Murray had also considerable bill transactions with Ballantyne & Co.
of Edinburgh. James and John Ballantyne had been schoolfellows of Walter
Scott at Kelso, and the acquaintance there formed was afterwards
renewed. James Ballantyne established the _Kelso Mail_ in 1796, but at
the recommendation of Scott, for whom he had printed a collection of
ballads, he removed to Edinburgh in 1802. There he printed the "Border
Minstrelsy," for Scott, who assisted him with money. Ballantyne was in
frequent and intimate correspondence with Murray from the year 1806, and
had printed for him Hogg's "Ettrick Shepherd," and other works.

It was at this time that Scott committed the great error of his life.
His professional income was about L1,000 a year, and with the profits of
his works he might have built Abbotsford and lived in comfort and
luxury. But in 1805 he sacrificed everything by entering into
partnership with James Ballantyne, and embarking in his printing concern
almost the whole of the capital which he possessed. He was bound to the
firm for twenty years, and during that time he produced his greatest
works. It is true that but for the difficulties in which he was latterly
immersed, we might never have known the noble courage with which he met
and rose superior to misfortune.

In 1808 a scheme of great magnitude was under contemplation by Murray
and the Ballantynes. It was a uniform edition of the "British
Novelists," beginning with De Foe, and ending with the novelists at the
close of last century; with biographical prefaces and illustrative notes
by Walter Scott. A list of the novels, written in the hand of John
Murray, includes thirty-six British, besides eighteen foreign authors.
The collection could not have been completed in less than two hundred
volumes. The scheme, if it did not originate with Walter Scott, had at
least his cordial support.

Mr. Murray not unreasonably feared the cost of carrying such an
undertaking to completion. It could not have amounted to less than
twenty thousand pounds. Yet the Ballantynes urged him on. They furnished
statements of the cost of printing and paper for each volume. "It really
strikes me," said James Ballantyne, "the more I think of and examine it,
to be the happiest speculation that has ever been thought of."

This undertaking eventually fell through. Only the works of De Foe were
printed by the Messrs. Ballantyne, and published by Mr. Murray. The
attention of the latter became