instructed; and before he will load his aid to establish and protect such institutions, the press must first teach him their value. The selfish and besotted policy, which, under the specious, but false denomination of patriotism, seeks a monopoly of power, of instruction, or of wealth, and which, in its jealousy of a rival, exclaims at each advancement of the species, delenda est Carthago, is gradually disappearing from amongst the educated and the reflecting; and with this progress of practical wisdom and applicable philosophy, bad governments lose some of their means of doing evil.
"Until printing was very generally spread," says Mr. Babbage, in his Bridgewater Treatise, "civilization scarcely advanced by slow and languid steps; since that art has become cheap, its advances have been unparalleled, and its rate of progress vastly accelerated. It has been stated by some, that the civilization of the western world has resulted from its being the seat of the Christian religion. However much the mild tenor of its doctrines is calculated to assist in producing such an effect, that religion can but be injured by an unfounded statement. It is to the easy and cheap methods of communicating thought from man to man, which enable a country to sift, as it were, its whole people, and to produce, in its science, its literature, and its arts, not the brightest efforts of a limited class, but the highest exertions of the most powerful minds among a whole community—it is this which has given birth to the wide-spreading civilization of the present day, and which promises a futurity yet more prolific. Whoever is acquainted with the present state of science and the mechanical arts, and looks back over the inventions and civilization which the fourteen centuries subsequent to the introduction of Christianity have produced, and compares them with the advances made during the succeeding four centuries following the invention of printing, will have no doubt as to the effective cause. It is during these last three or four centuries that man, considered as a species, has commenced the development of his intellectual faculties; that he has emerged from a position in which he was almost the creature of instinct, to a state in which every step in advance facilitates the progress of his successors. In the first period, arts were discovered by individuals, and lost to the race: in the latter, the diffusion of ideas enabled the reasoning of one class to unite with the observations of another, and the most advanced point of one generation became the starting-post of the next."
1801, Jan. 23. Died, Richard Shaw, a worthy, unassuming printer, in Silver-street, Whitefriars. He died at Pentonville, aged sixty-five years.
1801, Feb. 17. Matthias Koops, gent, of Westminster, obtained a patent for making paper from straw, hay, thistles, &c.
1801, March 26. Died, John Vowell, formerly an eminent stationer in Watling-street, London, aged ninety-three years. Till within three weeks of his dissolution, he was an active and useful member of the court of assistants of the stationers' company, of which he was master in 1767, and had long been the father. He was universally esteemed for perfect urbanity of manners, and unaffected goodness of heart. He died at his apartments, in Zion college.
1801, March. Died, William Collins, bookseller, Exchange-alley,[1] London. His catalogues, for a considerable number of years, furnished several curious articles to the literary collectors. He died in Warwick-street, Golden-square, of a confirmed asthma.
1801, April 20. John Gamble, of Leicester-square, London, obtained a patent for a machine for making paper, in single sheets, without seams or joinings, from one to twelve feet and upwards wide, and from forty-five feet and upwards in length.
1801, April. Died, Thomas Wood, printer and editor of the Shrewsbury Chronicle for nearly twenty-nine years; tender in all the offices of friendship, and deeply regretted by those around him in the relations of husband, father, master, and friend. His temper and deportment through life proved him to be actuated by the principles of Christianity; his last moments, cheered by the hopes of the gospel, were distinguished by patience, placidity, and as may be expected, his end was peace. He died at Shrewsbury, in the fifty-fifth year of his age.
1801, April 27. Died, Thomas Baowne, bookseller at Hull, Yorkshire, aged eighty-one.
1801, June 1. Died, George Robinson, an eminent bookseller in Paternoster-row. He was born at Dalston, in Cumberland, and about 1755, he went to London in search of such employment as he might be qualified for by a decent education, and a great share of natural good sense and shrewdness. His first engagement was in the house of Mr. John Rivington, and from which he went to that of Mr. Johnstone, on Ludgate-hill, where he remained until 1764, when he commenced business as a bookseller in Paternoster-row, in partnership with Mr. John Roberts, who died about 1766. The uniform habits of industry and punctuality which Mr.Robinson had displayed, while managing the concerns of others, pointed him out as one who might be interested. Mr. Robinson's active spirit, knowledge of business, and reputable connexion, soon enabled him to achieve the higher branches of the business, and become the rival of the most formidable of the old established houses; so that before the year 1780, he had the largest wholesale trade that was ever carried on by an individual. In 1784, he took into partnership his son and brother, who succeeded him. To the rise and progress of so great a concern, Mr. Robinson was an eminent proof how much maybe done by attention, industry,and above all, inflexible integrity and perseverance.
Few men, probably, have been regretted by a
- ↑ In 1778 he resided in Pope's Head-alley, when he was burnt out.
