e
backbone of the enterprise: he was indefatigable in soliciting new
writers for the _Quarterly_, and in finding the books fit for review,
and the appropriate reviewers of the books. Sometimes the reviews were
printed before the editor was consulted, but everything passed under the
notice of Gifford, and received his emendations and final approval.

Mr. Murray went so far as to invite Leigh Hunt to contribute an article
on Literature or Poetry for the _Quarterly_. The reply came from John
Hunt, Leigh's brother. He said:

_Mr. John Hunt to John Murray_.

"My brother some days back requested me to present to you his thanks for
the polite note you favoured him with on the subject of the _Review_, to
which he should have been most willing to have contributed in the manner
you propose, did he not perceive that the political sentiments contained
in it are in direct opposition to his own."

This was honest, and it did not interfere with the personal intercourse
of the publisher and the poet. Murray afterwards wrote to Scott: "Hunt
is most vilely wrong-headed in politics, which he has allowed to turn
him away from the path of elegant criticism, which might have led him to
eminence and respectability."

James Mill, author of the "History of British India," sent an article
for the second number; but the sentiments and principles not being in
accordance with those of the editor, it was not at once accepted. On
learning this, he wrote to Mr. Murray as follows:

_Mr. James Mill to John Murray_.

My dear Sir,

I can have no objection in the world to your delaying the article I have
sent you till it altogether suits your arrangements to make use of it.
Besides this point, a few words of explanation may not be altogether
useless with regard to another. I am half inclined to suspect that the
objection of your Editor goes a little farther than you state. If so, I
beg you will not hesitate a moment about what you are to do with it. I
wrote it solely with a view to oblige and to benefit _you personally_,
but with very little idea, as I told you at our first conversation on
the subject, that it would be in my power to be of any use to you, as
the views which I entertained respecting what is good for our country
were very different from the views entertained by the gentlemen with
whom in your projected concern you told me you were to be connected. To
convince you, however, of my good-will, I am perfectly ready to give you
a specime