promise of talent in
the young. "Every one," he would say, "has a book in him, or her, if one
only knew how to extract it," and many was the time that he lent a
helping hand to those who were first entering on a literary career.

To his remarkable powers as a host, the many descriptions of his dinner
parties which have been preserved amply testify; he was more than a mere
entertainer, and took the utmost pains so to combine and to place his
guests as best to promote sympathetic conversation and the general
harmony of the gathering. Among the noted wits and talkers, moreover,
who assembled round his table he was fully able to hold his own in
conversation and in repartee.

On one occasion Lady Bell was present at one of these parties, and
wrote: "The talk was of wit, and Moore gave specimens. Charles thought
that our host Murray said the best things that brilliant night."

Many of the friends whose names are most conspicuous in these pages had
passed away before him, but of those who remained there was scarcely one
whose letters do not testify to the general affection with which he was
regarded. We give here one or two extracts from letters received during
his last illness.

Thomas Mitchell wrote to Mr. Murray's son:

"Give my most affectionate remembrances to your father. More than once I
should have sunk under the ills of life but for his kind support and
countenance, and so I believe would many others say besides myself. Be
his maladies small or great, assure him that he has the earnest
sympathies of one who well knows and appreciates his sterling merits."

Sir Francis Palgrave, who had known Mr. Murray during the whole course
of his career, wrote to him affectionately of "the friendship and
goodwill which," said he, "you have borne towards me during a period of
more than half my life. I am sure," he added, "as we grow older we find
day by day the impossibility of finding _any_ equivalent for old
friends." Sharon Turner also, the historian, was most cordial in his
letters.

"Our old friends," he said, "are dropping off so often that it becomes
more and more pleasing to know that some still survive whom we esteem
and by whom we are not forgotten.... Certainly we can look back on each
other now for forty years, and I can do so as to you with great pleasure
and satisfaction, when, besides the grounds of private satisfaction and
esteem, I think of the many works of great benefit to society which you
have been instr