Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/518

476 476 PROVINCIAL BOOKSELLERS. " Horace." His strenuous endeavours, and his large outlay, met with but little return ; and he writes of the "business of printing" as one "which I am heartily tired of, and repent I ever attempted." He died in 1775, and appears to have printed nothing during the last ten years of his life. By the direction left in his will, he was buried under a windmill in his own garden, with the following epitaph on his tomb-stone : " Stranger ! beneath this cone, in ' unconsecrated ground, a friend to the liberties of mankind directed his body to be inurned. May the example contribute to emancipate thy mind from the idle fears of super- stition, and the wicked arts of priesthood." His fount of type was unluckily allowed to leave the country, and was purchased by Beaumarchais, of Paris, who produced some exquisite editions, particularly of Voltaire's works, but who lost upwards of one million livres in his speculations. A successful modern bookselling venture in this city resulted from the establishment of the " Educa- tional Trading Company (Limited) " a novel phase in the trade of which the chief proprietor and chair- man was Mr. Josiah Mason. The business management was placed in the hands of Mr. Kempster, and, by a thorough system of travellers, who personally can- vassed the proprietors of schools and colleges, offering them very liberal terms, a large connection was almost immediately established. The company's operations were, of course, confined to the publication of cheap educational works ; and some of these, such as Gill's and Moffat's series, attained a wide popularity, and necessitated, in 1870, the opening of a London branch at St. Bride's Avenue, and another branch house at Bristol.