Byron was extremely anxious that no underhand means should be used to foster the success of “Childe Harold.” “Has Murray,” he writes to Dallas, “shown the work to any one? He may--but I will have no traps for applause.” On receipt of a rumour from Dallas, he indites a stormy letter to Murray, absolutely forbidding that Gifford should be allowed to look at the book before publication. Before the letter arrived, however, Gifford had expressed a very strong opinion, indeed, as to the merit of the poem, which he declared to “be equal to anything of the present day.” Byron wrote again to Murray, “as never publisher was written to before by author:”--“It is bad enough to be a scribbler, without having recourse to such shifts to escape from or deprecate censure. It is anticipating, begging, kneeling, adulating--the devil! the devil! the devil! and all without my wish, and contrary to my desire.” In the early spring of 1812, “Childe Harold” was ready, and three days before its appearance, Byron made his maiden speech in the House of Lords; a speech which was received with attention and hailed with applause, from those whose applause was in itself fame. It is needless here to recapitulate the success of “Childe Harold,” how, on the day after publication, Lord Byron awoke, and, as he himself phrased it, found himself famous. The publication of “Childe Harold,” was not the only important event of this year, 1812, to the subject of our memoir. In this same year, Murray purchased the stock-in-trade of worthy Mr. Miller, of 50, Albemarle Street, and migrated thither, leaving the old shop, east of Temple Bar, to be re-occupied by-and-by (in 1832) by the Highley family. Here it was, at Albemarle Street, that Murray attained the highest pinnacle of fame on which ever publisher stood. His drawing-room, at four o’clock, became the favourite resort of all the talent in literature and in art that London then possessed, and there _were_ giants in those days. There it was his “custom of an afternoon,” to gather together such men as Byron, Scott, Moore, Campbell, Southey, Gifford, Hallam, Lockhart, Washington Irving, and Mrs. Somerville; and, more than this, he invited such artists as Laurence, Wilkie, Phillips, Newton, and Pickersgill to meet them and to paint them, that they might hang for ever on his walls. Famous tales, too, are told of the “publisher’s dinners;” of tables surrounded as never any king’s table but that of the “Emperor of the West’s” had ever been. As Byron makes Murray say, in his mock epistle to Dr. Palidori-- “The room’s so full of wits and bards, Crabbes, Campbells, Crokers, Freres, and Wards, And others, neither bards nor wits, My humble tenement admits All persons in the dress of gent, From Mr. Hammond to Dog Dent. A party dines with me to-day, All clever men who make their way; Crabbe, Malcolm, Hamilton, and Chantrey Are all partakers of my pantry. * * * * *