Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/244

208 208 WILLIAM BLACKWOQD. " Gave unto the man in plain apparel a tablet con- taining the names of those upon whom he should call ; and when he called they came, and whomsoever he asked he came. . . . "And the first which came was after the likeness of the beautiful leopard, - from the valley of the palm- trees, whose going forth was comely as the greyhound, and his eyes like the lightning of fiery flame (Pro- fessor Wilson, author of the 'Isle of Palms!} . . . " There came also from a far country, the scorpion which delighteth to sting the faces of men, that he might sting sorely the countenance of the man which is crafty, and of the two beasts (Lock/tart). " Also the great wild boar from the forest of Leba- non, and he roused up his spirit ; and I saw him whetting his dreadful tusks for the battle" (James Hogg). Then come Dr. Macrie, Sir William Hamilton, Arthur Mower, " and the hyaena that escheweth the light, and cometh forth at eventide to raise up and gnaw the bones of the dead, and it is as a riddle unto a vain man (Riddell, the legal antiquarian}. "And the beagle and the slowhound after their kind, and all the beasts of the field, more than could be numbered, they were so many." In Chapter III., Constable finds that the "bear" and the " lamb " are unprofitable servants, and he, too, calls for aid, but Jeffrey " the familiar spirit unto whom he had sold himself" Leslie, and Playfair contributors to the Edinburgh refuse to come. In Chapter IV., Constable does get aid from Macney Napier, and others. " And when I saw them all gathered together, I said unto myself, Of a truth the man which is crafty