CHAPTER III.
MURRAY AND CONSTABLE--HUNTER AND THE FORFARSHIRE LAIRDS--MARRIAGE OF JOHN MURRAY The most important publishing firm with which Mr.Murray was connected at the outset of his career was that of Archibald Constable & Co., of Edinburgh.

This connection had a considerable influence upon Murray's future fortunes.
Constable, who was about four years older than Murray, was a man of great ability, full of spirit and enterprise.

He was by nature generous, liberal, and far-seeing.

The high prices which he gave for the best kind of literary work drew the best authors round him, and he raised the publishing trade of Scotland to a height that it had never before reached, and made Edinburgh a great centre of learning and literature.
In 1800 he commenced the _Farmer's Magazine_, and in the following year acquired the property of the _Scots Magazine,_ a venerable repertory of literary, historical, and antiquarian matter; but it was not until the establishment of the _Edinburgh Review_, in October 1802, that Constable's name became a power in the publishing world.
In the year following the first issue of the _Review_, Constable took into partnership Alexander Gibson Hunter, eldest son of David Hunter, of Blackness, a Forfarshire laird.

The new partner brought a considerable amount of capital into the firm, at a time when capital was greatly needed in that growing concern.