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 44 that the Quarterly was the cherished idol of his life, and that his pride and delight in it knew no bounds, we can dimly appreciate his feelings on receiving the following lines from Southey, whose principal income for years had been derived from the magazine's most liberal and open-handed payments. "It is a great price," writes the author of Thalaba, who has just pocketed a comfortable sum, "and it is very convenient for me to receive it. But I will tell you, with that frankness which you have always found in my correspondence and conversation, that I must suspect my time might be more profitably employed (as I am sure it might be more worthily) than in writing for your journal, even at that price."

I am not wont to peer too closely into the secrets of the human heart, but I would like to know exactly how Murray felt when he read that letter. "Let me at least be eaten by a lion!" says Epictetus. "Let me at least be insulted by a genius!" might well have been the publisher's lament.