Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/196

162 i62 JOIM MURRA v. tunes ; and did we not succeed as well as they, I think it must be imputed only to ourselves Consider what I have proposed, and send me your answer soon. Be assured in the meantime that I re- main, dear Sir, "Your affectionate and humble Servant, "JOHN McMURRAY. " P.S. My advisers and directors in this affair have been Thomas Gumming, Esq., Mr. Archibald Paxton, Mr. Samuel Paterson, of Essex House, and Messrs. J. and W. Richardson, printers. These, after deliberate reflection, have unanimonsly thought that I should ac- cept of Mr. Sandby's offer." From some reason or other the offer was declined ; perhaps, as Falconer's biographer asserts, he was at this time (though absent for a while at Dover) living with his pretty little wife in an attic in Grub Street, toiling at his "Marine Dictionary," and with no pros- pect of raising the money requisite for the partner- ship proposed ; perhaps he had already accepted the pursership of the "Aurora" frigate. At all events, immediately after the publication of the third edition of his "Shipwreck," which was to have contained some lines addressed to McMurray, which, in the hurry of departure were omitted, he sailed in the "Aurora" for India. The Cape was safely reached, but after leaving it the "Aurora" was never heard of again. Ship, crew, and passengers were all lost, and, through the untimely death of the author, the " Ship- wreck" acquired a melancholy and almost prophetic interest, which speedily exhausted the third and many future editions. In the meantime John McMurray had commenced