Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/414

374 KELLY AND VIRTUE. time ; and at the Adelphi, where Moncrieff s adapta- tion was produced, it enjoyed the then unparalleled run of three hundred nights. At last, Pierce Egan, declaring that no less than sixty-five separate publica- tions had been derived from his work, brought forward his own characteristic version, which, however, proved a failure. All the world bought " Tom and Jerry," and having roared over the plates, tossed them not unnaturally aside ; so that a work, which, in popularity, had been the " Pickwick " of its day, became so wonderfully scarce that when Mr. Thackeray, with whom it had been an early favourite, wanted a copy for a review he was writing upon Mr. George Cruikshank's works, he applied at all the libraries, including the British Museum, in vain. The work was advertised for in the Times with like result, and he had to depend upon his memory for his description. However, twenty years after, when he wished to make it the subject of one of the most charming of the "Roundabout Papers," he found that it had been added to the Museum Library. It was, however, with the contemporary popularity that Mr. Virtue was concerned, and by it his business was largely increased. In 1831, his affairs warranted an important move to the vicinity of Paternoster Row, and about this time he married a Miss Sprent, a lady from Manchester. From his new abode the works which he at first issued were of much the same stamp as those which Messrs. Kelly, Hogg, and Cooke had previously spread abroad ; but he soon struck out into a higher class of literature. His first very successful book was "A Guide to Family Devotion/' by Dr. Alexander