I speak feelingly, but I think it is pardonable. I once went through an auction sale of my own books, and while I lost money on volumes on which I had bestowed much thought, labor and expense, I made a profit on Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall” in tree-calf. I do not complain of the loss; what I was mortified by was the profit. But the auctioneer was not at all abashed; in fact he seemed rather pleased, and apparently regarded it as a feather in his cap. I have always suspected that the shameless purchaser was Silas Wegg.
XI.
THE BOOKSELLER.
onsidering his importance in modern civilization, it is singular that so little has been recorded of the Bookseller in literature. Shakespeare has a great deal to say of books of various kinds, but not a word, I believe, of the Bookseller. It is true that Ursa Major gave a mitigated growl of applause to the booksellers, if I recollect my Boswell right, and he condescended to write a life of Cave, but bookseller in his view meant publisher. It is true that Charles Knight wrote a book entitled “Shadows of the Old Booksellers,” but here too the characters were mainly publishers, and his account of them is indeed shadowy. The chief thing that I recall about any of the booksellers thus celebrated is that Tom Davies had “a pretty wife,” which is probably the reason why Doctor Johnson thought Tom would better have stuck to the stage. So far as I know, the most vivid pen-pictures of booksellers are those depicting the humble members of the craft, the curb-stone venders
They are much more picturesque than their more affluent brethren who are used to the luxury of a roof.