d MacBurney, but, like Murray, he dropped the Mac.

While at Dr. Burney's school, young Murray had the misfortune to lose
the sight of his right eye. The writing-master was holding his penknife
awkwardly in his hand, point downwards, and while the boy, who was
showing up an exercise, stooped to pick up the book which had fallen,
the blade ran into his eye and entirely destroyed the sight. To a friend
about to proceed to Gosport, Mr. Murray wrote: "Poor John has met with a
sad accident, which you will be too soon acquainted with when you reach
Gosport. His mother is yet ignorant of it, and I dare not tell her."

Eventually the boy was brought to London for the purpose of ascertaining
whether something might be done by an oculist for the restoration of his
sight. But the cornea had been too deeply wounded; the fluid of the eye
had escaped; nothing could be done for his relief, and he remained blind
in that eye to the end of his life. [Footnote: Long afterwards Chantrey
the sculptor, who had suffered a similar misfortune, exclaimed, "What!
are you too a brother Cyclops?" but, as the narrator of the story used
to add, Mr. Murray could see better with one eye than most people with
two.] His father withdrew him from Dr. Burney's school, and sent him in
July 1793 to the Rev. Dr. Roberts, at Loughborough House, Kennington. In
committing him to the schoolmaster's charge, Mr. Murray sent the
following introduction:

"Agreeable to my promise, I commit to you the charge of my son, and, as
I mentioned to you in person, I agree to the terms of fifty guineas. The
youth has been hitherto well spoken of by the gentleman he has been
under. You will find him sensible and candid in the information you may
want from him; and if you are kind enough to bestow pains upon him, the
obligation on my part will be lasting. The branches to be learnt are
these: Latin, French, Arithmetic, Mercantile Accounts, Elocution,
History, Geography, Geometry, Astronomy, the Globes, Mathematics,
Philosophy, Dancing, and Martial Exercise."

Certainly, a goodly array of learning, knowledge, and physical training!

To return to the history of Mr. Murray's publications. Some of his best
books were published after the stroke of paralysis which he had
sustained, and among them must be mentioned Mitford's "History of
Greece," Lavater's work on Physiognomy, and the first instalment of
Isaac D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature."

The following extract from a lett