Certainly, a goodly array of learning, knowledge, and physical training!

To return to the history of Mr. Murray’s publications.  Some of his best books were published after the stroke of paralysis which he had sustained, and among them must be mentioned Mitford’s “History of Greece,” Lavater’s work on Physiognomy, and the first instalment of Isaac D’Israeli’s “Curiosities of Literature.”

The following extract from a letter to the Rev. Mr. Whitaker, dated December 20, 1784, takes us back to an earlier age.

“Poor Dr. Johnson’s remains passed my door for interment this afternoon.  They were accompanied by thirteen mourning coaches with four horses each; and after these a cavalcade of the carriages of his friends.  He was about to be buried in Westminster Abbey.”

In the same year the Rev. Alexander Fraser of Kirkhill, near Inverness, communicated to Mr. Murray his intention of publishing the Memoirs of Lord Lovat, the head of his clan.  Mr. Eraser’s father had received the Memoirs in manuscript from Lord Lovat, with an injunction to publish them after his death.  “My father,” he said, “had occasion to see his Lordship a few nights before his execution, when he again enjoined him to publish the Memoirs.”  General Fraser, a prisoner in the Castle of Edinburgh, had requested, for certain reasons, that the publication should be postponed; but the reasons no longer existed, and the Memoirs were soon after published by Mr. Murray, but did not meet with any success.

The distressed state of trade and the consequent anxieties of conducting his business hastened Mr. Murray’s end.  On November 6, 1793, Samuel Highley, his principal assistant, wrote to a correspondent:  “Mr. Murray died this day after a long and painful illness, and appointed as executors Dr. G.A.  Paxton, Mrs. Murray, and Samuel Highley.  The business hereafter will be conducted by Mrs. Murray.”  The Rev. Donald Grant, D.D., and George Noble, Esq., were also executors, but the latter did not act.

The income of the property was divided as follows:  one half to the education and maintenance of Mr. Murray’s three children, and the other half to his wife so long as she remained a widow.  But in the event of her marrying again, her share was to be reduced by one-third and her executorship was to cease.

John Murray began his publishing career at the age of twenty-three.  He was twenty-five years in business, and he died at the comparatively early age of forty-eight.  That publishing books is not always a money-making business may be inferred from the fact that during these twenty-five years he did not, with all his industry, double his capital.

CHAPTER II

JOHN MURRAY (II.)—­BEGINNING OF HIS PUBLISHING CAREER—­ISAAC D’ISRAELI, ETC.