Memoir of John Murray
John Gibson Lockhart to John Murray, 8 November 1826
It is always agreeable and often useful for us to hear what
you think of the articles in progress. Croker and I both differ from you as to the general affair, for
this reason simply, that Lamennais is to
Paris what Benson or Lonsdale is to London. His book has produced
and is producing a very great effect. Even religious people there applaud him,
and they are re-echoed here by old Jerdan, who pronounces that, be he right or wrong, he has
produced “a noble sacred poem.” It is needful to caution the
English against the course of France by showing up the audacious extent of her
horrors, political, moral, and
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religious; and you know what was the result of our
article on those vile tragedies, the extracts of which were more likely to
offend a family circle than anything in the ‘Paroles d’un Croyant;’ and
which even I was afraid of. Mr. Croker,
however, will modify and curtail the paper so as to get rid of your specific
objections. It had already been judged advisable to put the last and only
blasphemous extract in French in place of English. Depend upon it, if we were
to lower our scale so as to run no risk of offending any good people’s
delicate feelings, we should soon lower ourselves so as to rival ‘My
Grandmother the British’ in want of interest to the world at large, and even
(though they would not say so) to the saints themselves.— Verb. sap.
Christopher Benson (1788-1868)
Evangelical writer educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge; he was canon of
Worcester and author of
A Chronology of our Saviour's Life
(1819).
John Wilson Croker (1780-1857)
Secretary of the Admiralty (1810) and writer for the
Quarterly
Review; he edited an elaborate edition of Boswell's
Life of
Johnson (1831).
William Jerdan (1782-1869)
Scottish journalist who for decades edited the
Literary Gazette;
he was author of
Autobiography (1853) and
Men I
have Known (1866).
John Lonsdale, bishop of Lichfield (1788-1867)
A leading figure in the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; he was a contemporary
of Francis Hodgson at Eton and future Bishop of Lichfield (1843).
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.
