The Countess of Blessington, in her “Conversations with Lord Byron,” says:  “Byron spoke to-day in terms of high commendation of Hope’s ‘Anastasius’; said he had wept bitterly over many pages of it, and for two reasons—­first, that he had not written it; and, secondly, that Hope had; for that it was necessary to like a man excessively to pardon his writing such a book—­a book, he said, excelling all recent productions as much in wit and talent as in true pathos.  He added that he would have given his two most approved poems to have been the author of ‘Anastasius.’” The work was greatly read at the time, and went through many large editions.

The refusal of the “Rejected Addresses,” by Horace and James Smith, was one of Mr. Murray’s few mistakes.  Horace was a stockbroker, and James a solicitor.  They were not generally known as authors, though they contributed anonymously to the New Monthly Magazine, which was conducted by Campbell the poet.  In 1812 they produced a collection purporting to be “Rejected Addresses, presented for competition at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre.”  They offered the collection to Mr. Murray for L20, but he declined to purchase the copyright.  The Smiths were connected with Cadell the publisher, and Murray, thinking that the MS. had been offered to and rejected by him, declined to look into it.  The “Rejected Addresses” were eventually published by John Miller, and excited a great deal of curiosity.  They were considered to be the best imitations of living poets ever made.  Byron was delighted with them.  He wrote to Mr. Murray that he thought them “by far the best thing of the kind since the ‘Rolliad.’” Crabbe said of the verses in imitation of himself, “In their versification they have done me admirably.”  When he afterwards met Horace Smith, he seized both hands of the satirist, and said, with a good-humoured laugh, “Ah! my old enemy, how do you do?” Jeffrey said of the collection, “I take them, indeed, to be the very best imitations (and often of difficult originals) that ever were made, and, considering their extent and variety, to indicate a talent to which I do not know where to look for a parallel.”  Murray had no sooner read the volume than he spared no pains to become the publisher, but it was not until after the appearance of the sixteenth edition that he was able to purchase the copyright for L131.

Towards the end of 1819, Mr. Murray was threatened with an action on account of certain articles which had appeared in Nos. 37 and 38 of the Quarterly relative to the campaign in Italy against Murat, King of Naples.  The first was written by Dr. Reginald (afterwards Bishop) Heber, under the title of “Military and Political Power of Russia, by Sir Robert Wilson”; the second was entitled “Sir Robert Wilson’s Reply.”  Colonel Macirone occupied a very unimportant place in both articles.  He had been in the service of Murat while King of Naples, and acted as his aide-de-camp, which post he retained after