an Edinburgh publisher, that sagacious old individual would shake
his prudent old head, and refuse (with the utmost politeness) to
publish it!' There is a good deal of difference between Pickwick
and a translation of old French sermons about Madame, and Conde, and
people of whom few modern readers ever heard.

Alone, in Edinburgh, Murray was saddened by the `unregarding'
irresponsive faces of the people as they passed. In St. Andrews he
probably knew every face; even in Edinburgh (a visitor from London
thinks) there is a friendly look among the passers. Murray did not
find it so. He approached a newspaper office: `he [the Editor whom
he met] was extremely frank, and told me that the tone of my article
on--was underbred, while the verses I had sent him had nothing in
them. Very pleasant for the feelings of a young author, was it not?
. . . Unfavourable criticism is an excellent tonic, but it should be
a little diluted . . . I must, however, do him the justice to say
that he did me a good turn by introducing me to -, . . . who was
kind and encouraging in the extreme.'

Murray now called on the Editor of the Scottish Leader, the
Gladstonian organ, whom he found very courteous. He was asked to
write some `leader-notes' as they are called, paragraphs which
appear in the same columns as the leading articles. These were
published, to his astonishment, and he was `to be taken on at a
salary of--a week.' Let us avoid pecuniary chatter, and merely say
that the sum, while he was on trial, was not likely to tempt many
young men into the career of journalism. Yet `the work will be very
exacting, and almost preclude the possibility of my doing anything
else.' Now, as four leader notes, or, say, six, can be written in
an hour, it is difficult to see the necessity for this fatigue.