CHAPTER XX.
HALLAM BASIL HALL--CRABBE--HOPE--HORACE AND JAMES SMITH In 1817 Mr.Murray published for Mr.Hallam his "View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages." The acquaintance thus formed led to a close friendship, which lasted unbroken till Mr.Murray's death.
Mr.Murray published at this time a variety of books of travel.

Some of these were sent to the Marquess of Abercorn--amongst them Mr.
(afterwards Sir) Henry Ellis's "Proceedings of Lord Amherst's Embassy to China," [Footnote: "Journal of the Proceedings of the late Embassy to China, comprising a Correct Narrative of the Public Transactions of the Embassy, of the Voyage to and from China, and of the Journey from the Mouth of the Peiho to the Return to Canton." By Henry Ellis, Esq., Secretary of the Embassy, and Third Commissioner.] about which the Marchioness, at her husband's request, wrote to the publisher as follows: _Marchioness of Abercorn to John Murray_, _December_ 4, 1817.
"He returns Walpole, as he says since the age of fifteen he has read so much Grecian history and antiquity that he has these last ten years been sick of the subject.

He does not like Ellis's account of 'The Embassy to China,' [Footnote: Ellis seems to have been made very uncomfortable by the publication of his book.

It was severely reviewed in the _Times_, where it was said that the account (then in the press) by Clark Abel, M.D., Principal Medical Officer and Naturalist to the Embassy, would be greatly superior.

On this Ellis wrote to Murray (October 19, 1817): "An individual has seldom committed an act so detrimental to his interests as I have done in this unfortunate publication; and I shall be too happy when the lapse of time will allow of my utterly forgetting the occurrence.