Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/174

140 140 CONSTABLE, C A DELL, AND BLACK. Edinburgh, was born in that town in the year 1784, and was educated primarily at the High School, on his entrance as a pupil at which, tradition says, he was accompanied by his father, who, having just left his employment for the purpose, appeared in full working garb, the mason's white leathern apron in- cluded. At the University his talents speedily pro- cured him admittance into that clique of young Liberals who were afterwards to effect such a change in Edinburgh, indeed in cosmopolitan politics. After serving his apprenticeship to the book trade, in part- nership with his nephew, the bookselling business of Adam and Charles Black was founded. In 1817 he married Isabella, only daughter of James Tait, archi- tect (sister of William Tait, the well-known originator of Taits Magazine), and at the time of Constable's failure was in a steady and prosperous way of busi- ness. This disaster was the means of making many fortunes, and in 1826 the Edinburgh Review appeared under the joint proprietorship of Thomas Norton Longman and Adam and Charles Black. As we have followed the career of the Review in our history of the Longman family, it will be unnecessary to enter fully into the changes of management and the success of later numbers. Another work, however, afterwards thrown on the market, which also became the property of Messrs. A. and C. Black, is of such literary importance that we must again for a moment retrace our steps, in order to keep up the proper sequence of our narrative. The idea of a compilation that should embrace all human knowledge is of very great antiquity. Pliny, in fact claims the name of " Enyclopaedia " for his Natural History ; but it was not till the sixteenth