Yours ever,

J.W.C.

Southey is very long, but as good as he is long—­I have nearly done with him.  I write very slowly, and cannot write long.  This letter is written at three sittings.

No sooner had Croker got No. 56 of the Review out of his hands than he made a short visit to Paris.  On this Mr. Barrow writes to Murray;

Mr. Barrow to John Murray.

April 2, 1823.

“Croker has run away to Paris, and left poor Gifford helpless.  What will become of the Quarterly? ...  Poor Gifford told me yesterday that he felt he must give up the Editorship, and that the doctors had ordered him to do so.”

Some months later, Barrow wrote to Murray saying that he had seen
Gifford that morning: 

Mr. Barrow to John Murray.

August 18, 1823.

“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: