Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/183

149 CONSTABLE, CAD ELL, AND BLACK. 149 are mingled with real desert, and caused by honest service, are qualities of which the Scotch, perhaps more than any other nation, are peculiarly proud ; and when the representation of Edinburgh became vacant in 1856, a large and influential party at oncejiominated Mr. Adam Black to fill the post. Mr. Adam Black was a thorough-going Liberal and a Nonconformist, and a party of the electors received his nomination in a spirit of the greatest bitterness, and an opposition candidate was brought forward. The election came off on the 8th February, 1856, and Mr. Black, the friend of political freedom when friends were few, the champion of religious charity and good- will when enemies were many, was rewarded for his consistency and his many services by a larger number of votes than had been polled for twenty years no weak test of popular approbation. As a contempo- rary opinion, we may quote the Scotsman of that date : " Honour to the candidate ! Sincerely re- luctant to compete for the honour, no sooner was he embarked, and saw that the great principles and the reputation of the city were concerned and imperilled in his person, than he threw himself into the work with a vigour that made even the youngest and most energetic of his supporters stand aside. We don't care who knows it : Mr. Black was the most effective member of his own committee in word and in act, by day and by night, the veteran was ready with guidance and warning and incentive. In all his many battles in the public cause, he never made a better fight than when achieving this victory which so gloriously crowns his career." In the House Mr. Black distinguished himself by his assiduity to business, and in 1864 he introduced