An excellent critic he might have been if he had `descended to
criticism,' but he had, at this time, no introductions, and probably
did not address reviews at random to editors. As to poetry, these
much-vexed men receive such enormous quantities of poetry that they
usually reject it at a venture, and obtain the small necessary
supplies from agreeable young ladies. Had Murray been in London,
with a few literary friends, he might soon have been a thriving
writer of light prose and light verse. But the enchantress held
him; he hated London, he had no literary friends, he could write
gaily for pleasure, not for gain. So, like the Scholar Gypsy, he
remained contemplative,


`Waiting for the spark from heaven to fall.'


About this time the present writer was in St. Andrews as Gifford
Lecturer in Natural Theology. To say that an enthusiasm for totems
and taboos, ghosts and gods of savage men, was aroused by these
lectures, would be to exaggerate unpardonably. Efforts to make the
students write essays or ask questions were so entire a failure that
only one question was received--as to the proper pronunciation of
`Myth.' Had one been fortunate enough to interest Murray, it must
have led to some discussion of his literary attempts. He mentions
having attended a lecture given by myself to the Literary Society on
`Literature as a Profession,' and he found the lecturer `far more at
home in such a subject than in the Gifford Lectures.' Possibly the
hearer was `more at home' in literature than in discussions as to
the origin of Huitzilopochtli. `Literature,' he says, `never was,
is not, and never will be, in the ordinary sense of the term, a