Autobiographical Notes. 181 



language, it breathes of manliness and individuality, and to a 

 degree impresses the reader with the fact unmistakable, that 

 here is a man with a message to deliver. Little wonder that 

 Murray instinctively felt when he listened to the outpourings of 

 his friend's heart, or when he was the recipient of letters such 

 as this, that he was living in companionship with one who would 

 yet take high place among the giants of literature. That Carlyle 

 was very human and could write in a less pleasing vein is a matter 

 of common knowledge, and an instance will come under our 

 review presently. 



In 1&17 Murray became acquainted with John Ramsay 

 M'Culloch, political economist and statistician, and a voluminous 

 writer of con.siderable distinction in his day. M'Culloch also 

 belonged to Galloway, having been born at the Isle of Whithorn, 

 in Wigtownshire, on 1st March, 1789, and an intimate friendship 

 was formed between the two, which lasted till the death of 

 M'Culloch in 1864. 



Murray was now .devoting a considerable portion of his 

 time to literary pursuits. In 1822 he published his iir.st work, 

 the Literary History of Galloway : From the Earliest Period 

 to the Present Time, a respectable octavo volume, which he 

 dedicated to the Honourable Lady Ann Murray of Broughton. 

 The eccentric John Mactaggart in his work, the Scottish 

 Gallovidian Encyclopedia, comments amusingly on Murray and 

 his book. He says: — "Mr Murray, a gentleman who lately 

 published the ' Literarv Hi.story of Galloway,' a work he has 

 certainly done much justice to ; and I only think it a pity that 

 he paid so much attention to a subject, not surely worth the 

 paying attention to. For instance, what was the use of rum- 

 maging ancient libraries, to know whether a certain priest once 

 lived in a certain parish, and a priest who, when all is known of 

 him that can be or could be, is worth nothing, he turns out to 

 be a mere common priest? Mr M. is also too in an error, 

 when he thinks that there are, or have been, no literary char- 

 acters in Galloway but priests; however, the industry of the 

 author I laud, and long to see directed to something of more 

 consequence; perhaps I may take this home to myself."^ 



9. Second Edition, 1876, p. 354. For an account of Mactaggart 

 see Murray's Literary History of Galloway, Second Edition, 

 pp. 322-28. 



