Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/405

Rh Alexander Hogg, of 16, Paternoster Row, had been a journeyman to Cooke, and had very successfully followed the publication of "Number" books. In the trade he was looked upon as an unequalled "puffer," and when the sale of a book began to slacken, he was wont to employ some ingenious scribe to draw up a taking title, and the work, though otherwise unaltered, was brought out in a "new edition," as, according to a formula, the "Production of a Society of Gentlemen: the whole revised, corrected, and improved by Walter Thornton, Esq., A.M., and other gentlemen."

Kelly's duties were to make up parcels of books for the retail booksellers, and his zeal displayed itself even in somnambulism, and one night when in a comatose state, he actually arranged in order the eighty numbers of "Foxe's Martyrs," taken from as many different compartments. He spent all his leisure in study, and soon was able to read French with fluency, gaining the proper accent by attending the French Protestant church in Threadneedle Street. The good old housekeeper, at this time his only friend, was a partaker of his studies; at all events, he gave her the benefit of all the more amusing and interesting matter he came across. His activity, though it rendered the head-shopman jealous, attracted Hogg's favourable attention, and the clever discovery of a batch of stolen works, still further strengthened the interest he felt in his serving boy. The thieves, owing to the lad's ingenuity, were apprehended and convicted, and Kelly had to come forward as a witness.

"This was my first appearance at the Old Bailey, and as I was fearful I might give incorrect evidence, I trembled over the third commandment. How could I think, while shaking in the witness-box, that I