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 CHAPTER VII

MR. BENTLEY'S ENCOURAGEMENT—SOME LETTERS OF AN OLD PUBLISHER

When Solomon was at the zenith of his glory the number of people who could read must have been extremely limited, and yet that monarch—whose methods of administering justice may compare, in point of brevity and common sense, with those of the late Mr. Commissioner Kerr—is known to have commented on the never-ceasing literary output of his generation.

We may take it, then, that from the earliest times the supply of books has always exceeded the demand—when Israel had kings there must have been publishers, and from that era to the days of Byron (and, possibly, in subsequent times) there must have been robbers among them.

The young and aspiring writer has probably trodden a thorny path in his pursuit of fame at all stages of literary history; for, dealing only with the facts of yesterday and to-day, the scribe of tender years, after successfully arranging for the publica