In fact, the friends of authors were too often, as Blackwood hinted, the sources of Murray's severest trials. Friends are obliging creatures in their way, and always ready to give with lavish hearts their wealth of criticism and opinion. There is a delightful letter from the Rev. H. H. Milman, Dean of St. Paul's, offering to Murray his sadly unreadable poem Belshazzar, with this timely intimation: "I give you fair warning that all the friends who have hitherto seen it assure me that I shall not do myself justice unless I demand a very high price for it." Murray, in reply, hints as urbanely as he can that, as it is he and not Mr. Milman's friends who is to pay the price, he cannot accept their judgment in the matter as final; he is compelled to take into consideration his own chances of profit. Throughout all his correspondence we note this tone of careful self-repression, of patient and courteous kindness. Now and then only, particularly trying letters appear to have been left unanswered, as though the limits of even his endurance had been reached. When we remember
