Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/494

452 452 PROVINCIAL BOOKSELLERS. Charnley left Bryson in 1755, and started a circu- lating library of 2000 volumes, the subscription being twelve shillings a year, and though this method of disseminating books had only been practised in London within the previous twenty years, we find that one Barba, who dabbled likewise in prints and tea, had already been for some years in the field. When Bryson died, Charnley succeeded to his business on the bridge, and after having been washed out by an overflow of the river, he removed to safer premises in the Great Market in 1777. Charnley died in 1803. An anecdote connected with him is still gleefully told by the Newcastle pitmen, and is worth repeating. He was deaf and obliged to use an ear-trumpet; and on being accosted by a collier, he clapped, as usual, his instrument to his ear, in order to catch the words. " Nay, man," cried the pitman, not to be imposed upon ; " thou's not gaun to mak me believe thou can play that trumpet wi' thy lug !" Emerson Charnley succeeded his father, and was styled by Dibdin " the veteran emperor of North- umbrian booksellers;" till 1860 this old established business remained in the family, when it became the property of Mr. William Dodd, for many years its manager. We have already referred so often to the Scotch publishers, that we can only find room for Glasgow as representing the Scotch provincial trade. Printing was introduced there in the year 1630 by George Anderson, who was succeeded in 1661 by Robert Saunders, and the whole printing business of the West of Scotland (except one newspaper) was carried on by Saunders and his son until 1730, when the art was further improved by R. Uric. Five years later it