Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/488

446 446 PROVINCIAL BOOKSELLER. go to, without it's your own fault ; for your first sweetheart is now at liberty, and left in good circum- stances by her dear spouse, deceased but of late.' ' I pray heaven,' answered I, ' that his precious soul may be happy ; and for aught I know it may be as you say, for indeed I think I may not trifle with a widow, as I have formerly done with a maid.'" So he paid forthwith his coach fare down to York,. and found his dearest much altered, for he had not seen her these ten years. There was no need of new courtship, "but decency suspended the ceremony of. marriage for some time, till my dearest, considering the ill- consequence of delay in her business, as well as the former ties of love that passed innocently between us, by word and writing, gave full consent to have the nuptials celebrated." But, alas ! when he became a master instead of a ser- vant, and she a mistress instead of a maid, he found her "temper much altered from that sweet natural softness and most tender affection that rendered her so ami- able to me while I was more juvenile and she a widow. My dear's uncle, White, as he calls himself, who, as the only printer in Newcastle, had heaped up riches," was angry that he had not been chosen to manage his niece's shop, and actually came to York to found a rival establishment. Gent started a paper, and, though he persevered in its publication for many years, he was at length out-rivalled by White. In the publication of books he was much more success- ful. In 1726 he printed some books "learnedly translated into English by John Clarke, a school- master in Hull," as well as two editions of Erasmus. But the works by which he acquired most money and reputation were written as well as published by him-