Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/372

332 332 THE RIVINGTONS, THE PARKERS, ETC. could appreciate his excellence who either knew his entire mode of life, or whose casual acquaintance was confined to the walks of his habitual benevolence." As a publisher, he was eminently successful, and reaped a due reward for his honest industry ; never had he a bad debt but once, and, on recovering that unexpectedly, he presented the amount of it, in a silver service, to a church. The books he issued were chiefly of an ephemeral religious class, and literature is certainly less indebted to his success than were the charitable institutions of the day. Mr. James Murray, who had been Nisbet's partner in business for many years, succeeded to the command of the firm ; and, after his death at Richmond in June, 1862, Mr. Watson, the present manager, was appointed by the family to superintend the whole concern.