REVIEWS — THE BOOKSELLER. 195 



noticeable in reference to the secondary and altogether subordinate 

 guild of book-makers : the authors, — manufacturers of what, after 

 aEj we presume the Trade look upon as mere raw material, till the 

 MS. has passed through their refining manipulation of reader's 

 copy, proofs, and sheets ; and folders' and binders' hot-pressing, 

 stitching, boarding, and binding ; with all the advertising mysteries 

 of preparatory announcement, and final notices of the press. Here, 

 for example, is a word in defence of the bookseller, — not in his lofty 

 capacity as enthroned in The Eow, and giving final judgment of life 

 or no-life, to the still unprinted MS. of the trembling author, guilty 

 of a first work, — but as the mere retailer, the trader in books. See 

 what high functions pertain to this, the mere diaconate of such literary 

 priesthood : 



"The bookselling business is rather like a profession than a trade ; but, unfor- 

 tunately, book-buyers, as a whole, are too prone to overlook this in all its bearings, 

 for -when they are desirous of consulting the intelligent bookseller professionally, 

 they too frequently haggle -with him in a manner they would feel ashamed to do 

 with their butcher or tailor. A clergyman, we will suppose, wants materials for 

 particular sermons; a barrister, particulars respecting some case in hand ; a mem- 

 ber of Parliament, some details for his speech : off each one goes to the bookseller, 

 occupies a great deal of his time, and, after half an hour's talk, feels himself at 

 liberty to cheapen a five-shilling book. All our trade-readers can supply scores of 

 instances where this has been the case, and where the time spent over the customer 

 has in value greatly exceeded the profit on the purchase, even when the full price 

 has been paid — liow much more, then, when the discount has been applied for ?" 



If such are the acolytes, what must the sovereign pontiffs of the 

 Bow be : the Longmans and Murray s, Simpkins, Whittakers, and 

 Eivingtons ? To such the author must approach, with his unborn 

 work, disposing his manuscript at their I'eet with all the trembling, 

 awe with which the ancient suppliant laid his sacrifice on the altar, 

 and propitiated the priest ere he dared to consult the sacred oracle ! 

 Erom such tribunal Milton — one of the immortals, — accepted his 

 award of five pounds for a Paradise Lost. And James and Horace 

 Smith — representatives of the commoner order of literary mortals, — 

 Lave told the tale of their modern experience with the oracle. Their 

 famous '' Rejected Addresses" now in a twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth 

 London edition, and with incalculable American re-prints, became at 

 first rejected addresses, in a sense they had not dreamt of when 

 choosing the title. Their story is worth laying to heart. ''Alas," 

 says one of them, in the preface to the eighteenth edition, when con- 



