But he did take interest in it, at least for a few moments, and so it was not quite too late; and (doing as I know he would have me), I shall act upon your most kind and friendly advice, and transmit it to Blackwood, who will, I doubt not, be willingly guided by it.

It was one of my husband’s pleasant visions before our marriage, and his favourite prospect, to publish a volume of poetry conjointly with me, not weighing the disproportion of talent.

I must tell you that immediately on receiving the Review, I should have written to express my sense of your kindness, and of the flattering nature of the critique; but happening to tell Miss Southey and her brother that you had sent it me, as I believed, as an obliging personal attention, they assured me I was mistaken, and that the numbers were only intended for “their set.”  Fearing, therefore, to arrogate to myself more than was designed for me, I kept silence; and now expose my simplicity rather than leave myself open to the imputation of unthankfulness.  Mr. Southey desires to be very kindly remembered to you, and I am, my dear Sir,

Very thankfully and truly yours, Car.  Southey.

P.S.—­I had almost forgotten to thank you for so kindly offering to send the Review to any friends of mine, I may wish to gratify.  I will accept the proffered favour, and ask you to send one addressed to Miss Burnard, Shirley, Southampton, Hants.  The other members of my family and most of my friends take the Q.R., or are sure of seeing it.  This last number is an excellent one.

Southey died on March 21, 1843.  The old circle of friends was being sadly diminished.  “Disease and death,” his old friend Thomas Mitchell, one of the survivors of the early contributors to the Quarterly, wrote to Murray, “seem to be making no small havoc among our literary men—­Maginn, Cunningham, Basil Hall, and poor Southey, worst of all.  Lockhart’s letters of late have made me very uneasy, too, about him.  Has he yet returned from Scotland, and is he at all improved?” Only a few months later Mr. Murray himself was to be called away from the scene of his life’s activity.  In the autumn of 1842 his health had already begun to fail rapidly, and he had found it necessary to live much out of London, and to try various watering-places; but although he rallied at times sufficiently to return to his business for short periods, he never recovered, and passed away in sleep on June 27, 1843, at the age of sixty-five.

CHAPTER XXXII

JOHN MURRAY AS A PUBLISHER

In considering the career of John Murray, the reader can hardly fail to be struck with the remarkable manner in which his personal qualities appeared to correspond with the circumstances out of which he built his fortunes.