Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/371

331 AND JAMES NISBET. 33l surrounded, to find some glimmering of the real man the enterprising and successful bookseller. " From his energy of character, and from habit, he was more accustomed to lead others than to be led himself; therefore, any attempt to alter or set aside arrange- ments which he had himself devised . . . was almost sure to meet with, on his part, a strenuous and detef- mined resistance." In 1854, when the cholera was raging in London, his brave conduct was far above any party praise, The position of chairman of the Middlesex Hospital devolved temporarily upon him, and fearlessly he set about his difficult duty. Day after day he was at his post, directing all things, and alleviating, with every means in his power, the physical sufferings of the patients ; and still, while adopting all that was proper to check the progress of the disease, not unmindful of administering the consolations of religion. He died on the 8th November, 1854, having been seized with a violent illness on his return from a before-breakfast visit to the Orphan Working School at Haverstock Hill. In a funeral sermon, preached by Dr. Hamilton at Regent's Square church, his character is thus summed up, both sides of it being cautiously exhibited : " With a sanguine temperament, he had strong con- victions and an eager spirit ; and, whilst he sometimes magnified into an affair of principle a matter of secondary importance, he was impatient of opposition, and did not always concede to an opponent the sincerity he so justly claimed for himself. Then, again, his openness was almost excessive, and his determination to flatter nobody sometimes led him to say things more plain than pleasant,, . . Those only 21 2