I begin to suspect that you are not aware of the complete misery which is occasioned to me, and the certain ruin which must attend the Review, by our unfortunate procrastination. Long before this, every line of copy for the present number ought to have been in the hands of the printer. Yet the whole of the Review is yet to print. I know not what to do to facilitate your labour, for the articles which you have long had he scattered without attention, and those which I ventured to send to the printer undergo such retarding corrections, that even by this mode we do not advance. I entreat the favour of your exertion. For the last five months my most imperative concerns have yielded to this, without the hope of my anxiety or labour ceasing.
"Tanti miserere laboris,"
in my distress and with regret from
John Murray.
Mr. Gifford's reply was as follows:
"The delay and confusion which have arisen must be attributed to a want of confidential communication. In a word, you have too many advisers, and I too many masters."
At last the second number of the Quarterly appeared, at the end of May instead of at the middle of April. The new contributors to this number were Dr. D'Oyley, the Rev. Mr. Walpole, and George Canning, who, in conjunction with Sharon Turner, contributed the last article on Austrian State Papers.
As soon as the second number was published, Mr. Gifford, whose health was hardly equal to the constant strain of preparing and editing the successive numbers, hastened away, as was his custom, to the seaside. He wrote to Mr. Murray from Ryde:
Mr. Gifford to John Murray.
June 18, 1809.