Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/126

94 94 THE L ONGMAN FA MIL Y. Thomas Hurst, with the whole of his trade and con- nection, and Cosmo Orme (the founder of the hospital for decayed booksellers) were admitted. In 1811, Thomas Brown, whom we have already noticed as an apprentice, became a member of the firm, and until his retirement in 1859, took the sole management of the cash department, with so regular and just a system that an author could always learn what was coming to him, and when he was to receive it- a plan not invariably adopted in a publisher's counting-house. The firm was in 1824 further strengthened by the admission of Bevis Green, who had been apprenticed to Hurst in 1807. The title of the firm at this, its best known, period was, therefore, " Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green." When, however, Thomas Roberts entered, the title was changed to " Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green ;" but we are anticipating, for Roberts died as recently as 1865, having acquired some distinction in private life as a Numismatist. For the sake of convenience, and for the sequence of the story, it will, perhaps, be as well to consider the firm as represented, as in fact from his leading position it was by Thomas Norton Longman, touching only upon the others individually when some directly personal interest arises. Before all these partnerships, however, were accomplished facts Longman had taken a much more precious, and even more zealous partner in the person of Miss Mary Slater of Horsham, Sussex, whom he had married as far back as the 2nd July, 1799. Wordsworth of course continued his connection with the firm, though his profits were absolutely nil. Though a poetic philosopher he was not quite proof against the indifference of the public. In the edition