MURRAY 



351 





brilliant papers in the Daily News and Pall Mall 

 Gazette, and as an author by The Roving English- 

 man (1854-55), Embassies and Foreign Courts 

 (1855), History of the French Press (1874), Men 

 of the Second Empire, <tc. (1872-74), and a few 

 brilliant novels. Of the last, The Member for Paris 

 (1871) is the cleverest, but Young Brown (1874), 

 from the circumstances of its hero's birth, has the 

 most interest. 



Murray, JAMES A. H., philologist, was born at 

 Denholm, Roxburghshire, in 1837, received his 

 elementary education at Minto school, removed 

 to Hawick, and was appointed assistant-teacher 

 in the parish school there, and afterwards master 

 of a subscription academy. He next removed 

 to London, tilling the post of foreign correspondent 

 in the Oriental Bank for some years ; he after- 

 wards became senior assistant-master at Mill Hill 

 school. Dr Murray has been twice president of 

 the Philological Society (1879-80), is a graduate 

 of London University, and LL.D. of Edinburgh 

 University. His work on the Dialects of the 

 Southern Counties of Scotland (1873) established 

 his reputation as a philologist. He is fiuuiliar 

 with almost all the European languages and a 

 large nuinl>er of oriental tongues. The great work 

 of his life, the editorship of the Philological 

 Society's New English Dictionary, issued by the 

 Clarendon Press, was begun wliile at Mill Hill 

 (1879), an iron building in his garden there being 

 utilised for the assortment of the two tons of 

 material to which lie fell heir from his pre- 

 decessors in the editorship, Herbert Coleridge and 

 Dr Fiirnivall. This work has lieen continued at 

 Oxford, where Dr Murray has, with a staff of 

 assistants, devoted his whole attention to the task. 

 Dr Murray has fought his way to the front rank as 

 an authority in the history and derivation of words, 

 and his great English Dictionary is the most 

 thorough and important work of the kinil ever 

 undertaken in Britain. A civil list pension of 

 270 per annum was conferred upon him in 1884. ' 



Murray, JOHN, the name of four generations 

 of English publishers, will for ever remain asso- 

 ciated with the palmiest days of English literature 

 in the 18th and 19th centuries. The founder of the 

 house, John M'Murray, was Ixirn in Edinburgh 

 in 1745. He obtained a commission in the Hoyal 

 Marines in 1762, and in 1768 was still second- 

 lieutenant, when, disgusted with the slowness of 

 promotion, he purchased the bookselling business of 

 Paul Sanelby, 32 Fleet Street, London, and, drop- 

 ping the Scottish prefix, became a bookseller and 

 publisher. He brought out the English Review, 

 and published the first two volumes of the elder 

 Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature, &c. He died 

 November 16, 1793, and was succeeded in due time 

 by hia son JOHN (liorn November 27, 1778), a 

 minor of fifteen at his father's death, who was 

 for a short time associated as partner with \\\- 

 father'a shopman, Mr Highlev. One of the earliest 

 bits of John the second was Mrs Rundell's Cookery- 

 book, of which over 300,000 copies were sold. He 

 liecame connected with Mr Stratford Canning, 

 afterwards Lord Stratford de Kedcliffe, through the 

 assistance he lent him and other Etonians with 

 their publication of The Miniature. In 1808-9 he 

 projected the Quarter! </ /.Vr/cir, a Tory organ, in 

 opposition to the Whig Edinburgh Review ; his 

 first step being to obtain Canning's countenance. 

 A severe criticism of Scott's Marmion in the Edin- 

 burgh Revir.ir suggested to Murray a visit to Scott; 

 be secured his co-operation, as also that of Heber, 

 fanning, George Ellis, and Sir John Barrow. 

 The first number was published February 1, 1809, 

 under the editorship of William Clifford. The new 

 periodical was completely successful, attaining a 



circulation of 18,000 copies, and brought Murray 

 into communication not only with the chief literati, 

 but also with the Conservative statesmen of the 

 time. A still more fortunate connection was that 

 with LOR! Byron (1810), whom he offered 600 for 

 the first two cantos of Childe Harold (published 

 1812). Murray now removed from Fleet Street to 

 Albemarle Street, where the business is still carried 

 on. Here Byron and Scott first met, and here 

 Southey made the acquaintance of Crabbe. Almost 

 all the literary magnates of the day were ' four 

 o'clock visitors ' in Albemarle Street ' wits and 

 bards ; Crabl>es, Campl>ells, Crokers, Freres, and 

 \Vards.' Murray paid Byron nearly 20,000 for 

 his works, and his dealings with Crabbe, Moore, 

 Campbell, and Irving were princely. He had at 

 one time dealings with Constable and Ballantyne, 

 but never approved of their methods of business. 

 Hearing that Byron was in difficulties in 1815, he 

 sent him a cheque for 1500, promised another for 

 the same amount, and even offered to sell the copy- 

 right of his works on his behalf if necessary. ( As 

 to Byron's autobiography, see BYRON, Vol. II. p. 

 598). Perhaps his only unsuccessful venture was 

 the Representative (1826) newspaper; his 'Family 

 Library ' was begun in 1829, and he issued the 

 travels of Mungo Park, Belzoni, Parry, Frank- 

 lin, and others. The second John Murray died in 

 his sixty-fifth year, June 27, 1843, and was suc- 

 ceeded by his son, JOHN MURRAY the third, born 

 in 1808, and educated at the Charterhouse and 

 at Edinburgh University. A more practical and 

 realistic age had succeeded that of Byron, and the 

 ' Home and Colonial Library ' was the precursor of 

 much of the cheap railway and other literature of 

 the present day. Many of the greatest works in 

 history, biography, travel, art, and science have 

 been issued by the third Murray. Among his 

 successes may be mentioned Dr Livingstone's 

 Travels and Last Journals, Smiles's Life of George 

 Stephenson, Self-help, of which more than 150,000 

 have been sold, Darwin's works, Dr Smith's 

 dictionaries, and the well-known Handbooks for 

 Trai-ellers (begun 1836; see GUIDEBOOKS), of the 

 first five of which he was author. He died April 2, 

 1892, when his son, the fourth JOHN MURRAY, 

 liecame head of the firm. See S. Smiles, A Pub- 

 lisher and his Friends ( 1891 ). 



Murray, JOHN (1741-1815), was the founder of 

 Universalism (q.v.) in America. 



Murray, LINDLEY, grammarian, was born at 

 Swetara, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, in 1745, 

 the eldest of twelve children, and was educated at 

 a school in Philadelphia belonging to the Society 

 of Friends. On his father's removal to New York 

 he was placed in a counting-house, but his thirst 

 for study was so ardent that he escaped to a school 

 in New Jersey. He then studied law, and was 

 admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-one, and 

 commenced a good practice. During the revolution- 

 ary war he engaged in mercantile pursuits with 

 such success as to accumulate a handsome fortune. 

 In 1784, his health failing, be came to Eng- 

 land and purchased an estate at Holdgate, near 

 York, where he devoted himself to literary pur- 

 suits. In 1787 he published his Power of Religion 

 on the Mind, which passed through nineteen 

 editions, and was translated into French. His 

 Grammar of the English Language was issued in 

 1795, and was followed by English Exercises, the 

 Key, the English Reader, Introduction and Sequel 

 (l)0th translated into French), a Spelling Book, A 

 First Book for Children, A Compendium of Faith 

 and Practice, and The Duty and Benefit of a Daily 

 Perusal of the Scriptures. The lesson-books all 

 passed through numerous large editions, and there 

 can be no stronger indication of how entirely the 



