"I told him to look out for some one to conduct the Review, but he comes to no decision. I told him that you very naturally looked to him for naming a proper person. He replied he had—Nassau Senior—but that you had taken some dislike to him. [Footnote: This, so far as can be ascertained, was a groundless assumption on Mr. Gifford's part.] I then said, 'You are now well; go on, and let neither Murray nor you trouble yourselves about a future editor yet; for should you even break down in the midst of a number, I can only repeat that Croker and myself will bring it round, and a second number if necessary, to give him time to look out for and fix upon a proper person, but that the work should not stop.' I saw he did not like to continue the subject, and we talked of something else."
Croker also was quite willing to enter into this scheme, and jointly with Barrow to undertake the temporary conduct of the Review. They received much assistance also from Mr. J.T. Coleridge, then a young barrister. Mr. Coleridge, as will be noticed presently, became for a time editor of the Quarterly. "Mr. C. is too long," Gifford wrote to Murray, "and I am sorry for it. But he is a nice young man, and should be encouraged."
CHAPTER XX
HALLAM BASIL HALL—CRABBE—HOPE—HORACE AND JAMES SMITH
In 1817 Mr. Murray published for Mr. Hallam his "View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages." The acquaintance thus formed led to a close friendship, which lasted unbroken till Mr. Murray's death.
Mr. Murray published at this time a variety of books of travel. Some of these were sent to the Marquess of Abercorn—amongst them Mr. (afterwards Sir) Henry Ellis's "Proceedings of Lord Amherst's Embassy to China," [Footnote: "Journal of the Proceedings of the late Embassy to China, comprising a Correct Narrative of the Public Transactions of the Embassy, of the Voyage to and from China, and of the Journey from the Mouth of the Peiho to the Return to Canton." By Henry Ellis, Esq., Secretary of the Embassy, and Third Commissioner.] about which the Marchioness, at her husband's request, wrote to the publisher as follows:
Marchioness of Abercorn to John Murray,
December 4, 1817.
"He returns Walpole, as he says since the age of fifteen he has read so much Grecian history and antiquity that he has these last ten years been sick of the subject. He does not like Ellis's account of 'The Embassy to China,' [Footnote: Ellis seems to have been made very uncomfortable by the publication of his book. It was severely reviewed in the Times, where it was said that the account (then in the press) by Clark Abel, M.D., Principal Medical Officer and Naturalist to the Embassy, would be greatly superior. On this Ellis wrote to Murray (October 19, 1817): "An individual has seldom committed an act so detrimental to his interests as I have done in this unfortunate publication; and I shall be too happy when the lapse of time will allow of my utterly forgetting the occurrence. I am already indifferent to literary criticism, and had almost forgotten Abel's approaching competition." The work went through two editions.] but is pleased with Macleod's [Footnote: "Narrative of a Voyage in His Majesty's late ship Alceste to the Yellow Sea, along the Coast of Corea, and through its numerous hitherto undiscovered Islands to the Island of Lewchew, with an Account of her Shipwreck in the Straits of Gaspar." By John MacLeod, surgeon of the Alceste.] narrative. He bids me tell you to say the best and what is least obnoxious of the [former] book. The composition and the narrative are so thoroughly wretched that he should be ashamed to let it stand in his library. He will be obliged to you to send him Leyden's 'Africa.' Leyden was a friend of his, and desired leave to dedicate to him while he lived."
Mr. Murray, in his reply, deprecated the severity of the Marquess of Abercorn's criticism on the work of Sir H. Ellis, who had done the best that he could on a subject of exceeding interest.