When next I touch upon public affairs for you, I
will break the Whigs upon the wheel."
Mrs. Graham, afterwards Lady Callcott, then the wife of Captain Graham,
R.N., an authoress and friend of the Murray family, wrote to introduce
Mr. (afterwards Sir) Charles Eastlake, who had translated Baron
Bartholdy's "Memoirs of the Carbonari."
_Mrs. Graham to John Murray_.
_February_ 24, 1821.
All great men have to pay the penalty of their greatness, and you,
_arch-bookseller_ as you are, must now and then be entreated to do many
things you only half like to do. I shall half break my heart if you and
Bartholdy do not agree.
* * * * *
Now, whether you publish "The Carbonari" or not, I bespeak your
acquaintance for the translator, Mr. Eastlake. I want him to see the
sort of thing that one only sees in your house, at your morning
_levees_--the traffic of mind and literature, if I may call it so. To a
man who has lived most of his grown-up life out of England, it is both
curious and instructive, and I wish for this advantage for my friend.
And in return for what I want you to benefit him, by giving him the
_entree_ to your rooms, I promise you great pleasure in having a
gentleman of as much modesty as real accomplishment, and whose taste and
talents as an artist must one day place him very high among our native
geniuses.
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