“Gifford, though the best-tempered man alive, is terribly severe with his pen; but S.S. would suffer ten times more by being turned into ridicule (and never did man expose himself so much as he did in that sermon) than from being slashed and cauterized in that manner.”

The following refers to a difference of opinion between Mr. Murray and his editor.  Mr. Gifford had resented some expression of his friend’s as savouring of intimidation.

John Murray to Mr. Gifford.

September 25, 1810.

“I entreat you to be assured that the term ‘intimidation’ can never be applied to any part of my conduct towards you, for whom I entertain the highest esteem and regard, both as a writer and as a friend.  If I am over-anxious, it is because I have let my hopes of fame as a bookseller rest upon the establishment and celebrity of this journal.  My character, as well with my professional brethren as with the public, is at stake upon it; for I would not be thought silly by the one, or a mere speculator by the other.  I have a very large business, as you may conclude by the capital I have been able to throw into this one publication, and yet my mind is so entirely engrossed, my honour is so completely involved in this one thing, that I neither eat, drink, nor sleep upon anything else.  I would rather it excelled all other journals and I gained nothing by it, than gain L300 a year by it without trouble if it were thought inferior to any other.  This, sir, is true.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Murray was becoming hard pressed for money.  To conduct his increasing business required a large floating capital, for long credits were the custom, and besides his own requirements, he had to bear the constant importunities of the Ballantynes to renew their bills.  On July 25, 1810, he wrote to them:  “This will be the last renewal of the bill (L300); when it becomes due, you will have the goodness to provide for it.”  It was, however, becoming impossible to continue dealing with them, and he gradually transferred his printing business to other firms.  We find him about this time ordering Messrs. George Ramsay & Co., Edinburgh, to print 8,000 of the “Domestic Cookery,” which was still having a large sale.

The Constables also were pressing him for renewals of bills.  The correspondence of this date is full of remonstrances from Murray against the financial unpunctuality of his Edinburgh correspondents.

On March 21, 1811, he writes:  “With regard to myself, I will engage in no new work of any kind”; and again, on April 4, 1811: 

Dear Constable,

You know how much I have distressed myself by entering heedlessly upon too many engagements.  You must not urge me to involve myself in renewed difficulties.

To return to the Quarterly No. 8.  Owing to the repeated delay in publication, the circulation fell off from 5,000 to 4,000, and Mr. George Ellis had obviously reason when he wrote:  “Hence I infer that punctuality is, in our present situation, our great and only desideratum.”