Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/209

173 JOHN MURRAY. 173 tary for Foreign Affairs, though he gave the matter careful consideration, did not care to commit himself upon paper. Two months, however, before this letter Scott and Southey had been corresponding about the Edinburgh Review, Southey stating that he felt himself unable to contribute to a periodical of such political views, and Scott heartily agreeing in deprecating the general tone of the Review. Early in 1808, a very severe article came out in the Review anent " Marmion." Murray pricked up his ears, and, as he afterwards told Lockhart, " When I read the article on ' Marmion,' and another on general politics in the same number of the Review I said to myself, ' Walter Scott has feelings both as a gentleman and as a Tory, which those people must now have wounded. The alliance between him and the whole clique of the Edinburgh Review, the pro- prietor included, is shaken," * " and," adds Lockhart, " as far at least as the political part of the affair was concerned, John Murray's sagacity was not at fault." Murray saw that the right way to approach Scott was through the Ballantynes' printing press, in which Scott at this time was a secret partner, and in which he always expressed openly the greatest interest. So urgent did Murray's tenders of work become that a meeting at Ferrybridge, in Yorkshire, was arranged ; and here Murray received from Ballantyne the grati- fying news that Scott had quarrelled with Constable, and that it was resolved to establish a rival firm. Murray, who never wasted an opportunity from lack of decision, posted on to Ashestiel and had an inter- view with Scott himself, and the proposal of a new quarterly Tory periodical was eagerly snatched at,