hart to John Murray_.

_February_ 25, 1843.

DEAR MURRAY,

I don't know if you have read much of "The Life of Wilkie." All
Cunningham's part seems to be wretched, but in the "Italian and Spanish
Journals and Letters" Wilkie shines out in a comparatively new
character. He is a very eloquent and, I fancy, a deep and instructive
critic on painting; at all events, Vol. ii. is full of very high
interest.... Is there anywhere a good criticism on the alteration that
Wilkie's style exhibited after his Italian and Spanish tours? The
general impression always was, and I suppose will always be, that the
change was for the worse. But it will be a nice piece of work to account
for an unfortunate change being the result of travel and observation,
which we now own to have produced such a stock of admirable theoretical
disquisition on the principles of the Art. I can see little to admire or
like in the man Wilkie. Some good homely Scotch kindness for kith and
kin, and for some old friends too perhaps; but generally the character
seems not to rise above the dull prudentialities of a decent man in awe
of the world and the great, and awfully careful about No. 1. No genuine
enjoyment, save in study of Art, and getting money through that study.
He is a fellow that you can't suppose ever to have been drunk or in
love--too much a Presbyterian Elder for either you or me.

Mr. Murray received a communication (December 16, 1841), from Mr. John
Sterling, Carlyle's friend, with whom he had had transactions on his own
account. "Not," he said, "respecting his own literary affairs, but those
of a friend." The friend was Mr. John Stuart Mill, son of the historian
of British India. He had completed his work on Logic, of which Mr.
Sterling had the highest opinion. He said it had been the "labour of
many years of a singularly subtle, patient, and comprehensive mind. It
will be our chief speculative monument of this age." Mr. Mill himself
addressed Mr. Murray, first on December 20, 1841, while he was preparing
the work for the press, and again in January and February, 1842, when he
had forwarded the MS. to the publisher, and requested his decision. We
find, however, that Mr. Murray was very ill at the time; that he could
not give the necessary attention to the subject; and that the MS. was
eventually returned.

When Copyright became the subject of legislation in 1843, Mr. Murray
received a letter from Mr. Gladstone.

_Mr. Gladstone to John Murray_.