THE BOOKSELLER.

Considering 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.

Monsieur Uzanne, who has treated of the elegancies of the Fan, the Muff, and the Umbrella, has more recently given the world a quite unique series of studies among the bookstalls and the quays of Paris—“The Book Hunter in Paris”—and this too one finds more entertaining than any account of Quaritch’s or Putnam’s shop would be

I must bear witness to the honesty and liberality of booksellers. When one considers the hundreds of catalogues from which he has ordered books at a venture, even from across the ocean, and how seldom he has been misled or disappointed in the result, one cannot subscribe to a belief in the dogma of total depravity. I remember some of my booksellers with positive affection. They were such self-denying men to consent to part with their treasures at any price And as a rule they are far more careless than ordinary merchants about getting or securing their pay To be sure it is rather ignoble for the painter of a picture, or the chiseller of a statue, or the vender of a fine book, to affect the acuteness of tradesmen in the matter of compensation. The excellent bookseller takes it for granted, if he stoops to think about it, that if a man orders a Caxton or a Grolier he will pay for it, at his convenience. It was this unthinking liberality which led a New York bookseller to give credit to a distinguished person—afterwards a candidate for the Presidency—to a considerable amount, and to let the account stand until it was outlawed, and his sensibilities were greviously shocked, when being compelled to sue for his due, his debtor pleaded the statute of limitations! His faith was not restored even when the acute buyer left a great sum of money by his will to found a public library, and the legacy failed through informality.

I have only one complaint to make against booksellers. They should teach their clerks to recognize The Book-Worm at a glance It is very annoying, when I go browsing around a book-shop, to have an attendant come up and ask me, who have bought books for thirty years, if he can “show me anything”—just as if I wanted to see anything in particular—or if “anybody is waiting on me”—when all I desire is to be let alone. Some booksellers, I am convinced, have this art of recognition, for they let me alone, and I make it a rule always to buy something of them, but never when their employees are so annoyingly attentive. I do not object to being watched; it is only the implication that I need any assistance that offends me. It is easy to recognize the Book-Worm at a glance by the care with which he handles the rare books and the indifference with which he passes the standard authors in holiday bindings.

Once I had a bookseller who had a talent for drawing, which he used to exercise occasionally on the exterior of an express package of books. One of these wrappings I have preserved, exhibiting a pen-and-ink drawing of a war-ship firing a big gun at a few small birds. Perhaps this was satirically intended to denote the pains and time he had expended on so small a sale. But I will now immortalize him

The most striking picture of a bookseller that I recall in all literature is one drawn by M. Uzanne, in the charming book mentioned above, which I will endeavor to transmute and transmit under the title of

Doubtless the occupation of bookseller is generally regarded as a very pleasant as well as a refined one. But there is another side, in the estimation of a true Book-Worm, and it is not agreeable to him to contemplate the life of