THE BOOKSELLER.

.Before the invention of printing; and of the manufacture of paper from linen, books weresgo scarce and dear, as to be without the reach of all but persons of considerable opulence. Though the rnaterials of which they were made had been as cheap and as plentiful as paper is at preseut, the labour of .multiplying copies in manuscript, would always have kept their numbers comparatively scanty, and their price high.

Hence in all the nations of antiquity, learning was almost exclusively confined to the people of rank and the lower orders were only rescued from total ignorance, by the reflected light of their superiors, and raised above the rudeness of barbarism, by that partial improvement which men of cultivation and refinement necessarily impart, in a greater or less degree, to all within the sphere of their influence. The Papyrus, a kind of broad-leaved rush, being the cheapest material for the reception of writing, was of course in most general use. When this could no longer be procured, in consequence of the conquest of Egypt by the Saracens, parchment was then substituted, but it was so difficult to be procured, that it was customary to erase the writing of an ancient manuscript to make room for some other composition, In this manner many of the best works of antiquity were lost for ever. Books were for many ages so scarce, that to present a book to a religious house, was thought so valuable a donation as to merit eternal salvation, and it was offered, on the altar with great ceremony.

The making of paper, such as we now see it, is dated by the generality of writers at the eleventh or. twelfth century; but the honour
of the discovery is claimed by different and distant nations. The first book which was printed on paper manufactured in England,
came out without a date about 1495 or 1496, about fifty years after the invention of printing, although for a long while afterwards it was principally brought from abroad.

The art of printing necessarily produced the Bookseller. Indeed, we believe that the earlier printers were also Booksellers, as are some of the Printers of the present day ; bat the lapse of years, and a variety of other circumstances, have generated many trades and subdivisions of trades, to our forefathers wholly unknown. Even the trade of a Bookseller is considerably subdivided, at least in London.

The Bookseller of the present day is a person of considerable importance in the republic of letters, more especially if he combines those particular branches of the trade denominated Proprietor and Publisher: for it is to such men our men of genius take their productions for sale : and the success of works of genius very frequently depends upon their spirit, probity; and patronage. It is also to such men that the reading public generally are indebted for almost every important work of a voluminous kind. Those bulky and f valuable volumes, the various encyclopedias, would never have made their appearance had not a Bookseller, or a ombination of Booksellers, entered upon the speculation by employing men of science and learning in the various departments of those works, and embarking large capitals in the undertaking. Tbe sums of money employed in such concerns as these are immense,.and the regularity and dispatch with which some of these extensive bookselling concerns are conducted, exceed the conception of those persons wholly unaquainted with the affair.

Paternoster Row has been, for a long period, notorious as the place in which some of these large establishments are carried on, and where a great number of Booksellers' shops and warebouses abound. The Stationers Company have a Hall not far distant from it, where a copy every book must, by a late Act of Parliament .be deposited when published. A copy must also be deposited in the British Museum, the two Universities, and some other public establishments, amounting to eleven in .number.

In London, and some other large bookselling establishments in the kingdom, books in the wholesale way are sold in quires ; lists of such sales are constantly handed about amongst the large dealers in books.

Some Booksellers in London confine their trade to particular departments. There are Law Booksellers, Medical Booksellers, Foreign Booksellers, Religious booksellers, Booksellers of Education and Children's books ; others deal in old books only, and some principally in rare and scarce books : the rarity being in numerous instances the criterion of value. A rare copy of the Decameron of Boccacio was sold a few years ago, for upwards of two thousand pounds, when the book might have been bought in London at the same time, recently printed, for a few shillings! The form of a book, the style of the printing, and the name of the printer, add materially to the value of these conceits. The books called black-letter books are also much esteemed.

The sale of some books of fancy and genius in the present age, if not in price, has exceeded in number the books of any former period. We may mention those of Lord Byron, Mr. Walter Scott, and Mr. Thomas Moore, as instances of extraordinary and rare good fortune of these gentlemen. Whilst other works, perhaps of equal, although of course of very different merit, have sunk almost dead-born from the press.

The sale of periodical publications is in Great Britain of considerable importance: it consists of Magazines, Reviews, and a variety of other productions published for the most part monthly. Other works are frequently divided into numbers and published weekly in order to make the price, when they are bulky, come easy to the purchasers. By these means an infinity of books, and a vast body of information, have been diffused throughout the community and which have made the trade of the Bookseller one of the greatest interest and importance to mankind.

It is by the diffusion of knowledge by books that all species of tyranny and oppression can be most effectually resisted ; it is by the diffusion of books, that mankind become acquainted with their moral and religious duties and it is also by books that men generally become distinguished for their intelligence, probity, and worth; for where the diffusion of knowledge by books has not taken place, there we most commonly find the relative and social duties at a very low ebb.

Newspapers are another species of books very valuable in their kind ; but as they are not often sold by Booksellers, we content ourselves with merely making mention of them.