A Publisher and His Friends Part 15

Mr. Blackwood, of Edinburgh, was then in London, spending several days with Mr. Murray over their accounts and future arrangements. The latter was thinking of making a visit to Paris, in the company of his friend D'Israeli, during the peace which followed the exile of Napoleon to Elba. D'Israeli had taken a house at Brighton, from which place the voyagers intended to set sail, and make the pa.s.sage to Dieppe in about fourteen hours. On August 13 Mr. Murray informs his wife that "Lord Byron was here yesterday, and I introduced him to Blackwood, to whom he was very civil. They say," he added, "that Madame de Stael has been ordered to quit Paris, for writing lightly respecting the Bourbons." Two days later he wrote to Mrs. Murray:

_August_ 15, 1814.

"I dined yesterday with D'Israeli, and in the afternoon we partly walked and partly rode to Islington, to drink tea with Mrs. Lindo, who, with Mr. L. and her family, were well pleased to see me. Mr. Cervetto was induced to accompany the ladies at the piano with his violoncello, which he did delightfully. We walked home at 10 o'clock. On Sat.u.r.day we pa.s.sed a very pleasant day at Petersham with Turner and his family....

"I have got at last Mr. Eagle's 'Journal of Penrose, the Seaman,' for which, as you may remember, I am to pay 200 in twelve months for 1,000 copies: too dear perhaps; but Lord Byron sent me word this morning by letter (for he borrowed the MS. last night): 'Penrose is most amusing. I never read so much of a book at one sitting in my life. He kept me up half the night, and made me dream of him the other half. It has all the air of truth, and is most entertaining and interesting in every point of view.'"

Writing again on August 24, 1814, he says:

"Lord Byron set out for Newstead on Sunday. It is finally settled to be his again, the proposed purchaser forfeiting 25,000. 'Lara' and 'Jacqueline' are nearly sold off, to the extent of 6,000, which leaves me 130, and the certain sale of 10,000 more in the 8vo form. Mr.

Canning called upon Gifford yesterday, and from their conversation I infer very favourably for my _Review_. We shall now take a decided tone in Politics, and we are all in one boat. Croker has gone down to the Prince Regent, at Brighton, where I ought to have been last night, to have witnessed the rejoicings and splendour of the Duke of Clarence's birthday. But I am ever out of luck. 'O, indolence and indecision of mind! if not in yourselves vices, to how much exquisite misery do you frequently prepare the way!' Have you come to this pa.s.sage in 'Waverley'

yet? Pray read 'Waverley'; it is excellent."

On September 5, 1814, Mr. Murray communicated with Mrs. Murray as to the education of his son John, then six-and-a-half years old:

_John Murray to Mrs. Murray_.

"I am glad that you venture to say something about the children, for it is only by such minutiae that I can judge of the manner in which they amuse or behave themselves. I really do not see the least propriety in leaving John, at an age when the first impressions are so deep and lasting, to receive the rudiments and foundation of his education in Scotland. If learning English, his native language, mean anything, it is not merely to read it correctly and understand it grammatically, but to speak and p.r.o.nounce it like the most polished native. But how can you expect this to be effected, even with the aid of the best teachers, when everybody around him, with whom he can practise his instructions, speaks in a totally different manner? No! I rather think it better that he should go to Edinburgh after he has pa.s.sed through the schools here, and when he is sixteen or seventeen. He should certainly go to some school next spring, and I most confidingly trust that you are unremitting in your duty to give him daily lessons of preparation, or he may be so far behind children of his age when he does go to school, that the derision he may meet there may destroy emulation. All this, however, is matter for serious consideration and for future consultation, in which your voice shall have its rightful influence...."

Mr. Murray was under the necessity of postponing his visit to France. He went to Brighton instead, and spent a few pleasant days with Mr.

D'Israeli and his friends.

On September 24 Mr. Murray, having returned to London, informed his wife, still at Edinburgh, of an extraordinary piece of news.

_John Murray to Mrs. Murray_.

"I was much surprised to learn from Dallas, whom I accidentally met yesterday, that Lord Byron was expected in town every hour. I accordingly left my card at his house, with a notice that I would attend him as soon as he pleased; and it pleased him to summon my attendance about seven in the evening. He had come to town on business, and regretted that he would not be at Newstead until a fortnight, as he wished to have seen me there on my way to Scotland. Says he, 'Can you keep a secret?' 'Certainly--positively--my wife's out of town!' 'Then--I am going to be MARRIED!' 'The devil! I shall have no poem this winter then?' 'No.' 'Who is the lady who is to do me this injury?' 'Miss Milbanke--do you know her?' 'No, my lord.'

"So here is news for you! I fancy the lady is rich, n.o.ble, and beautiful; but this shall be my day's business to enquire about. Oh!

how he did curse poor Lady C---- as the fiend who had interrupted all his projects, and who would do so now if possible. I think he hinted that she had managed to interrupt this connexion two years ago. He thought she was abroad, and, to his torment and astonishment, he finds her not only in England, but in London. He says he has written some small poems which his friends think beautiful, particularly one of eight lines, his very best--all of which, I believe, I am to have; and, moreover, he gives me permission to publish the octavo edition of 'Lara'

with his name, which secures, I think, 700 to you and me. So Scott's poem is announced ['Lord of the Isles'], and I am cut out. I wish I had been in Scotland six weeks ago, and I might have come in for a share.

Should I apply for one to him, it would oblige me to be a partner with Constable, who is desperately in want of money. He has applied to Cadell & Davies (the latter told me in confidence) and they refused."

At the beginning of October Mr. Murray set out for Edinburgh, journeying by Nottingham for the purpose of visiting Newstead Abbey.

The following is Mr. Murray's account of his visit to Newstead. His letter is dated Matlock, October 5, 1814:

"I got to Newstead about 11 o'clock yesterday and found the steward, my namesake, and the butler waiting for me. The first, who is good-looking and a respectable old man of about sixty-five years, showed me over the house and grounds, which occupied two hours, for I was anxious to examine everything. But never was I more disappointed, for my notions, I suppose, had been raised to the romantic. I had surmised the possibly easy restoration of this once famous abbey, the mere skeleton of which is now fast crumbling to ruin. Lord Byron's immediate predecessor stripped the whole place of all that was splendid and interesting; and you may judge of what he must have done to the mansion when inform you that he converted the ground, which used to be covered with the finest trees, like a forest, into an absolute desert. Not a tree is left standing, and the wood thus shamefully cut down was sold in one day for 60,000. The hall of entrance has about eighteen large niches, which had been filled with statues, and the side walls covered with family portraits and armour. All these have been mercilessly torn down, as well as the magnificent fireplace, and sold. All the beautiful paintings which filled the galleries--valued at that day at 80,000--have disappeared, and the whole place is crumbling into dust. No sum short of 100,000 would make the place habitable. Lord Byron's few apartments contain some modern upholstery, but serve only to show what ought to have been there. They are now digging round the cloisters for a traditionary cannon, and in their progress, about five days ago, they discovered a corpse in too decayed a state to admit of removal. I saw the drinking-skull [Footnote: When the father of the present Mr. Murray was a student in Edinburgh, he wrote to his father (April 10,1827): "I saw yesterday at a jeweller's shop in Edinburgh a great curiosity, no less than Lord Byron's skull cup, upon which he wrote the poem. It is for sale; the owner, whose name I could not learn (it appears he does not wish it known), wants 200 for it."] and the marble mausoleum erected over Lord Byron's dog. I came away with my heart aching and full of melancholy reflections--producing a lowness of spirits which I did not get the better of until this morning, when the most enchanting scenery I have ever beheld has at length restored me. I am far more surprised that Lord Byron should ever have lived at Newstead, than that he should be inclined to part with it; for, as there is no possibility of his being able, by any reasonable amount of expense, to reinstate it, the place can present nothing but a perpetual memorial of the wickedness of his ancestors. There are three, or at most four, domestics at board wages.

All that I was asked to taste was a piece of bread-and-b.u.t.ter. As my foot was on the step of the chaise, when about to enter it, I was informed that his lords.h.i.+p had ordered that I should take as much game as I liked. What makes the steward, Joe Murray, an interesting object to me, is that the old man has seen the abbey in all its vicissitudes of greatness and degradation. Once it was full of unbounded hospitality and splendour, and now it is simply miserable. If this man has feelings--of which, by the way, he betrays no symptom--he would possibly be miserable himself. He has seen three hundred of the first people in the county filling the gallery, and seen five hundred deer disporting themselves in the beautiful park, now covered with stunted offshoots of felled trees.

Again I say it gave me the heartache to witness all this ruin, and I regret that my romantic picture has been destroyed by the reality."

Among the friends that welcomed Mr. Murray to Edinburgh was Mr. William Blackwood, who then, and for a long time after, was closely connected with him in his business transactions. Blackwood was a native of Edinburgh; having served his apprentices.h.i.+p with Messrs. Bell & Bradfute, booksellers, he was selected by Mundell & Company to take charge of a branch of their extensive publis.h.i.+ng business in Glasgow. He returned to Edinburgh, and again entered the service of Bell et Bradfute; but after a time went to London to master the secrets of the old book trade under the well-known Mr. Cuthill. Returning to Edinburgh, he set up for himself in 1804, at the age of twenty-eight, at a shop in South Bridge Street--confining himself, for the most part, to old books.

He was a man of great energy and decision of character, and his early education enabled him to conduct his correspondence with a remarkable degree of precision and accuracy. Mr. Murray seems to have done business with him as far back as June 1807, and was in the habit of calling upon Blackwood, who was about his own age, whenever he visited Edinburgh. The two became intimate, and corresponded frequently; and at last, when Murray withdrew from the Ballantynes, in August 1810 he transferred the whole of his Scottish agency to the house of William Blackwood. In return for the publis.h.i.+ng business sent to him from London, Blackwood made Murray his agent for any new works published by him in Edinburgh.

In this way Murray became the London publisher for Hogg's new poems, and "The Queen's Wake," which had reached its fourth edition.

Mr. Murray paid at this time another visit to Abbotsford. Towards the end of 1814 Scott had surrounded the original farmhouse with a number of buildings--kitchen, laundry, and spare bedrooms--and was able to entertain company. He received Murray with great cordiality, and made many enquiries as to Lord Byron, to whom Murray wrote on his return to London:

_John Murray to Lord Byron_.

"Walter Scott commissioned me to be the bearer of his warmest greetings to you. His house was full the day I pa.s.sed with him; and yet, both in corners and at the surrounded table, he talked incessantly of you.

Unwilling that I should part without bearing some mark of his love (a poet's love) for you, he gave me a superb Turkish dagger to present to you, as the only remembrance which, at the moment, he could think of to offer you. He was greatly pleased with the engraving of your portrait, which I recollected to carry with me; and during the whole dinner--when all were admiring the taste with which Scott had fitted up a sort of Gothic cottage--he expressed his anxious wishes that you might honour him with a visit, which I ventured to a.s.sure him you would feel no less happy than certain in effecting when you should go to Scotland; and I am sure he would hail your lords.h.i.+p as 'a very brother.'"

After all his visits had been paid, and he had made his arrangements with his printers and publishers, Mr. Murray returned to London with his wife and family. Shortly after his arrival he received a letter from Mr.

Blackwood.

_Mr. Wm. Blackwood to John Murray_.

_November 8_, 1814.

"I was much gratified by your letter informing me of your safe arrival.

How much you must be overwhelmed just now, and your mind distracted by so many calls upon your attention at once. I hope that you are now in one of your best frames of mind, by which you are enabled, as you have told me, to go through, with more satisfaction to yourself, ten times the business you can do at other times. While you are so occupied with your great concerns, I feel doubly obliged to you for your remembrance of my small matters."

After referring to his illness, he proceeds:

"Do not reflect upon your visit to the bard (Walter Scott). You would have blamed yourself much more if you had not gone. The advance was made by him through Ballantyne, and you only did what was open and candid. We shall be at the bottom of these peoples' views by-and-bye; at present I confess I only see very darkly--but let us have patience; a little time will develop all these mysteries. I have not seen Ballantyne since, and when I do see him I shall say very little indeed. If there really is a disappointment in not being connected with Scott's new poem, you should feel it much less than any man living--having such a poet as Lord Byron."

Although Murray failed to obtain an interest in "The Lady of the Lake,"

he was offered and accepted, at Scott's desire, a share in a new edition of "Don Roderick."

CHAPTER XI

MURRAY'S DRAWING-ROOM--BYRON AND SCOTT--WORKS PUBLISHED IN 1815

During Mrs. Murray's absence in Edinburgh, the dwelling-house at 50, Albemarle Street was made over to the carpenters, painters, and house decorators. "I hope," said Mr. Murray to his wife, "to leave the drawing-room entirely at your ladys.h.i.+p's exclusive command." But the drawing-room was used for other purposes than the reception of ordinary visitors. It became for some time the centre of literary friends.h.i.+p and intercommunication at the West End. In those days there was no Athenaeum Club for the a.s.sociation of gentlemen known for their literary, artistic, or scientific attainments. That inst.i.tution was only established in 1823, through the instrumentality of Croker, Lawrence, Chantrey, Sir Humphry Davy, and their friends. Until then, Murray's drawing-room was the main centre of literary intercourse in that quarter of London. Men of distinction, from the Continent and America, presented their letters of introduction to Mr. Murray, and were cordially and hospitably entertained by him; meeting, in the course of their visits, many distinguished and notable personages.

In these rooms, early in 1815, young George Ticknor, from Boston, in America, then only twenty-three, met Moore, Campbell, D'Israeli, Gifford, Humphry Davy, and others. He thus records his impressions of Gifford:

"Among other persons, I brought letters to Gifford, the satirist, but never saw him till yesterday. Never was I so mistaken in my antic.i.p.ations. Instead of a tall and handsome man, as I had supposed him from his picture--a man of severe and bitter remarks in conversation, such as I had good reason to believe him from his books, I found him a short, deformed, and ugly little man, with a large head sunk between his shoulders, and one of his eyes turned outward, but withal, one of the best-natured, most open and well-bred gentlemen I have ever met. He is editor of the _Quarterly Review_, and was not a little surprised and pleased to hear that it was reprinted with us, which I told him, with an indirect allusion to the review of 'Inchiquen's United States.'.... He carried me to a handsome room over Murray's book-store, which he has fitted up as a sort of literary lounge, where authors resort to read newspapers, and talk literary gossip. I found there Elmsley, Hallam, Lord Byron's 'Cla.s.sic Hallam, much renowned for Greek,' now as famous as being one of his lords.h.i.+p's friends, Boswell, a son of Johnson's biographer, etc., so that I finished a long forenoon very pleasantly."

[Footnote: "Life, Letters, and Journal of George Ticknor," i. 48.]

The following letter and Ticknor's reference to Gifford only confirm the testimony of all who knew him that in private life the redoubtable editor and severe critic was an amiable and affectionate man.