PORTRAITS, &c.

CHAPTER VIII.

EMINENT PUBLISHERS.

MR. JOHN MURRAY-MR. THOMAS TEGG.

THE name of MR. JOHN MURRAY, of Albermarle Street, has an undoubted right to stand the first in any article or chapter referring to the Publishers of London. He is the prince of aristocratic bibliopoles, and has maintained his sovereignty in that character for upwards of a quarter of a century.

Mr. Murray is a publisher by birth as well as by choice. I do not mean to say anything so foolish, as that he was born a full-fledged bibliopole: all I wish my readers to understand is, that his father carried on the business of a bookseller and publisher, before the subject of

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my present sketch was born. The elder Mr. Murray established an excellent business in Fleet Street, in the shop occupied by Mr. Underwood, opposite St. Dunstan's Church; and on his death, the present Mr. Murray who had been regularly trained up to the business, succeeded him in the same place. Mr. Murray continued to carry on the bookselling business, and the publishing also, though on a comparatively limited scale, in Fleet Street, for some time after his father's decease. At first and for some time he was not particularly successful, but eventually matters assumed so encouraging an aspect, that he determined on removing from civic ground to his present fashionable locality in Albermarle Street.

It is not generally known, but the fact is interesting, that Mr. Murray was the first London publisher of the "Edinburgh Review." This was during the period he carried on the business in Fleet Street. How little could either he, or the proprietors of the "Blue and Yellow," as the "Edinburgh Review" is so often called in Scotland, have thought at the time, that he was

destined to start and become the sole proprietor of a publication, which, in respect of reputation should become so formidable a rival to the "Edinburgh," and which should interfere so largely with the sale of the latter. Yet so it has been. It was under the bibliopolic auspices of Mr. Murray that the "Quarterly Review" was first ushered into existence, and under his sole auspices it has continued up to the present time-a period of more than thirty years. How few periodicals, of any class, attain so protracted an age! Of fewer still, perhaps not of half-a-dozen, out of the hundreds to which this country has given birth, can it be said, that they have continued to be printed for, and published by, the same individual for upwards of thirty years. But though the "Quarterly Review" ushered into the world under the bibliopolic auspices of Mr. Murray, the credit of its projection is not due to him. The idea originated with no other person than Sir Walter Scott. Sir Walter, then Mr. Scott, had for some time previously— indeed, almost ever since its commencement in 1S02-entertained a dislike to the "Edinburgh

was

Review," partly on personal and partly on political grounds. To use his own peculiar, but graphic phraseology, in a letter to his brother, Thomas Scott, when soliciting his services as contributor to the embryo "Quarterly," he "owed Jeffrey* a flap with a fox-tail, on account of his review of Marmion."" The objections which Sir Walter had always entertained to the "Edinburgh Review," on account of its politics, attained their climax, on the appearance in the number (the 26th) for October, 1808, of an article entitled "Don Cevallos on the Usurpation of Spain," written by Lord Brougham, then Mr. Henry Brougham, a young barrister, comparatively unknown to fame. Sir Walter was so indignant at and disgusted with this article, that he had no sooner completed its perusal, than he wrote to his bookseller to withdraw his name from the list of subscribers to the "Edinburgh Review." Scott now resolved on entering

*Now Lord Jeffrey, one of the Judges in the Court of Session, and at that time Mr. Jeffrey, the Editor of the 66 Edinburgh Review."

practically, and in earnest, into the views he had for some time before entertained of starting a periodical in opposition to the great northern literary and political Leviathan. Among those with whom he communicated on the subject, were the then Lord Advocate of Scotland, the Right Hon. John Campbell Colquhon, and Mr. Canning. The latter gentleman entered cordially into the project, and engaged not only to furnish such important information to the new journal, as should at once raise it to a distinction unapproachable by any of its contemporaries for the earliness, accuracy, amplitude, and importance of its intelligence on all matters of state; but also undertook to furnish an occasional article from his own pen. The contributors on whom Scott principally relied for stated assistance, when engaged in the project of bringing out the "Quarterly," were his well-known political friends, the two Roses, Ellis, Heber,* Frere, Malthus, Matthias, &c. And last though not least, a publisher (as has been already hinted) was found in the

* Afterwards Bishop of Calcutta.