Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/446

406 406 THOMAS NELSON, and Brownlow North ; in its columns the charming " Chronicles of the Schonberg Cotta Family" first appeared. Among the greatest of the more recent triumphs of the firm in the way of books for children, was the in- troduction of coloured illustrations upon a black background a striking and emphatic method of throwing the coloured pictures into strong relief; the books illustrated upon this principle proved so suc- cessful that a host of imitators adopted the same method. The firm are also well known as extensive publishers of a greatly improved series of school- books, of maps, embracing new and ingenious features, and of gift and prize books. Latterly, however, they have entered into a wider and more liberal field, and their current catalogue embraces works in most de- partments of literature. For the last five-and-twenty years of his life, Nel- son was more or less of an invalid ; though from 1843 to 1850 he enjoyed a kind of respite; but during this whole period his sons were associated with him in the business, and during the latter and greater portion of it, the management devolved en- tirely upon them. Thomas Nelson, the founder, died on March 23rd, 1861, and showed upon his death- bed the effects of that strong piety to which, since a child, he had accustomed his mind. When it was thought proper to announce to him that his end was near, he received the intelligence with the calmest equanimity : " I thought so ; my days are wholly in God's hands. He doeth all things well. His will be done !" and then he took up his Testament again, saying, " Now I must finish my chapter." He was buried in the Grange Cemetery, among many Scot-