Memoir of John Murray
John Murray to Walter Scott, 14 December 1816
Dec. 14th, 1816.
Dear Sir,
Although I dare not address you as the author of certain
Tales—which, however,
must be written either by Walter Scott or
the devil—yet nothing can restrain me from thinking that it is to your
influence with the author of them that I am indebted for the essential honour
of being one of their publishers; and I must intrude upon you to offer my most
hearty thanks, not divided but doubled, alike for my worldly gain therein, and
for the great acquisition of professional reputation which their publication
has already procured me. As to delight, I believe I could, under any oath that
could be proposed, swear that I never experienced such great and unmixed
pleasure in all my life as the reading of this exquisite work has afforded me;
and if you witnessed the wet eyes and grinning cheeks with which, as the
author’s chamberlain, I receive the unanimous and vehement praise of them
from every one who has read them, or heard the curses of those whose needs my
scanty supply would not satisfy, you might judge ![]()
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of the
sincerity with which I now entreat you to assure the author of the most
complete success. After this, I could throw all the other books which I have in
the press into the Thames, for no one will either read them or buy. Lord Holland said, when I asked his opinion:
“Opinion? we did not one of us go to bed all night, and nothing
slept but my gout.” Frere,
Hallam, and Boswell; Lord
Glenbervie came to me with tears in his eyes. “It is a
cordial,” he said, “which has saved Lady Glenbervie’s life.” Heber, who found it on his table on his
arrival from a journey, had no rest till he had read it. He has only this
moment left me, and he, with many others, agrees that it surpasses all the
other novels. Wm. Lamb also; Gifford never read anything like it, he says;
and his estimate of it absolutely increases at each recollection of it.
Barrow with great difficulty was
forced to read it; and he said yesterday, “Very good, to be sure, but
what powerful writing is thrown away.” Heber
says there are only two men in the world, Walter Scott and
Lord Byron. Between you, you have given
existence to a third.
Ever your faithful servant,
Sir John Barrow, first baronet (1764-1848)
English traveler, secretary of the Admiralty, and author of over two hundred articles in
the
Quarterly Review; he is remembered for his
Mutiny on the Bounty (1831).
James Boswell the younger (1778-1822)
Barrister and scholar, son of the biographer, who edited Shakespeare with Edmond
Malone.
Henry Richard Fox, third baron Holland (1773-1840)
Whig politician and literary patron; Holland House was for many years the meeting place
for reform-minded politicians and writers. He also published translations from the Spanish
and Italian;
Memoirs of the Whig Party was published in 1852.
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).
Henry Hallam (1777-1859)
English historian and contributor to the
Edinburgh Review, author
of
Introduction to the Literature of Europe, 4 vols (1837-39) and
other works. He was the father of Tennyson's Arthur Hallam.
Richard Heber (1774-1833)
English book collector, he was the elder half-brother of the poet Reginald Heber and the
friend of Walter Scott: member of the Roxburghe Club and MP for Oxford 1821-1826.
William Lamb, second viscount Melbourne (1779-1848)
English statesman, the son of Lady Melbourne (possibly by the third earl of Egremont) and
husband of Lady Caroline Lamb; he was a Whig MP, prime minister (1834-41), and counsellor
to Queen Victoria.
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.
