Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/329

HENRY C OLE URN. 289 and, as Whipple says, James " was a maker of books without being a maker of thought." Still they served their purpose of enriching the author and publishers, and at a time when the public appetite was less jaded than at present, his works were eagerly looked for, and even now many readers agree with Leigh Hunt : " I hail every fresh publication of James, though I hardly know what he is going to do with his lady, and his gentleman, and his landscape, and his scenery, and his mystery, and his orthodoxy, and his criminal trial." In 1826 Colburn published Banim's "Tales of the O'Hara Family," a book that excited a very strong interest in the public mind, and in the same year he issued "Vivian Grey," by a young author whose life was to be as romantic as his story. Mr. Disraeli's first book contains a curious confession of his youthful aspirations, and even a curiously exact prototype of his future life. This was followed in 1831 by the "Young Duke." "Bless me!" the elder Disraeli exclaimed when he read this eloquent ac- count of aristocratic circles, "why the boy has never sat in the same room as a duke in his life." Mr. Disraeli's novels soon became famous for the portraits or caricatures of distinguished living people, scarcely disguised under the slightest of all possible pseudonyms ; to those living in the metropolis the likenesses were evident enough, and a regular key was published to each for the benefit of our country cousins. In 1829 Colburn published "Frank Mildmay," a novel full of false morality and falser style, but de- lineating sea life with such a flavour of fun and frolic, adventures and brine, that Marryat was at once