Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/370

330 330 THE RIVINGTONS, THE PARKERS, cardinals fly to the moon than become a Papist again. In fact I never was one." (A curious way of putting it.) This was not the only hoax by which James Nisbet was a sufferer. Later on, a practical joke was played upon him by some wag, who sent the following to a large number of country papers : "Nearly Ready, in Three Handsome Octavo Volumes, "LITERARY PYROTECHNICS; or, Squibs, Pasquins, Lampoons, and other Sparkling Pleasantries, by the best English Writers, from the Reign of Elizabeth to the Present Day, with Philological Notes by the Hon. the Vice-Chancellor Sir William Page Wood, Knt. "James Nisbet and Co., Berners-street, London." This very advertisement was directed to be inserted in the next issue, and a copy of the paper containing the advertisement was to be sent to the publisher with the price of inserting it four or six times. About one hundred papers fell into the snare, to James Nisbet's horror and amazement. Nisbet was a very charitable man to all of his way of thinking. The " Saints " were freely welcomed to his hospitable house, which was used as a free hotel by travelling missionaries and preachers, who often said a grateful " grace for all the rich mercies of his table." He was one of the chief supporters of the Fitzroy Schools, and one of the most zealous founders of the Sunday School Union. Nor was he wanting in generosity to general and more publicly useful charities ; and, during a period of thirty years, his books show that he collected for more than five hundred institutions, and that the total amount that passed through his hands was 114,339 i6s. ^d. It is pleasant, amid the farrago of religious cant and trash with which the "Lessons from his Life" are