Autobiographical Notes. 183 



portrait to be found in Fronde's Life, wliere Murray is classed 

 among the intruders in Cheyne Row: — 



" One day there stepped in a very curious little fellow, Dr 

 Thomas Murray, whom you recollect without the Doctor, as of 

 Edinburgh and Literary Galloway. There is hardly any change 

 in the little man. Worldly, egoistic, small, vain, a poor grub 

 in whom perhaps was still some remnant of better instincts, whom 

 one could not look at without impressive reminiscences. He 

 did not come back to me, nor did I want it, though I asked 

 him. "^2 



In case this diatribe of Carlyle's should engender in the 

 mind of any reader a feeling of contempt for Murray, it may be 

 well to contrast the present letter with the one of August, 1814, 

 indited in terms of affectionate regard to the very man he now 

 pillories so mercilessly, who was the friend of his youth, and 

 who in the interval since had done nothing to forfeit the respect 

 of his fellows. Carlyle was not prone to over-estimate the gifts 

 or good qualities of others, and in connection with this it may 

 not be out of place to recall some of the advice tendered to him 

 by his first love, Margaret Gordon, when bidding him a final 

 good-bye. "Cultivate the milder dispositions of your heart," 

 she said. " Remove the awful distance between you and ordi- 

 nary men by kind and gentle manners. Deal gently with their 

 inferiority, and be convinced they will respect you as much and 

 like you more. . . . Let your light shine before men, and 

 think them not unworthy the trouble. It must be a pleasing 

 thing to live in the affections of others. "^^ This was written in 

 1817, and we may judge of the nature of the soil in which the 

 good seed was sown from the fact that there was no germination. 

 The following year, 1841, Murray established in Edin- 

 burgh the printing business of Murray & Gibb, " basing on the 

 plant and goodwill of W. Oliphant, jun., & Co."i^ He owed 

 not a little to the support of Mr M'Culloch, who in 1838 had 

 been appointed comptroller of H.M. Stationery Office, and was 

 thus able to put much of the government printing in the way 

 of the young firm, and to use his influence to obtain for it some 

 remunerative contracts. The venture was thus very successful, 

 and, as has been said, Murray was enabled by and by to " crown 



12. Froude's Thomas Carlyle. London, 1884, Vol. I., p. 186. 



13. Froude's Thomas Carlyle. London, 1882, Vol. I., pp. 52-3. 



14. Scotsman, April 16, 1872. 



