Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/456

416 SIMPK1N, MARSHALL, AND CO. law, who afterwards served in the printed-book department of the British Museum, and who was widely known as the author of a " Life of Henry Fielding," and as a frequent contributor to periodical literature. As none of the country booksellers have more than one London agent, by him they are supplied with the books and periodicals of all the London publishers, an arrangement that saves an infinity of trouble, expense and delay. A century ago, in the days of small things, the agent made him- self useful to the provincial bookseller in many other ways than in the mere supplying of publications. In many cases he was expected to forward the news- papers, but other and stranger commissions often fell to his lot. A great wholesale house in London at the present day would be rather surprised to receive the following orders, which, however, all occur in a bookseller's records late in the eighteenth century : " I sliding Gunter from some of the instrument makers ;" "two-eighth share of lottery-tickets ;" " I oz. of Maker's Cobalt, as advertized on the cover of the Gentleman's Magazine ;" or a direction "to please and send on Saturday, and pay Mr. Barratt, Parlia- ment Place, Palace Yard, Westminster, 1 os. 6d., King's Rent, due loth of October last, for the Vicarage of Holy Cross, Shrewsbury." We cannot, perhaps, convey a better idea of the manner in which business is conducted by these wholesale houses in the " Row," than by giving a description of " Magazine day," by far the busiest time in each month. Very quiet is Paternoster Row generally, and its solitude is broken only by the fitful and fleeting appearance of publishers, their agents, and literary men the latter, as a rule, in