labours and pursuits. But, although wishing, in these respects, must be vain, and hopes, as I have often found them, may turn out deceitful, I cannot forbear, before parting with this worthy brother of the profession, from joining cordially in the wish and hope, expressed by the Reviewer of "The Life of William Hutton," in the supplementary number to the forty-second volume of the Monthly Magazine, in the short notice prefixed to that review, viz., "for our parts, we have accompanied our old friend, in this narrative of his peaceful journey of life, with heartfelt pleasure; and our deliberate feeling is, a fervent wish that our latter days may be like his, and that, when our race against time is ended, we may possess equal claims to the respect of posterity."

In order to avoid giving offence, as much as possible, to critics of the description above alluded to, at the time I lately published my somewhat lengthy prospectus, I adopted, in accordance with the plan so usually had recourse to by others, as a model of my style, that of my old school-companion of the Commentaries, and addressed my readers in that prospectus, almost from beginning to end, in the third person.

To that plan, it may here be seen, I do not now mean much to adhere, although I may occasionally, and as it suits my purpose, recur to it, as in the present chapter, I shall be found to deviate from both methods; and, in a great degree, in preference to either, have recourse to what may rather be called the interrogatory way of going to work; which, if it has nothing else, will have, at least, the charm of variety to recommend it.

To return, therefore, from this digression, and take up the thread of my subject where I left it, towards the conclusion of my last chapter, with the remark that there were certain matters, in which, from certain circumstances, it occurred to me, I might be useful to my brethren of mankind, in the way of prosecuting my other duties, and in the exercise of my profession, to which I meant again to recur in the present; I shall now proceed to do so, and show, agreeably to the manner and method above alluded to, how, consistently with the interests of my business otherwise, or rather, in the way of forwarding these interests, I contrived to do good to others

and to myself, at the same time; and, particularly, to pro mote the moral and mental amelioration of my species, to a certain extent, while my own individual interests, in the fair exercise of my profession, were not neglected nor forgotten.

If there is any truth in the adage, then, that “He who makes a tree to grow, or a blade of grass to spring up, where never tree grew, nor blade of grass sprung up before,” ought to be considered among the benefactors of his kind ;—If there was any solidity in the reasoning of Lord Bacon, when he says, "If a man perform that which hath not been attempted before, or attempted and given over, or hath been achieved, but not with as good circumstance, he shall purchase more honour than by affecting a matter of greater difficulty, or virtue, wherein he is but a follower;"*—If there was any well grounded foundation for the grateful plaudits, in which each lisping babe had been taught by Pope, to respond to the praises of the "Man of Ross," for the amelioration and improvements, which that worthy and meritorious individual (whose praises are sung more largely in the October number for 1814, of the Cheap Magazine,) had so largely contributed to, out of his limited income ;-If there is much truth, indeed, in the maxim, that "it is better to prevent crimes than to punish them,"—that it is a more laudable and praiseworthy employment to endeavour, as much as in us lies, to remove the films of ignorance, of prejudice, and of error, from the human mind, than, from any motive whatever, to lend our aid to rivet them more closely, and flatter and encourage men in their delusions ;-In short, if it may be accounted a far more noble, and rational, and enduring ambition, to seek for glory, honour, and immortality, in a continued and persevering course of welldoing, and a long protracted series of acts of utility and kindness to our brethren of mankind, according to the means and abilities with which Frovidence has entrusted us, than, to seek for preferment, and a short-lived renown, by a contrary conduct; to be imbittered for the present, it may be, by reflections of a no very pleasing description, and most assuredly to

* See Bacon's Essay on Honour and Reputation.

to lay in his claim

be followed by the execrations of posterity, and the lasting curses of injured humanity. If there is any meaning in all these, may not the Sexagenarian, who puts the questions, humbly hope, that he may be permitted for a small share of the meed of praise, or, at least, the approbation of the natives, should he be able to establish to their satisfaction, by the same method of reasoning, the following facts, which, indeed, he most willingly submits to their just and impartial decision.

Who was it, he would say to the residenters in his more immediate neighbourhood, that not only first planted that useful tree, the PRINTING PRESS, on our native soil, but who, for so many years afterwards, gave that potent and mighty engine for weal, or for woe, according as its energies are properly or improperly directed, a direction and impulse in such a way, as to call down upon his exertions, from time to time, those numerous and highly respectable encomiums, -very slender specimens of which can only be given in these pages it

Who was it, he would say, that first established that great and wonderfully illuminating process, the Book Trade, in Dunbar (after the short experiment of another person had been tried, and had failed), upon any thing like a permanent foundation, now more than forty years ago, and that, at a time, when such a thing was so much wanted in this quarter of the county,-laying in his native town, at that early

• The first Printing Press erected in the County of East Lothian, was that set up by me in Dunbar, in 1795, and which, for reasons that it may not be difficult to guess, was afterwards removed to Haddington, being the county

town.

These specimens, in order not to run out this chapter to an undue length, must be brought in afterwards, in such a way, and at such places, as may be found suitable for them.

My predecessor, Mr Smart's, stay in Dunbar was very short, he having come to it, I should imagine, some time after the commencement of the Eighties, and leaving it again, altogether, at the term of Whitsunday, 1788. Previous to his time, the mental wants of the lieges, had been supplied in the same manner as some of our neighbouring county villages are at present, by the merchants, or dealers in other articles; but I do not think, that my father, who was one of them, entered much into the bookselling way, until the time of the short interregnum, betwixt Mr S.'s leaving the town and my being capable of supplying his place, during which time he would, no doubt, do what

F

period, the foundation of that useful reservoir for accumulating, and copious source for diffusing, the means of knowledge and useful information, throughout the adjoining parishes, which, at no great distance of time afterwards, viz., in the year 1809, had increased, or, rather, been augmented, to the amazing extent for a country collection, in a small country town, of "upwards of three thousand five hundred volumes!" under the name of "THE DUNBAR and COUNTRY CIRCULATING LIBRARY;" and opening up, otherwise, those many irrigating streams of mental improvement, in the shape of his numerous auctions ;t-his strenuous, persevering, and successful endeavours in soliciting and obtaining subscriptions for works of real and permanent utility, which has been the

he could, by keeping up a supply of the more saleable articles, to keep the place (for that seemed to have been a favourite object with him) open for me.

As an evidence, how far some of our merchants, in these days, required a little more general information themselves, as well as the indolent manner in which (no doubt, partly for want of books) they spent their time, I shall relate an anecdote which, it is likely, some of my readers may have heard before, viz., that, when a certain merchant heard some person talking of "Hervey's Works," which, at that time, must have been much known, and held in very general estimation, as they have long been since, he hastily, and rather pettishly replied,—“ Hervey's Works! I never knew him do any thing but sit on the blue stane at his door, all his life," meaning, thereby, old John Harvey, who kept shop under, I believe, figure 4, in that house immediately adjoining the Manse, on the north side, where it still remains; but what has become of the blue stane, or whether it is still to be found on the spot, I know not.

I see that we opened our first Circulating Library, with a Catalogue, printed by Mr John Taylor of Berwick-upon-Tweed, under the firm of J. & G. Miller, on the 20th November, 1789; but, the first catalogue printed on my own account, was that published in October 1791, and is what I mean as more particularly referring to, as above.

This catalogue was, upon the whole, pretty respectable to begin with, and which had, indeed, increased, by the winter of 1809, to the number abovementioned. There can be no doubt, as to this point, for I have a copy of the catalogue still in my possession, which I shall be ready to show to any lady or gentleman, who wishes to be informed, as to the nature of a selection, from which every thing of an indelicate nature, or immoral tendency, in as far as they could be ascertained, were carefully excluded.

My auctions in the country, I see by my reminiscences, commenced so early as September 1791, and having been continued occasionally ever since, almost down to the present period, or so long as I continued in the book trade, the inhabitants of our neigi.bouring, and more remote, villages, scattered over the country, must have, all along, been supplied with a plentiful treat of mental food, and that of the most useful and wholesome, as well as variegated description, to suit all tastes and fancies, at a cheap and easy rate.

Of this, I shall produce one instance that will, no doubt, astonish some of my friends, among the present race of country booksellers, as it did, at the

means of carrying the blessings of general and useful knowledge, at a cheap and easy rate, to the most obscure cottage and hamlet in the county, making East Lothian, distinguished among the surrounding districts, for her superior facilities and means of obtaining information; and that, long before itinerating libraries had been heard of among its inhabitants, or, the business of canvassing had, as it now is, been reduced to a profession ;-giving to the county of his birth, a place she had never before enjoyed, in the annals of literature, and lighting up, once more, the Lamp of Lothian,* in a manner very different from that in which it had been wont to shine, in the now venerable, but then venerated and hallowed fane, of our provincial capital, in the more benighted, superstitious, and less enquiring days of our forefathers?— Who was it, he would farther say, that followed up these

time, no less a personage than that great and enterprising bookseller, Mr Constable himself, viz., that the writer of this, who must, at that period, 1805, &c., have been in the hey-day of exertion, and youthful ardour, got from the publishers, first Mr Thomson Bonar, and more latterly Messrs A. Constable, & Co., no less a quantity than forty-two of the large, and seventy-six of the small paper copies, being 118 in all, of Forsyth's Beauties of Scotland! —not a bad number for a country sale, when it is considered, that the large paper copy retailed at Five Guineas, and the small at Three Pounds Fifteen. Shillings, and yet the whole, while in course of publication, were almost all subscribed for.

But this is only one instance of his success in the way of selling books in parts and by numbers, a business almost unknown, or, at least, very little practised by others, in those days; for, were old Mr Taylor of Berwick, alive to testify, he would, no doubt, express his surprise, at the astonishing number of his Ostervald's Bible, for which also, the writer procured subscribers, while the edition 1790 was in course of issuing from the press. Of Knox's History of the Reformation, published by Mr Hugh Inglis, West Port, Edinburgh, at the time I commenced business, or rather previous to my having commenced on my own account, I see, by a list of subscribers' names still in my possession, I also sold, the goodly number of nearly four score of copies. But the looking over that list, dated 28th October, 1790, makes me melancholy to think, how few of that number now remain, who, at that time, "kept the world awake," if not "with lustre," at least with useful exertion, and "with noise."

I do not mention those numbers as any way surprising in these days, when the number trade is so extensively cultivated, and the canvassing business so much followed after; but let any one look back to my situation, and the times I then lived in, and then form his ideas of the importance, or nonimportance of the transactions here recorded.

"The Church of the Franciscans, in Haddington, was, in 1355, so magnificent, that," we are told by Fordun and John Major, "it was styled Lucerna Laudona, THE LAMP OF LOTHIAN, from the lamps kept constantly burning in it, which rendered it visible at a great distance during the night."