From many communications addressed to Mr. Murray about the beginning of 1818, it appears that he had proposed to start a Monthly Register, [Footnote: The announcement ran thus: "On the third Saturday in January, 1818, will be published the first number of a NEW PERIODICAL JOURNAL, the object of which will be to convey to the public a great variety of new, original, and interesting matter; and by a methodical arrangement of all Inventions in the Arts, Discoveries in the Sciences, and Novelties in Literature, to enable the reader to keep pace with human knowledge. To be printed uniformly with the QUARTERLY REVIEW. The price by the year will be £2 2s.">[ and he set up in print a specimen copy. Many of his correspondents offered to assist him, amongst others Mr. J. Macculloch, Lord Sheffield, Dr. Polidori, then settled at St. Peter's, Norwich, Mr. Bulmer of the British Museum, and many other contributors. He sent copies of the specimen number to Mr. Croker and received the following candid reply:
Mr. Croker to John Murray.
January 11, 1818.
MY DEAR MURRAY,
Our friend Sepping [Footnote: A naval surveyor.] says, "Nothing is stronger than its weakest part," and this is as true in book-making as in shipbuilding. I am sorry to say your Register has, in my opinion, a great many weak parts. It is for nobody's use; it is too popular and trivial for the learned, and too abstruse and plodding for the multitude. The preface is not English, nor yet Scotch or Irish. It must have been written by Lady Morgan. In the body of the volume, there is not one new nor curious article, unless it be Lady Hood's "Tiger Hunt." In your Mechanics there is a miserable want of information, and in your Statistics there is a sad superabundance of American hyperbole and dulness mixed together, like the mud and gunpowder which, when a boy, I used to mix together to make a fizz. Your Poetry is so bad that I look upon it as your personal kindness to me that you did not put my lines under that head. Your criticism on Painting begins by calling West's very pale horse "an extraordinary effort of human genius." Your criticism on Sculpture begins by applauding beforehand Mr. Wyatt's impudent cenotaph. Your criticism on the Theatre begins by denouncing the best production of its kind, 'The Beggar's Opera.' Your article on Engraving puts under the head of Italy a stone drawing made in Paris. Your own engraving of the Polar Regions is confused and dirty; and your article on the Polar Seas sets out with the assertion of a fact of which I was profoundly ignorant, namely, that the Physical Constitution of the Globe is subject to constant changes and revolution. Of constant changes I never heard, except in one of Congreve's plays, in which the fair sex is accused of constant inconstancy; but suppose that for constant you read frequent. I should wish you, for my own particular information, to add in a note a few instances of the Physical Changes in the Constitution of the Globe, which have occurred since the year 1781, in which I happened to be born. I know of none, and I should be sorry to go out of the world ignorant of what has passed in my own time. You send me your proof "for my boldest criticism." I have hurried over rather than read through the pages, and I give you honestly, and as plainly as an infamous pen (the same, I presume, which drew your polar chart) will permit, my hasty impression. If you will call here to-morrow between twelve and one, I will talk with you on the subject.
Yours,
J.W.C.
The project was eventually abandoned. Murray entered into the arrangement, already described, with Blackwood, of the Edinburgh Magazine. The article on the "Polar Ice" was inserted in the Quarterly.
Towards the end of 1818, Mr. Crabbe called upon Mr. Murray and offered to publish through him his "Tales of the Hall," consisting of about twelve thousand lines. He also proposed to transfer to him from Mr. Colburn his other poems, so that the whole might be printed uniformly. Mr. Crabbe, who up to this period had received very little for his writings, was surprised when Mr. Murray offered him no less than £3,000 for the copyright of his poems. It seemed to him a mine of wealth compared to all that he had yet received. The following morning (December 6) he breakfasted with Mr. Rogers, and Tom Moore was present. Crabbe told them of his good fortune, and of the magnificent offer he had received. Rogers thought it was not enough, and that Crabbe should have received £3,000 for the "Tales of the Hall" alone, and that he would try if the Longmans would not give more. He went to Paternoster Row accordingly, and tried the Longmans; but they would not give more than £1,000 for the new work and the copyright of the old poems—that is, only one-third of what Murray had offered. [Footnote: "Memoirs, Journals, Correspondence, of Thomas Moore," by Lord John Russell, ii. 237.]
When Crabbe was informed of this, he was in a state of great consternation. As Rogers had been bargaining with another publisher for better terms, the matter seemed still to be considered open; and in the meantime, if Murray were informed of the event, he might feel umbrage and withdraw his offer. Crabbe wrote to Murray on the subject, but received no answer. He had within his reach a prize far beyond his most sanguine hopes, and now, by the over-officiousness of his friends, he was in danger of losing it. In this crisis Rogers and Moore called upon Murray, and made enquiries on the subject of Crabbe's poems. "Oh, yes," he said, "I have heard from Mr. Crabbe, and look upon the matter as settled." Crabbe was thus released from all his fears. When he received the bills for £3,000, he insisted on taking them with him to Trowbridge to show them to his son John.