Memoir of John Murray
John Murray to John Taylor Coleridge, 9 December 1824
Albemarle Street, Thursday.
Dec. 9th, 1824.
My dear Sir,
The kindness and delicacy of your conduct, during our
communications respecting the Editorship of the Quarterly Review, were
such as to fix, definitely, my own wishes upon the subject. I am therefore most
happy in now finding myself completely free, to testify my sincere esteem, by
offering you that appointment; and most happy shall I be to learn that no
circumstances have intervened to prevent your allowing me again to renew our
friendly negotiations. Should your determination be favourable to my wishes, I
would then ask if, in the absence of our friend Archdeacon
Lyall, it will be perfectly agreeable to
you to receive a farther communication from Mr.
Locker. With unfeigned regard,
I remain, my dear sir,
Most faithfully yours,
J. M.
Edward Hawke Locker (1777-1849)
Secretary to the Royal Naval Hospital, Greenwich (1819); he was a painter, editor of
The Plain Englishman (1820-30) and a friend of Robert Southey and
Sir Walter Scott.
William Rowe Lyall (1788-1857)
English theologian who wrote for the
Quarterly Review and edited
the
British Critic (1816-17); he was dean of Canterbury in
1845.
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.