Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/204

168 168 JOHN MURRA Y. Highley retained all the medical business. But the principal act of parting was of anything but a formal nature. They drew lots for the old house and Murray was fortunate enough to secure the winning prize. Highley moved to No. 24, Fleet Street, but was able afterwards, in 1812, when Murray migrated to Albe- marle^Street, to move back again, and here he in- creased his medical connection, leaving a thriving business to his son. In this very year of separation the Edinburgh Review was started, and Murray was probably reminded of the scheme in which his father had once been concerned with Smellie to produce a periodical under a similar title, but the time was not yet ripe for his own projects. In 1806, at the age of twenty-four, he married Miss Elliot of Edinburgh, a young lady descended from one of the best-known publishers in the Modern Athens, and this, perhaps, drawing his attention to household matters, led to the publication of Mrs. Rundell's " Domestic Cookery Book." It is said that the receipts came from the note-book of the mother of the late Admiral Burney, with whose family, be it remembered, he had been at school at Gosport. This was the first and one of the most lucrative " hits " that Murray made, and perhaps in the important items of s. d. rivalled " Childe Harold " itself, Byron sings of it in playful jealousy : "Along thy sprucest book-shelves shine The works thou deemest most divine, The Art of Cookery and mine, My Murray !" Murray's ambition however was not to be satisfied with the sop of a successful cookery book. His