Mr.Murray was, even more than the editor, the backbone of the enterprise: he was indefatigable in soliciting new writers for the _Quarterly_, and in finding the books fit for review, and the appropriate reviewers of the books.

Sometimes the reviews were printed before the editor was consulted, but everything passed under the notice of Gifford, and received his emendations and final approval.
Mr.Murray went so far as to invite Leigh Hunt to contribute an article on Literature or Poetry for the _Quarterly_.

The reply came from John Hunt, Leigh's brother.

He said: _Mr.John Hunt to John Murray_.
"My brother some days back requested me to present to you his thanks for the polite note you favoured him with on the subject of the _Review_, to which he should have been most willing to have contributed in the manner you propose, did he not perceive that the political sentiments contained in it are in direct opposition to his own." This was honest, and it did not interfere with the personal intercourse of the publisher and the poet.

Murray afterwards wrote to Scott: "Hunt is most vilely wrong-headed in politics, which he has allowed to turn him away from the path of elegant criticism, which might have led him to eminence and respectability." James Mill, author of the "History of British India," sent an article for the second number; but the sentiments and principles not being in accordance with those of the editor, it was not at once accepted.