He carried independence too far, or
carried it into the wrong field, for a piece of humorous verse, say
in Punch, is not an original masterpiece and immaculate work of art,
but more or less of a joint-stock product between the editor, the
author, and the public. Macaulay, and Carlyle, and Sir Walter Scott
suffered editors gladly or with indifference, and who are we that we
should complain? This extreme sensitiveness would always have stood
in Murray's way.
Once more, Murray's interest in letters was much more energetic than
his zeal in the ordinary industry of a student. As a general rule,
men of original literary bent are not exemplary students at college.
`The common curricoolum,' as the Scottish laird called academic
studies generally, rather repels them. Macaulay took no honours at
Cambridge; mathematics defied him. Scott was `the Greek dunce,' at
Edinburgh. Thackeray, Shelley, Gibbon, did not cover themselves
with college laurels; they read what pleased them, they did not read
`for the schools.' In short, this behaviour at college is the rule
among men who are to be distinguished in literature, not the
exception.
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