Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/211

175 JOHN MURRA Y, 175 the future back-bone of the Review were all repre- sented, and on 1st February, 1809, the first number of the Quarterly Revieiv was published. According to tradition there were high jinks at Murray's shop in Fleet Street when the first numbers arrived from the binders ; a triumphal column of the books " was raised aloft in solemn joy in the counting-house, the best wine in the cellar was uncorked, and glasses in hand John Murray and assistants danced jubilant round the pile." The pile, however, did not long re- main, as so many famous columns have done to mock the hope of its builders, but the whole issue was sold almost immediately, and a second edition was called for. To the second number Canning himself contributed, and received his payment of ten guineas per sheet Barrow, too, was introduced, who contributed, in all, no less than one hundred and ninety-five articles, " on every subject, from ' China ' to ' Life Assurance.' " After Barrow and Croker, Southey was, perhaps, the most prolific ; to the first hundred and twenty-six numbers he contributed ninety-four articles many of them of great permanent value and to him Murray uniformly exhibited a generosity almost without parallel. For an article on the " Lives of Nelson," he received twenty guineas a sheet, double what Southey himself acknowledged to be ample, and he was offered exceeded the estimated quantity of print, Murray paid him double the amount stipulated, adding another 200 guineas when the book was revised for the " Family Library." For the review of the " Life of Wellington," Southey got ,100, and he thought the sum so large that" he himself calls it " a ridiculous
 * ioo to enlarge the article into a volume, and having