1826.] 
[537 -] 
MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 
DOMESTIC. 
Memoirs of the Life and Writings of 
Lindley Murray, written by himself; and a 
Continuation by Elizabeth Frank; 1826.— 
These memoirs are got up by this Elizabeth 
Frank. ' This lady, whether maid, wife, or 
widow, instigated-the good man to write 
his.own unimportant, though not quite un- 
interesting memoirs, up to, or down to, the 
year 1809; and though nothing whatever 
was then left to he told, but that he sur- 
vived to the year 1826, the same feeble and 
quiescent yaletudinarian, engaged in the 
same small occupations, pursuing the same 
imperturbable course, respected or pitied 
by his neighbours, admired by his a¢quain- 
tance, and beloved by his friends, the busy 
and discoursing dame has more than doubled 
the bulk of the memoirs—to swell the book 
to arespectable and saleable size, full 280 
pretty fairly filled pages. 
He was a native of Pennsylvania: his 
father, a quaker, was the proprietor of a 
millin that province, and afterwards a mer- 
chant..at New York. Lindley was the 
eldest of a large family, and was destined by 
the father to follow his own profession. 
Though very early and decidedly reluctant, 
he was at last tempted by the offer of a 
stock of silver watches just imported by his 
father, to commence a little trafficking— 
he was only fourteen—and was beginning to 
taste and relish the sweets of gain, when an 
act of severity on the part of his father 
kindled his indignation, and impelled him 
to abandon the pursuit and lis home to- 
gether. He was, however, after some time, 
reconciled to his now indulgent parent, 
and at his own earnest solicitation articled 
to a lawyer. At twenty, he commenced 
business as an attorney and counsellor at 
New York, under the favourable auspices 
of a large family connexion, and was ad- 
vancing very successfully in his profession, 
when the burst of the revolution at once 
closed the courts, and put a stop to the 
profits of the lawyers. 
In the practice of the law (says he), pecuniary in- 
terest was not my only rule of action. When cir- 
cumstances would properly admit of it, I generally 
endeavoured to persuade the person who was threat- 
ened with a prosecution, to pay the debt, or make 
satisfaction, without the trouble and the expense of a 
suit. In donbtful cases, 1 frequently recommended a 
settlement of differences, by arbitration, as the mode 
which Lconceived would ultimately prove most satis- 
factory to both parties. I do not recollect that I ever 
encouraged a client to proceed at law, when I thought 
hiscause was unjust or indefensible: but in such cases, 
I believe, it was my invariable practice to discourage 
pr ie to recommend a peaceable settlement 
of 
Why—we stop a moment to ask—why » 
should hejexpress himself thus doubtfully ? 
He must know the fact. If he was a man 
of principle, and we have no doubt he was, 
he must know whether and when he de- 
M.M. New Series. —Vor.1I. No. 11. 
viated. Really this sort of mock-modesty 
—this morbid apprehension of peremptory 
expressions—leads to as many misrepresen- 
tations, as the contrary course of contempt 
of truth and absence of caution. 
All professional business being suspended 
by the revolution, he withdrew to Long 
Island; and after a residence of three or 
four years, New York being then under the 
British dominion, he returned to that town, 
and entered so zealously and successfully 
into some mercantile concerns, that by the 
time the Americans had secured their inde- 
pendence he had realized a sum sufficient 
for his wants—always moderate—and_ re- 
tired to a beautiful and romantic spot, about 
three miles from the town, to pass the re- 
mainder of his days in the peaceful pursuits 
of a country life. 
But here his health, which had never 
been vigorous, grew worse and worse ; he 
recruited in winter, but relapsed in summer, 
and losing more ground each summer than 
he gained in the ensuing winter, the pros- 
pect became hopeless ; and after travelling 
in different directions for some time, in 
search of what, when once lost, is rarely 
found again, he was at last, in 1784, pre- 
vailed upon to try the bracing air of the 
north of our own England ; where he finally 
fixed himself, within a mile of York, and 
resided, in a course of uniformity and ab- 
sence of locomotion seldom equalled, to the 
day of his death. For, soon after bis ar- 
rival in England he lost, not the use of his 
limbs, but the capability of supporting his 
frame in a standing or walking position. For 
a time he crept round his garden, but soon 
his muscles almost completely failed him, 
and ltis movements were confined to step- 
ping from his room, along a plank, into his 
carriage ; and, for the last sixteen years, the 
bed and the sofa were the only change of 
scene he experienced. 
In this apparently distressing and afflicted 
condition, books were a natural resource: 
he had always been fond of reading ; and 
now happily found in it—next to the sooth- 
ings of religion, of which he had deep and 
permanent impressions, and the invaluable 
attentions of an invaluable wife,—his best 
consolation, his business, his pleasure, the 
assuager of his pains, and the controler of 
his desires. This reading, and this confine- 
ment, led irresistibly to writing. His first 
production was one, the fruits of his own 
feelings and experience, the ‘‘ Power of 
Religion on the Mind.’ Local cireum- 
stances gaye birth to his Grammar ; and the 
Grammar to the successive series of the 
rest of his school-books. 
Some of his friends (Murray was himself a quaker) 
established at York a school for the guarded edu- 
cation of young females (these are Elizabeth Frank’s 
words); which was continued for several years, 
Mr. Murray strongly recommended that the study 
32 
