“I assure you,” he writes, “that I take no umbrage at irritability which will occasionally burst from a mind like yours; but I sometimes feel a deep regret that in our pretty long intercourse I appear to have failed to show that a man in my situation may possess the feelings and principles of a gentleman. Most certainly do I think that, from personal attachment, I could venture as much in any shape for your service as any of those who have the good fortune to be ranked amongst your friends.” In fact, the friends of authors were too often, as Blackwood hinted, the sources of Murray’s severest trials. Friends are obliging creatures in their way, and always ready to give with lavish hearts their wealth of criticism and opinion. There is a delightful letter from the Rev. H. H. Milman, Dean of St. Paul’s, offering to Murray his sadly unreadable poem _Belshazzar_, with this timely intimation: “I give you fair warning that all the friends who have hitherto seen it assure me that I shall not do myself justice unless I demand a very high price for it.” Murray, in reply, hints as urbanely as he can that, as it is he and not Mr. Milman’s friends who is to pay the price, he cannot accept their judgment in the matter as final; he is compelled to take into consideration his own chances of profit. Throughout all his correspondence we note this tone of careful self-repression, of patient and courteous kindness. Now and then only, particularly trying letters appear to have been left unanswered, as though the limits of even his endurance had been reached. When we remember 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. THE OPPRESSION OF NOTES