Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/180

146 146 CONSTABLE, CADELL, AND BLACK. believe, to the completion of this edition, Mr. Charles Black, who had long been in delicate health, died. Upon Jeffrey's retirement in 1829, Macney Napier, Professor of Conveyancing in the University of Edin- burgh, was promoted to the editorship of the Edin- burgh Review, and Mr. Black also secured his services for the management of the seventh edition of the Encylcopcedia. Napier was assisted by James Brown, LL.D., as sub-editor, and on his shoulders most of the hard work fell. Brown, who was trained as an advo- cate at the Scottish bar, relinquished this for literature. His thorough scholarship enabled him to undertake almost any department of literary work, and rendered him invaluable for the revisal of such a work as the Encyclopedia. He was also a ready and slashing political writer, at a time when political feeling was rampant. Remarkable alike for his mental activity and his personal irascibility, the one great difficulty lay in managing the Doctor. As an instance of this, the article " Alphabet " was entrusted to Brown for the new edition of the Encyclopedia. He was at the same time editor of the Caledonian Mercury, and on the appearance of something in that paper which led to a quarrel with Mr. Allan, the proprietor, who was also a shareholder in the Encyclopedia, Brown declined to go on with " Alphabet." The part in which this was to appear was due, and Brown was inflexible. The subject was a difficult one, peculiarly suited to Brown's abilities, and it was not easy elsewhere to find so com- petent a writer. In these circumstances, Mr. Black adopted the experiment of passing over that part and bringing out the succeeding one. Thus circumvented, Brown came to terms, and things again went on smoothly. But, notwithstanding his proverbial kind-