israeli (1766-1848)
English essayist and literary biographer; author of
Curiosities of
Literature (1791). Father of the prime minister.
John Hookham Frere (1769-1846)
English diplomat and poet; educated at Eton and Cambridge, he was envoy to Lisbon
(1800-02) and Madrid (1802-04, 1808-09); with Canning conducted the
The
Anti-Jacobin (1797-98); author of
Prospectus and Specimen of an
intended National Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft (1817, 1818).
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 Hanson (1755-1841)
Byron's solicitor and business agent.
John Cam Hobhouse, baron Broughton (1786-1869)
Founder of the Cambridge Whig Club; traveled with Byron in the orient, radical MP for
Westminster (1820); Byron's executor; after a long career in politics published
Some Account of a Long Life (1865) later augmented as
Recollections of a Long Life, 6 vols (1909-1911).
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu [née Pierrepont] (1689-1762)
English poet and epistolary writer, daughter of the first duke of Kingston; she quarreled
with Alexander Pope and after living in Constantinople (1716-18) introduced inoculation to
Britain.
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.
Thomas Phillips (1770-1845)
English painter who assisted Benjamin West, exhibited at the Royal Academy, and painted
portraits of English poets including Byron, Crabbe, Scott, Southey, and Coleridge.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
English poet and satirist; author of
The Rape of the Lock (1714)
and
The Dunciad (1728).
William Sotheby (1757-1833)
English man of letters; after Harrow he joined the dragoons, married well, and published
Poems (1790) and became a prolific poet and translator,
prominent in literary society.
Richard Westall (1765-1836)
English poet and illustrator who favored literary subjects and published a collection of
verse,
A Day in Spring and other Poems (1808).
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
