Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/397

 master. His father died on 6 Nov. 1793, and during young Murray's minority the business was conducted by the principal assistant, Samuel Highley, who became a partner. Murray, however, was dissatisfied with Highley's want of enterprise, and, although he attempted no change on coming of age in 1799, he procured a dissolution of partnership on 25 March 1803, retaining the house in Fleet Street, while Highley took the medical publications of the firm. He commenced business on his own account with the same spirit which he continued to display throughout ; his first step, even before the dissolution was completed, being to offer Colman 300l. for the copyright of his comedy of 'John Bull,' just produced at Covent Garden.

Murray's first publication of importance was 'The Revolutionary Plutarch,' December 1803. Before this he had opened up a correspondence with Archibald Constable [q. v.], the Edinburgh publisher, which had important consequences. Murray became London agent for Constable's publications, had a share in ' Marmion ' and other important works jointly brought out by them, and acted for a while as London agent for the 'Edinburgh Review,' of which he was part publisher from April 1807 to October 1808. Murray paid three visits to Scotland, partly on Constable's affairs and partly on a more interesting errand, that of wooing Anne, daughter of the deceased Charles Elliot, publisher, a constant correspondent of his father. The marriage took place at Edinburgh on 6 March 1807, Shortly afterwards relations with Constable became unsatisfactory, chiefly owing to the Edinburgh publisher's habit of drawing accommodation bills. Business relations were broken off in 1808, and, though resumed in 1810, were finally terminated in 1813. A personal reconciliation between Murray and Constable, however, took place shortly before the death of the latter.

The breach with Constable enabled Murray to carry out a scheme which he had for some time contemplated. While still one of the publishers of the 'Edinburgh Review,' and therefore in a peculiarly favourable position for appreciating its iniquities, he had denounced them in a letter to Canning (25 Sept. 1807), and had suggested the establishment of an opposition review on tory principles. Negotiations in this quarter were greatly facilitated by a service Murray had previously rendered to Stratford Canning, Canning's cousin, and other young Etonians by relieving them of risk in connection with 'The Miniature,' an Etonian magazine for which they had become liable. The conjuncture was favourable. Scott, estranged by political differences and the treatment accorded to his ' Marmion ' by Jeffrey, had ceased to write in the 'Edinburgh.' Murray visited him in November 1808, and secured his co-operation. Southey, who had always refused to contribute to the 'Edinburgh,' promised his assistance. Gifford was appointed editor, and after busy arrangements and discussions, in which George Ellis [q. v.] bore an important part, the first number appeared in February 1809. 'It did not entirely realise the sanguine views of its promoters,' writes Dr. Smiles, 'or burst like a thunderclap on the reading public,' but it soon reached a second edition. 'Although,' Murray wrote, ' I am considerably out of pocket by the adventure at present, yet I hope that in the course of next year it will at least pay its expenses.' Yet in August 1810 he still had to write to Gifford, 'I cannot yet manage to make the "Review" pay its expenses.' One great hindrance to its success was the unpunctuality of its appearance, due partly to the lack of business qualifications on the part of Gifford an excellent editor in all literary respects and partly to the liberties which leading contributors permitted themselves. One article, to which Murray himself strongly objected, had to be inserted 'from the utter impossibility of filling our number without it 'when the number was already six weeks late. 'This was enough,' remarks Dr. Smiles, 'to have killed any publication which was not redeemed by the excellence of its contents.' Gradually greater punctuality was attained, although many years elapsed before the publication of the ' Review ' could be effected with the undeviating regularity which would now be regarded as a matter of course. From 1811 onwards Southey became a regular and copious contributor ; his essays raised the general tone and character of the ' Review,' and he was for many years paid at the rate of 100. per article. He was, however, exceedingly restive under Gifford's excisions. In December 1811 Murray sent Gifford a present of 500l., which may be considered evidence that the periodical had begun to pay. Gifford's services were entirely editorial, and no article wholly from his own pen ever appeared in the 'Quarterly.' The overthrow of Napoleon and the disappointment of the whigs' expectations under the regency were favourable circumstances for the 'Quarterly,' which went on prospering, until in 1817 Southey could write of Murray, 'The "Review" is the greatest of all works, and it is all his own creation ; he prints ten thousand, and fifty times ten .thousand read its contents.'