Memoir of John Murray
William Gifford to George Canning, 13 December 1823
I wish you had a pleasanter bedfellow; but here am I on the
sofa with a cough, and a very disagreeable associate I find it. Old T. Moore, I think, died all but his voice,
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my voice is nearly dead before me; in other respects,
I am much as I was when you saw me, and this weather is in my favour. . . . I
have promised Murray to try to carry on
the Review to the 60th number; the
58th is now nearly finished. This seems a desperate promise, and beyond it I
will not, cannot go; for, at best, as the old philosopher said, I am dying at
my ease, as my complaint has taken a consumptive turn. The vultures already
scent the carcase, and three or four Quarterly Reviews
are about to start. One is to be set up by Haygarth, whom I think I once mentioned to you as talked of to
succeed me, but he is now in open hostility to Murray;
another is to be called the Westminster Quarterly Review, and will, if I
may judge from the professions of impartiality, be a decided Opposition
Journal. They will all have their little day, perhaps, and then drop into the
grave of their predecessors. The worst is that we cannot yet light upon a fit
and promising successor.
Ever, my dear Canning,
Faithfully and affectionately yours,
George Canning (1770-1827)
Tory statesman; he was foreign minister (1807-1809) and prime minister (1827); a
supporter of Greek independence and Catholic emancipation.
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).
William Haygarth (1784-1825)
The son of Dr. John Haygarth (1740-1827); after study at Rugby Cambridge he traveled in
Greece and published
Greece: a Poem (1814); he wrote for the
Quarterly Review and
The British Review, and
London Critical Journal.
Sir Thomas More (1478-1535)
English statesman and humanist, Catholic martyr; he was the author of
Utopia (1516).
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.
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.
The Westminster Review. (1824-1914). A radically-inclined quarterly founded by James Mill in opposition to the
Edinburgh Review and
Quarterly Review.
