especially, required so much, and required that much so often, that Murray was obliged to sever a connection too costly for his purse. Then his partial ownership of Blackwood's Magazine was for years a thorn in his flesh, and there is something truly pathetic in his miserable attempts to modify the personalities of that utterly irrepressible journal. "In the name of God," he writes vehemently to William Blackwood, "why do you seem to think it necessary that each number must give pain to some one?" Even the Quarterly, his own literary offspring, and the pride and glory of his heart, was at times but a fractious child, and cost him, after the fashion of children, many sleepless nights. Gifford, the editor, was incurably unbusinesslike in his habits, and never could understand why subscribers should complain and raise a row because the magazine chanced to be a month or six weeks late. It was sure to appear some time, and they had all the pleasure of anticipation. It was a point of honor with him, also, to conceal the names of his contributors, so that
