not with the ignorant brute multitude, but with the elite of the Genus Humanum, the Prima Virorum, as Lucretius hath it-the wise and the witty ones of the earth. Instead of haggling over the counter with a smooth-faced Miss or Master, about some piece of foppish finery, or disputing with some rude, boisterous, coarse-minded dealer, about casks or tuns, or ship-loads of rum, sugar, or timber-the bibliopole retires into some sequestered little speak-aword nook, and seats himself beside some serious and refined author, or more serious and more refined authoress, to decide or pronounce upon the merits of some infant tragedy, epic poem, sermon, or romance-or he takes his stand in the centre of his outer court, and publishes to the Gentiles, with a loud voice, the praises of some new publication gone forth, or about to go forth, from his penetralia, to the illumination of the world. What an air of intelligence is breathed upon this man, from the surface of the universe in which he moves! It is as impossible for a bookseller to be devoid of taste and knowledgesome flavour at least as it is for a collier to have a white skin, or a miller to want one.

And then their claim to our respect is hereditary as well as personal. "Noble of a noble

stem," they are representatives of worthies long since dead and sepulchred, whose names and atchievements are still fresh in all men's recollection. What a world of associations are clustered about the bare name of any one of the great bibliopoles of days long since departed! Curllwhom Swift tormented-the audacious, hooknosed Edmund Curll!-old Jacob Tonson, with his squint and his "two left legs”—and Lintot, with his orange-tawney waistcoat, and his grey ambling poney, who hinted to Mr Pope how easy a thing it would be for him to turn one of Horace's Odes, as they were walking their horses up a little hill on the Windsor road. How green is the memory of these old "Fathers of the Row!" They will flourish a hundred years hence as brightly as they do now, and not less brightly, because perhaps another groupe or two of descendants may have "climbed the ascent of that mysterious tower," and have left kindred names behind them to bourgeon with kindred blossoms!

But the interest one feels about the person of a bookseller, is not sustained by fantasies and associations alone. I should like to know where it is that a man picks up so much interesting information about most interesting subjects, in so

very easy a way as by lounging for half-an-hour in a bookseller's shop. It is in a city what the barber's shop is in a village-the centre and focus of all information concerning the affairs of men-the arena for all disputation-the stage for all display. It is there that the sybil Fame sits scattering her oracular leaves to all the winds of Heaven; but I cannot add with the poet,

"Umile in tanta gloria,

Coverta gia dello profetico nembo."

The bookseller is the confidant of his customers-he is the first to hear the rumour of the morning, and he watches it through all the stages of its swelling, till it bursts in the evening. He knows Mr's opinion of Lord - 's speech, sooner than any man in town. He has the best information upon all the in futuros of the world of letters; he has already had one or two peeps of the first canto of a poem not yet advertised-he has a proof-sheet of the next new novel in his pocket; and if you will but promise. to be discreet, you may "walk backwards," or " walk up stairs for a moment," and he will shew it you. Are these things of no value? They may seem so to you among the green hills of Cardigan; but they are very much the reverse

to me among the dusty streets of London-or here in Edinburgh. I do love, from my soul, to catch even the droppings of the precious cup of knowledge.

To read books when they are upon every table, and to talk of them when nobody is silent about them, are rather vulgar accomplishments, and objects of vulgar ambition. I like to be beforehand with the world-I like both to see sooner and to see farther than my neighbours. While others are contented to sit in the pit, and gape and listen in wonder upon whatever is shewn or uttered, I cannot be satisfied unless I am permitted to go behind the scenes-to see the actors before they walk upon the stage, and examine the machinery of the thunder before its springs are set in motion.

In my next I shall introduce you to the Bookseller's shops of Edinburgh.

174

LETTER XLIII.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR WILLIAMS,

THE importance of the Whigs in Edinburgh, and the Edinburgh Review, added to the great enterprize and extensive general business of Mr Constable, have, as might have been expected, rendered the shop of this bookseller by far the most busy scene in the Bibliopolic world of the North. It is situated in the High-Street, in the midst of the Old Town, where, indeed, the greater part of the Edinburgh Booksellers are still to be found lingering (as the majority of their London brethren also do,) in the neighbourhood of the same old haunts to which long custom has attached their predilections. On entering, one sees a place by no means answering, either in point of dimensions, or in point of ornament, to the no