J. MURRAY.
Constable & Co. fired off a final shot on May 28 following, and the correspondence and business between the firms then terminated.
No. 12 of the Quarterly appeared in December 1811, and perhaps the most interesting article in the number was that by Canning and Ellis, on Trotter's "Life of Fox." Gifford writes to Murray about this article:
"I have not seen Canning yet, but he is undoubtedly at work by this time. Pray take care that no one gets a sight of the slips. It will be a delightful article, but say not a word till it comes out."
A pamphlet had been published by W.S. Landor, dedicated to the President of the United States, entitled, "Remarks upon Memoirs of Mr. Fox lately published." Gifford was furious about it. He wrote to Murray:
Mr. Gifford to John Murray.
"I never read so rascally a thing as the Dedication. It is almost too bad for the Eatons and other publishers of mad democratic books. In the pamphlet itself there are many clever bits, but there is no taste and little judgment. His attacks on private men are very bad. Those on Mr. C. are too stupid to do much harm, or, indeed, any. The Dedication is the most abject piece of business that I ever read. It shows Landor to have a most rancorous and malicious heart. Nothing but a rooted hatred of his country could have made him dedicate his Jacobinical book to the most contemptible wretch that ever crept into authority, and whose only recommendation to him is his implacable enmity to his country. I think you might write to Southey; but I would not, on any account, have you publish such a scoundrel address."
The only entire article ever contributed to the Review by Gifford himself was that which he wrote, in conjunction with Barron Field, on Ford's "Dramatic Works." It was an able paper, but it contained a passage, the publication of which occasioned Gifford the deepest regret. Towards the conclusion of the article these words occurred: The Editor "has polluted his pages with the blasphemies of a poor maniac, who, it seems, once published some detached scenes of the 'Broken Heart.'" This referred to Charles Lamb, who likened the "transcendent scene [of the Spartan boy and Calantha] in imagination to Calvary and the Cross." Now Gifford had never heard of the personal history of Lamb, nor of the occasional fits of lunacy to which his sister Mary was subject; and when the paragraph was brought to his notice by Southey, through Murray, it caused him unspeakable distress. He at once wrote to Southey [Footnote: When the subject of a memoir of Charles Lamb by Serjeant Talfourd was under consideration, Southey wrote to a friend: "I wish that I had looked out for Mr. Talfourd the letter which Gifford wrote in reply to one in which I remonstrated with him upon his designation of Lamb as a poor maniac. The words were used in complete ignorance of their peculiar bearings, and I believe nothing in the course of Gifford's life ever occasioned him so much self-reproach. He was a man with whom I had no literary sympathies; perhaps there was nothing upon which we agreed, except great political questions; but I liked him the better ever after for his conduct on this occasion.">[ the following letter:
Mr. W. Gifford to Mr. Southey.
February 13, 1812.