Mr. Parker, Jun., in his capacity of publisher and editor felt an immense responsibility, and really believed that the bishops of the Church of England held but sinecure offices, while he, and the heads of other publishing firms, were our virtual spiritual fathers and directors. He made himself no partizan in the religious and political questions of the day, and no prospect of pecuniary advantage would induce him to publish a book until he was first assured that it was the expression of honest conviction, or the result of honest labour. “One day,” says the writer of an obituary notice, “going into Mr. Parker’s room, we found his pale face paler than usual with anger. ‘Look at these,’ he said, putting a bundle of letters into our hands, ‘or rather do not look at them.’ A lady, eminent in certain circles as a spiritual teacher, wanted him to publish a devotional book for her. She had sent him the private correspondence of some thirty different ladies, who had trusted her with the innermost secrets of their souls and consciences, as an advertisement of herself, her abilities, and her popularity. Mr. Parker was perhaps never seen more indignant. He declined the book on the spot. He returned the letters with a regret that the lady should have sent him what had been intended for no eye but her own. A few days after he showed us the lady’s reply. Stung by the rebuke, she had dropped the mask for the moment, and had told him she did not require to be lectured on her duty by an insolent tradesman.”
Of the success with which Mr. Parker’s publications met it is sufficient to mention the names of Maurice, Kingsley, Mill, Buckle, and Lewis. Fruitful of discussion as were the works of the writers mentioned, they were all thrown into a temporary shade by the cry that arose on the publication, in 1860, of “Essays and Reviews,” to which only the first named contributed. Shortly after the appearance of the volume a document was issued, bearing the signature of every bishop of the united Church, condemning many of the propositions of the book as inconsistent with an honest subscription to her formularies. This was succeeded by an address to the Archbishop of Canterbury, signed by more than 10,000 clergymen, condemning in the strongest terms the teaching of the essayists. As we all remember, the case was tried in the Court of Arches, and led to the temporary suspension of Dr. Williams and Mr. Wilson; a suspension that was afterwards reversed by the Privy Council. But this case, interesting as it may be for the student in the future, though one of too many causes célèbres of church persecution, is too well known to detain us longer at present.
Mr. Parker, who took a deep interest in all religious questions, held weekly gatherings at his house, and was loved and respected by his clients, who regarded him as a friend rather than a business aid. He died in 1861, and for the moment the knot of earnest men who were clustered round Fraser’s Magazine were dispersed. But in the year 1863 the agency of the works published by the delegates of the Oxford University Press was transferred from the other Parkers to Messrs. Macmillan, and henceforth Macmillan’s Magazine and its contributors may be considered as an offshoot from 445, West Strand.
After the death of his son, Mr. Parker, who had for some years taken little active part in the management of the business, took his old assistant, Mr. William Butler Bown, into partnership; but the connection did not last long, and in 1863 the stock and copyrights were disposed of to Messrs. Longman, who agreed to allow Mr. Bown an annuity of £750 a year, which he only lived a year and a half to enjoy.
On May 18th, 1870, Mr. John William Parker died at his country house near Farnham. By his first wife he left two daughters living, and by his second (the daughter of Dr. Mantell, the well-known geologist) one son and two daughters. He was seventy-eight years of age at the time of his death; and, though his life presents us with little that is striking or historically strange, he had played an honest part manfully, and may be remembered as one of the few instances in which a publisher, successful as an architect of his own fortune, has been wise enough to transfer his business at the very zenith of its success to the keeping of other hands, when he had ascertained that his own were too aged for its proper maintenance and management. The Broad Church, so called, and the liberal thought of the country, owe much to the now defunct firm of John William Parker and Son.
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James Nisbet, the son of a poor Scotch farmer, who afterwards became a cavalry serjeant, was born on Feb. 3rd, 1785. After receiving the ordinary rudiments of education he was apprenticed to Mr. Wilson of Kelso for three years, but having obtained the offer of a situation in London he was permitted to leave before his indentures had expired. He left Scotland with only four guineas in his purse, and being delayed on the road, was obliged to sell his violin. On reaching town he became clerk to a Mr. Hugh Usher, a West India merchant in Moorfields, and his salary commencing at £54 12s. per annum took some years before it increased to £120.
James Nisbet’s career has been to a certain extent chronicled by his son-in-law, the Rev. J. A. Wallace, in a volume entitled, “Lessons from the Life of James Nisbet, the Publisher”—not, says the author, “a mere biography”—would that it were!—but a series of forty chapters or lessons, each commencing with a text and ending with a hymn. To its rambling and incoherent pages we are indebted, however, to many of the facts in the following notice.
On the evening of Nisbet’s arrival in London a young Scottish friend took him about sight-seeing. The walk terminated in a blind alley and a strange looking house—which instinct at once told him was “the house of the destroyer.” He gave up intercourse with his companion, and fled away hastily, and not till some few days afterwards, when he found a refuge in the Swallow Street Chapel, did he recover his equanimity.
From his earliest boyhood he had a great liking for “the courts of the Lord;” a pocket-book dated 1805, contains a list of places at which the gospel was reported to be purely preached. It seems, too, that his favourite books at this time were Henry’s “Commentary,” Cruden’s “Concordance,” Hall’s “Contemplations,” and Baxter’s “Saints’ Rest.” At the Swallow Street Chapel he met his future wife.