“Dressed, and went along with the Clan Murray to dine at Mr. D’Israeli’s, where we had a most sumptuous banquet, and a very large party, in honour of the newly married folks.  There was a very beautiful woman there, Mrs. Turner, wife of Sharon Turner, the Anglo-Saxon historian, who, I am told, was one of the Godwin school!  If they be all as beautiful, accomplished, and agreeable as this lady, they must be a deuced dangerous set indeed, and I should not choose to trust myself amongst them.

“Our male part of the company consisted mostly of literary men—­Cumberland, Turner, D’Israeli, Basevi, Prince Hoare, and Cervetto, the truly celebrated violoncello player.  Turner was the most able and agreeable of the whole by far; Cumberland, the most talkative and eccentric perhaps, has a good sprinkling of learning and humour in his conversation and anecdote, from having lived so long amongst the eminent men of his day, such as Johnson, Foote, Garrick, and such like.  But his conversation is sadly disgusting, from his tone of irony and detraction conveyed in a cunning sort of way and directed constantly against the Edinburgh Review, Walter Scott (who is a ’poor ignorant boy, and no poet,’ and never wrote a five-feet line in his life), and such other d——­d stuff.”

CHAPTER IV

“MARMION”—­CONSTABLES AND BALLANTYNES—­THE “EDINBURGH REVIEW”

Mr. Murray was twenty-nine years old at the time of his marriage.  That he was full of contentment as well as hope at this time may be inferred from his letter to Constable three weeks after his marriage: 

John Murray to Mr. Constable.

March 27, 1807.

“I declare to you that I am every day more content with my lot.  Neither my wife nor I have any disposition for company or going out; and you may rest assured that I shall devote all my attention to business, and that your concerns will not be less the object of my regard merely because you have raised mine so high.  Every moment, my dear Constable, I feel more grateful to you, and I trust that you will over find me your faithful friend.—­J.M.”

Some of the most important events in Murray’s career occurred during the first year of his married life.  Chief among them may perhaps be mentioned his part share in the publication of “Marmion” (in February 1808)—­which brought him into intimate connection with Walter Scott—­and his appointment for a time as publisher in London of the Edinburgh Review; for he was thus brought into direct personal contact with those forces which ultimately led to the chief literary enterprise of his life—­the publication of the Quarterly Review.

Mr. Scott called upon Mr. Murray in London shortly after the return of the latter from his marriage in Edinburgh.

“Mr. Scott called upon me on Tuesday, and we conversed for an hour....  He appears very anxious that ‘Marmion’ should be published by the King’s birthday....  He said he wished it to be ready by that time for very particular reasons; and yet he allows that the poem is not completed, and that he is yet undetermined if he shall make his hero happy or otherwise.”