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in the supply beforehand of these vital qualifications.

This view of the matter may be summed up as regards force by taking Mr Giffen's recently published figures in his book on the growth of capital in Great Britain. He says ten thousand million pounds may be taken as the sum total of our industrial capital. Deducting working men's savings in banks and clubs as a mere fleabite, he tells us 200 millions is added yearly. Therefore we get a sum amounting to about half of the gross yearly wages saved, and reinvested by the capitalists. No figures could more strikingly exhibit the disparity subsisting in force.

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Resources. The resources of employers are, then, all stores of accumulated and invested capital, which comprises all the stocks of everything material which the earth produces at the cost and will of man. Law and customs surround the holders of these necessaries and luxuries of life with a power of possession which is practically brought home to us by every policeman's uniform. The penniless workman knows very well he can get none of his wants supplied for long on credit: the smallest comfort of life is soon withheld from him by the small capitalist, a shopkeeper, who in his turn gets but a limited amount of credit from a wholesale dealer, and he again has his credit account with the import merchant or manufacturer. And if a disruption of the course or current is brought about by the penniless working-man consumer at bottom, it speedily reaches the top and supplies are stopped. This happens on rather a large scale in slack times; and in some localities, as in Lancashire and Coventry, it is well understood and has been keenly felt by all, but most

by working people. But at such times public sympathy in the form of liberal and timely help has been a bright feature, which will be entirely absent if a hostile course of action is pursued. Then to the employer belong all those mechanical producers, machinery, which do the work of 50 millions of hands, at least, in England alone, and whose powers increase at a greater ratio than those of workmen—than all animal power; and over and above the visible form of wealth in which property is seen in this country, there is the shipping at sea and abroad, and the foreign investments belonging to our countrymen, which are not tabulated in any reliable form, but are known to bring in at the least 85 millions of pounds a-year. Let any working man compare a railway map of Great Britain with that of any other country, and see how close a network of lines intersects every bit of our country, far beyond any such provision elsewhere, and he must feel how much this country has grown into one huge workshop specially equipped with these its rapid means of communication, and all brought about by voluntary enterprise under force of circumstances, for these roads are none of them contrivances of State, but all the outcome of capitalist enterprise. Now, let the worker also remember that some of these roads pay no profit at all to their owners, and never have done so ; that to all of their owners there are but two pay-days in the year, and that what they are to receive they seldom know beforehand,—and this is but a type of the prevailing system among capitalist employers. He will understand in this manner the powers of resistance of his new giant masters, and take care, let us hope, how he picks a quarrel with them.

TO SUM UP, we find that Labour, aggregate it as we will, has only a self-paralysing power. It can suspend its labours, and bring machinery and other forces of employers to a standstill, and cut off income from capitalists. To go beyond this constitutionally it cannot such are its limits. To continue in this attitude long is impossible for working men, as we have shown. The Scotch are a frugal people, but how short was the time the railway men found it possible to hold out! yet at bottom they had a good cause for action, and it enlisted much public sympathy. But while some persons sympathised all were much inconvenienced, and some much injured in pocket, by the interruption it caused to business. The railway worker really is the ironhorse, and the public will never submit to have his services given or withheld at the caprice of his driver or attendants, be they as few or as many as they may. The owners are tightly meshed in Acts of Parliament, and by-andby the whole business of railways may fall under like dominion. It only needs a little more striking and disturbance to bring it about; and so much more is the public convenience becoming involved in the transactions of these huge masses of employees and their employers, that we need but one initial step to be taken, say in railways, when the time will be ripe for a general following up such new mode as may be adopted. Whether they will be advantageous to the masses of workers, time will show; but the power to deal with them lies latent, and is dormant now. The widening of interests has been shown; the capabilities of the people would be seen in a hostile labour contest. We see now but chers unloading ships; office clerks

willingly assisting as stevedores: not long ago, in a few hours, fifty thousand middle-class volunteers sprang to the side of our metropolitan police as specials, in an emergency caused by turbulent workmen. It is not hard to foresee how new modes of substitution would be volunteered and organised by willing people rather than be stinted of the necessaries of life, and by many it would not be unwelcome as a healthy interlude in the self-indulgent dream which modern life has developed into in this luxurious age.

A solution of the present difficulties may be sought for, but will be sought for, I believe, in vain, in parliamentary action. If arbitration councils or courts could settle it, so much the better, but arbitration has long been tried, and does not satisfy either side: its decisions last no time. It will be found to be one of those problems beyond human wit to arrange a permanent method of settlement, which, while preserving individual freedom, shall enforce submission to authority in such matters as the precise amount of a man's daily wages and his hours of labour. These matters are subordinate to laws, certainly, but they are laws akin to those which govern the operations of nature transcending human powers. Present symptoms point to an electrical condition of the industrial atmosphere; energies of an excitable kind have, as I have shown, been evolved out of new conditions, and storm alone will dissipate them. The duty of outsiders is plain-to act impartially and sustain the law, to study to be self-helpful where the old service fails, and hold well together, never fearing for the result, while abiding the issue of the struggle.

H. R.

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JOHN MURRAY AND HIS FRIENDS.

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"METHINKS," says George Heriot to Sir Mungo Malagrowther, in the 'Fortunes of Nigel,' "it were unseemly that I, who have furnished half the cupboards in broad Britain, should have my own covered with paltry pewter.' It would have been equally unseemly if John Murray, who had in his lifetime published so many excellent biographies, should have been denied a good memoir to himself. The career of a man whom Lord Byron had dubbed the "Anax of Publishers, the Anak of Stationers," and whom his fellow-publishers hailed with acclamation as the "Emperor of the West," must necessarily form an important chapter in literary history, full of interesting recollections of mighty authors, and recording the inner history of our closest friends, the standard volumes on our library shelves.

The history of literature from the publisher's—that is, from the practical-point of view, has been much less illustrated than is advantageous. The life of the author is a debt claimed by the world, and only too readily paid even when the obligation is not overwhelming. Naturally in such a record the publisher, indispensable as are his functions, does not always figure in the best light. It is he who subjects genius to base mechanical measurement; who keeps the key of the gate between it and a public eager to greet it with open arms; and who will by no means allow it to pass without taking toll of its effects. The publisher is the sharp point of contact

which the author or the poet first encounters in his descent from the spiritual ether to the grosser mundane atmosphere. Mind is confronted with matter; sordid realities are weighed against intellectual ideas, and the lead almost shakes the quicksilver out of the balance; there is a shock and a disillusion. The publisher arrogates to himself the attributes of Justice, and we willingly concede him the bandage. We have only too many precedents for impugning his verdict; literary history teems with examples of his fallibility and his rapacity. The Curlls and the Griffithses have given a character to their craft which their more righteous successors have with difficulty lived down.

And even such a work as lies before us-a plain tale of honourable and generous dealing in literary wares-will only go a certain length in vindicating the "trade" in the auctorial imagination. There is a good reason for it: the number of successful authors is small, very small; the crowd of ambitious and disappointed writers is numberless as the sands on the sea - - shore. The former may complaisantly allow the publisher to be a Mæcenas; the latter will assuredly revile him as a Shylock.

The position of a publisher, while it exposes him to extravagant and unreasonable expectations, also lays upon him obligations from which all other classes of traders are happily exempt. We may dismiss the idea that it is his duty to recognise genius in

A Publisher and his Friends: Memoir and Correspondence of the late John Murray. By Samuel Smiles, LL.D. Two volumes. London: Murray, 1891. 3 A

VOL. CXLIX.-NO. DCCCCVII.

the germ, and to nurse it as in a hothouse through the bud and blossom until the fruit is ripe. In literature as in horticulture, forcing is not always attended by success. But we may justly demand that the publisher shall be able to recognise a work of genius when it is brought to him, and that he shall aid the author in placing it before the public. But here comes in the publisher's difficulty. He may be quite alive to the merits and worth of a work, but he is also aware that these will not appeal to public opinion and public taste, which make up the gauge that he has to go by. We have a very good instance of this in Murray's dealing with Carlyle and Sartor Resartus.'

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Carlyle came up from Craigenputtock with the MS. of 'Sartor Resartus,' and with a letter of introduction from Lord Jeffrey to Mr Murray. Some delay occurred in examining the work, and Jeffrey called and induced the publisher to venture upon an edition of 750 on a "half-profits" agreementa liberal enough offer, considering that Carlyle was only known as the author of 'Schiller' and the translator of Wilhelm Meister,' and the contributor of some Review articles. But Carlyle had meanwhile taken his MS. round the Row, with very indifferent success; and when Murray heard of other refusals, he was naturally unwilling to proceed with the book upon trust. The MS. was read, evidently by Lockhart, whose opinion, in quasi-irony, has been since permanently appended to the work.

"He thought it might be a translation. The work displayed, here and there, some felicity of thought and expression, with considerable fancy and knowledge, but whether or not it would take with the public seemed doubtful."

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It is not to be wondered at, under the circumstances, that Murray was indisposed to give Carlyle the benefit of the doubt, and that the work had to be taken back to Craigenputtock, and find its way to the public in course of time through the pages of Fraser.' But as Dr Smiles truly observes, Carlyle himself created the taste to ap preciate Sartor Resartus."'" Had it then been published, it would probably have proved a blank in the literary lottery; Carlyle would perhaps have been discouraged from further work in his native vein, and Murray would most probably have lost his money. It requires the cumulative force of Carlyle's books to enable us to appreciate them individually, and it is the publisher's daily experience to meet with works holding out a promise that is never justified.

The

The publishing house of Murray dates back to the year 1768, and its contemporary head is John Murray III. of that name. business began coevally with a great change in the profession of literature, of which Johnson's indignant denunciations of the patron, and Goldsmith's vindication of the craft of letters in his 'Enquiry into Polite Learning,' were certain key-notes. With this change the establishment of the house of Murray was coincident, and it is to its renown that it has done muchnone more to elevate the literary calling to dignity and independence. In that year a young Scotch lieutenant of marines, thrown out of active service by the peace, and despairing of promotion, quitted Chatham for Fleet Street and became a "bookseller." We have an affectionate liking for this ancient term, for its more modern substitute is often not coextensive in import. The shop he went into was the "Ship," opposite St Dunstan's

Church; and here for twenty-five years he carried on a solid business, publishing a number of works of which scarcely the names linger in our literature, except Isaac D'Israeli's 'Curiosities of Literature,' Whitaker's 'Manchester,' Mitford's 'Greece,' and Lavater's 'Physiognomy,' his last and worst enterprise, over which he lost £3900 for the engraving of the plates. He also made some essays in periodical publication, an annual 'London Mercury,' written mostly by himself, and the English Review,' in which he had the doubtful assistance for some time of the notorious and unfortunate Gilbert Stuart. Lieutenant Murray was still a young man when he died, and his son, who was to succeed him in the business, was only fifteen at the time.

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Although the heir to an established house, John Murray II. was far from finding smooth water under him when he was launched into business. He had a partner, Mr Highley, whom he felt to be an incubus upon his views, and he early showed his firmness and decision by getting rid of him. His earlier letters indicate a remarkable grasp of business, enterprise, determination, and great consistency of purpose and principle, which were the dominant characteristics of his successful life. He had had a fair education at Dr Burney's and other good private schools; and he had that discriminative literary instinct and taste which, whether the product of education or a natural gift, is the note of all great publishers. His His correspondence from the beginning proves how readily he had mastered his position. The author looks to his publisher for a plain, matter-of-fact, sensible opinion; he will not tolerate the language of superior criticism; and while

welcoming genuine and spontaneous appreciation, he resents nothing more than flattery from such a source. Murray understood this well, and his letters were undoubtedly as pleasant as valuable to the recipients. Writing to him on one occasion, Isaac D'Israeli thus compliments him :

"Your letter is one of the repeated specimens I have seen of your happy art of giving interest even to commonplace correspondence; and I, who am so feelingly alive to the pains and penalties of postage, must acknowledge that such letters, ten times repeated, would please me as often." Lord Byron's appreciation of Murray's letters had long ago made us familiar with their merits, and in the volumes before us we find even fair and fashionable dames like Lady Caroline Lamb and Mrs Norton hanging on his accents, or rather on his pen.

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The two great facts in John Murray's career, which, by their importance and wide-spreading consequences, throw into the shade all his other literary acts, important as they are intrinsically when viewed by themselves, were his association with Byron and his publication of the ' Quarterly Review'; and naturally both these subjects occupy a large portion of Dr Smiles's volumes. Those who expected important additions to our Byroniana will, however, feel considerable disappointment. We are merely again led over the same old ground that we have already traversed with Moore. This is not surprising; for the great bulk of Moore's materials, including all the letters from poet to publisher, were supplied by Murray, who, in a jocular balancing of accounts with Moore, credits himself with £2000, for "contributing one-half of the work myself by Lord Byron's letters to his publisher." It is in

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