AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. 71 



the first man he ever had that was able to make stuff 

 and silk shoes; and it being known that I came from 

 Bristol, this had great weight with the country ladies, 

 and procured my master customers, who generally sent 

 for me to take the measure of their feet." But his great 

 ambition from the first seems to have been to become a 

 bookseller; and although his beginning in this line was 

 very small, yet ultimately his sale of books amounted to 

 more than one hundred thousand volumes annually, and 

 his shop, of enormous size, called "The Temple of the 

 Muses," was at the corner of Finsbury Square. 



