IN the early years of the present century the Scottish capital retained many features of its ancient aspect still unchanged; but among all the old-world haunts surviving into modern times, the most notable, alike for its picturesque quaintness and its varied associations, was the avenue from the Grassmarket to the upper town. The West Bow, as this thoroughfare was called, derived its name from the ancient bow, or archway, which gave entrance to the little walled city before the civic area was extended by the Flodden wall of 1513. But the archway remained long after that date as the entrance to the upper town—the Temple Bar of Edinburgh—at which the ceremonial welcome of royal and distinguished visitors took place.

The West Bow had accordingly been the scene of many a royal cavalcade of the Jameses and their queens; as well as of such representative men as Ben Jonson and his brother-poet Drummond of Hawthornden, of Laud, Montrose, Leslie, Cromwell, and Dundee. Among its quaint antique piles were the gabled Temple Lands, St. James’s Altar Land, and the timber-fronted lodging of Lord Ruthven, the ruthless leader in the tragedy when Lord Darnley’s minions assassinated Rizzio in Queen Mary’s chamber at Holyrood. There, too, remained till very recent years the haunted house of the prince of Scottish wizards, Major Weir; and near by the Clockmaker’s Land, noted to the last for the ingenious piece of workmanship of Paul Remieu, a Huguenot refugee of the time of Charles II. Nearly opposite was the dwelling of Provost Stewart, where, in the famous ’45, he entertained Prince Charles Edward, while Holyrood was for the last time the palace of the Stuarts. The alley which gave access to the old Jacobite provost’s dwelling bore in its last days the name of Donaldson’s Close; for here was the home of one of Edinburgh’s most prosperous typographers, James Donaldson, who bequeathed the fortune won by his craft to found the magnificent hospital which now rivals that of the royal goldsmith of James I.

Such were some of the antique surroundings amid which the subject of the present memoir passed his youth, and which no doubt had their influence in developing an archÆological taste, and that reverence for every historical feature of his native city, which bore good fruit in later years. But his more intimate associations were with the singularly picturesque timber-fronted dwelling at the head of the West Bow, with another fine elevation toward the Lawnmarket, which, till 1878, stood unchanged as when the Flodden king rode past on his way to the Borough Moor. A painting of the old house adorned the walls at Salisbury Green in later years; and when at last the venerable structure was demolished, some of its oaken timbers were secured by William Nelson and fashioned into antique furniture for himself and his friends. This picturesque building was the haunt of an old Edinburgh bookseller, the founder of the well-known printing and publishing house of Thomas Nelson and Sons.

Mr. Thomas Nelson, the father of the subject of the present memoir, and the originator of the great publishing firm, recurs to the present writer in the memories of his own early years as a fine example of the old Scottish type of silent, indomitable perseverance and sterling integrity. The traditions of the race are thus set forth in a memorandum in William Nelson’s handwriting:—“The Nelsons of our branch resided at Throsk, a few miles east from Stirling, not far from the field of Bannockburn. There was a tradition among us that some of our race lived there at the time the battle was fought, and as a boy I was willing to believe it.” There, at any rate, the Nelsons are known to have been for four or five generations; and Thomas Nelson was born at Throsk in 1780. His grandmother had seceded with the Erskines from the National Church; and the spirit of that elder race of Scottish nonconformists was inherited by their children. They joined a congregation of Reformed Presbyterians, or Covenanters, at Stirling; and the boy grew up on his father’s farm under all the influences of that earnest, unwavering religious faith, which has so often seemed the fitting complement to the ruggedness of the Scottish character, while it has, in not a few instances, furnished the best preparation, for a successful career in business. His father led a retired life on his carse farm, with Stirling sufficiently near to admit of his enjoying the privilege of regular worship with the devout little band of Presbyterian nonconformists there. So little was he affected by the enterprise of younger generations that he could not be persuaded to turn to profitable account a small pottery on the land he occupied. He was content with the humble career of a small farmer. But the monotony of farm-life was varied by long journeys, staff in hand, in which the boy accompanied his father, to attend the great gatherings at the sacramental seasons. In the persecuting times the devout adherents of the Covenant had been wont to assemble in some secluded glen to enjoy in safety the privileges of the communion service, and their descendants continued the practice in more peaceful times. Under such training the boy reached his sixteenth year, when, after a brief experience as a teacher, some chance report of prosperous adventure in the West Indies tempted the youth with its illusive visions. Bidding his friends and home farewell, his father accompanied him for some miles on the road to Alloa, giving his best counsel and advice to the lad by the way. When they reached the place of parting, his father said to him, “Thomas, my boy, have you ever thought that where you are going you will be far away from the means of grace?” “No, father,” said he, “I never thought of that, and I won’t go.”

Thus abruptly the scheme was abandoned. They retraced their steps to the old farm, and the boy found employment for a time at Craigend, near Stirling. There he formed the acquaintance of Symington, whose steam-engine was first applied to navigation, and sailed with him in some of the earliest trial-trips on the Carron Water. The pottery which his father had neglected was started on a neighbouring farm, and young Nelson was anxious to get the management of it. But the scheme appears to have been distasteful to his father, whose secret desire probably was that his boy should follow his own example, and so escape the world’s trials and temptations. But the son’s ambition aimed at something more advantageous than the homely career of a lowland farmer; and so, by-and-by, he betook himself to London, entered the service of a publishing house there, and began the training which ultimately begot the great publishing firm that bears his name.

The young Scottish Covenanter did not forget his early training, amid the temptations of the great metropolis. Along with a few other Scotchmen of his own age, he established a weekly meeting for religious fellowship; and it is told of one of the little band, who was employed at the dock-yard, that he forfeited his situation rather than work on the Sabbath day. But he had already won the favourable opinion of Lord Melville, who, on learning of his dismissal, severely rebuked the officials, and soon after advanced him to a higher post. From London, Thomas Nelson made his way to Edinburgh with what little capital his frugality had enabled him to accumulate, and there he started his first book-store, stocked chiefly with second-hand books, but from which ere long he began the issue of cheap reprints of the “Scots Worthies” and other popular religious works, in monthly parts. He had to proceed cautiously in this new venture, for his capital was small; but he had the courage to shape out a course of his own. With sagacious foresight he overleapt the intermediate stages of publishing and bookselling, and grafted on to the traffic of the mediÆval fairs some of the most modern usages of free trade. The full results of this bold step are even now only partially developed, though its ultimate advantages are beginning to be generally recognized, and to force themselves on the attention of the great publishing houses, accustomed hitherto to cater only with small editions of costly volumes for the libraries of the wealthy, supplemented in recent years by the expedient of lending libraries.

The removal of Mr. Thomas Nelson’s book-store to the picturesque tenement at the Bowhead marks the first progressive step of the young innovator. The venerable timber-fronted land projected with each successive story in advance of the lower one, after the fashion of that obsolete civic architecture in vogue before Newton had revealed his law of gravitation. The first story above the paving rested on substantial oak piers, forming a piazza opening on to the Bow, within which stood the exposed book-stall of the primitive trader. Behind this was the stone-vaulted buith, or shop, as in the old luckenbuiths alongside of St. Giles’s Cathedral. The north faÇade fronted on the Lawnmarket, a wide thoroughfare, where at certain seasons the dealers in linens and woollens set up their stalls, much after the fashion which the poet Dunbar describes them hampering the High Street before the Flodden wall was built. Already at that early date the printing-press of Walter Chepman, the Scottish Caxton, was at work; and before long the craft had its representatives among the traders’ buiths. In a later century Allan Ramsay began his prosperous career as a seller of his own metrical “broadsides;” and Dr. Johnson’s father, the respected bookseller and magistrate of the cathedral city of Lichfield, was wont to set up his book-stall on market days in the neighbouring towns.

Here then, at the Bowhead, with its north front to the Lawnmarket, stood within our own recollection the well-stored book-stall, the nucleus and germ of the great Parkside printing establishment, with its hundreds of workmen in every branch of the trade. The busy scene of a market day in the old locality, as it could still be seen sixty-five years ago, is graphically depicted in Turner’s view of the High Street, engraved in 1825 for Sir Walter Scott’s “Provincial Antiquities.” The book-trade, as prosecuted by Mr. Thomas Nelson, depended in no inconsiderable degree on the application of the stereotyping process to the production of cheap editions of popular works of established repute. He was a pioneer in the production of literature for the million; but he catered for the taste of an age very different from our own, in his effort to put standard works, already stamped with the approval of the wise and good, within reach of the peasant and the artisan. “The Pilgrim’s Progress” was already an English classic; and with this were issued such works as Baxter’s “Saints’ Rest,” Booth’s “Reign of Grace,” “MacEwan on the Types,” and other works of a like class. To those were by-and-by added Jeremy Taylor, Leighton, Romaine, and Newton, the old Scottish and Puritan divines, and Josephus, all produced by means of stereotype plates, which admitted of a limited issue adapted to the demand of the market. With the development of the business in later years, the issues of the publishing house embraced an ampler and much more varied range. But William carefully treasured his father’s private library. The spirit of the bibliomaniac developed itself in this special line, and the collection of old theological works included many choice specimens and rare editions of his father’s favourite divines. They were latterly treasured in a cabinet at Hope Park, along with other relics on which William Nelson set a high value; and their loss on the destruction of the Hope Park Works in 1878 by fire was one of his greatest causes of regret. From his own choice collection of theological works, Mr. Thomas Nelson made his first selections; but after a time he realized the necessity of catering for the tastes of other classes of readers; and so by-and-by there were added to them “Robinson Crusoe,” “Rasselas,” “The Vicar of Wakefield,” Goldsmith’s “Essays,” his “Deserted Village,” and other poems, along with popular favourites of a like class. Thus prosecuted, the business gradually expanded until the Bowhead establishment was no longer sufficient for the accommodation required.

But free trade in books was in conflict with the ideas inherited from the privileged guilds of elder centuries. Competition had hitherto been restricted within narrow limits; and the daring innovator was regarded by the regular trade with all the disfavour of a revolutionist, against whom every effort was to be employed to thwart the sale of his publications. He had accordingly to find other channels of trade. Periodical visits were made to the smaller towns, over the country, north and south, and beyond the Scottish border. Thus a safe and extended business was gradually established, destined ultimately to revolutionize the book-trade. By its means was inaugurated a system of supply of popular literature, at prices within reach of the masses, long before other publishers of this class entered into competition on the same field.

The influences of early training are traceable throughout the whole of Mr. Thomas Nelson’s career, and have left their impress on the business which owed its origin to his patient assiduity. He remained to the last faithful to the Covenanting Presbyterian Church, which maintained a stern adherence to the principles for which the martyrs of the Covenant had witnessed a good confession alike on the battlefield and the scaffold. His career in business had been an arduous struggle under many disabilities. As I remember him in my own boyhood, he was a grave, silent, yet not ungenial man; but one who seemed preoccupied with thoughts and cares in which a younger generation could claim no share. He had married, somewhat late in life, a bright young wife, by whom he had a family of four sons and three daughters; of whom the eldest son, the subject of this memoir, was born on the 13th of December, 1816.

On Mrs. Nelson the care and training of the young family devolved, as the successful prosecution of the business necessarily required the frequent and prolonged absence of their father. Yet his interest in them was not less fervent. An incident illustrative of this has also its bearings in relation to a characteristic feature of the devout faith of the old Covenanting fathers. He dreamt that a terrible accident had befallen his younger son John, then a youth of ten years of age, who was absent at Pettycur in Fife. He set off on the following morning, and crossed the Forth, burdened with foreboding visions of death. On his arrival, he learned that his boy had fallen into the sea, and been brought back apparently lifeless; but he had been revived, and then lay asleep after the exhaustion of this vital struggle. It fully accorded with the devout piety of the old Covenanter to recognize in his dream a divine message and proof of providential interposition.

Of Mrs. Nelson, Dr. John Cairns, who knew her intimately, refers, in his “In Memoriam” address on the death of this younger son, to her look of bright intelligence and winning affection, as indelibly impressed on the memory of all who were familiar with her. She possessed the happy mixture of tender, motherly guidance with an unusual amount of firmness and decision of character; and exercised great influence in the training of her son, who was passionately devoted to her. She was in perfect sympathy with her husband in his religious opinions, and venerated the memories of the confessors and martyrs of the Covenant; so that their sons and daughters were reared in strict conformity to the devout faith of Cameron, Peden, Cargill, and other fathers and confessors of that old Scottish type. Few men were more liberal-minded in later years than William Nelson; but the influence of early training survived through life, begetting some familiar traits of the best type of Scottish character evolved from that elder generation which so impressed the mind of the poet Wordsworth:—

Some characteristic manifestations of the results of such early training will come under review in the narrative of later years.