Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/317

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CHAMBERS, KNIGHT, AND CASSELL, 277 ever, Mr. Bohn was the only member of the trade who endeavoured in 1860 to exert his influence against the abolition of the paper duty. Among the best known of Mr. Bonn's own produc- tions are his editions of Lowndes' " Manual," Addison's works, his " Polyglot of French Proverbs," his translation of Schiller's " Robbers," and his " Guide to the Knowledge of Pottery and Porcelain," which, though published in 1849, * s still the standard work on the subject. His position as an antiquarian is widely acknowledged, and he is a Vice-President of the Society of Arts. At an early period of his life Mr. Bohn married a daughter of the senior partner in the firm of Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., an alliance that doubtless strength- ened his business connections. His trade sales were for many years among the most important in London, lasting for three or four days, and were conducted after the manner of the good old school of booksellers now, alas ! almost extinct with the pleasing accompaniments of singing and supper. Though Mr. Bohn, a few years since, transferred his " Libraries " and his premises in York Street to Messrs. Bell and Daldy, -he has not yet entirely severed his connection with the bookselling world, though as the " father of the trade " he has long since earned the right to leisure and retirement a right acknowledged not alone in England, for in June, 1869, the New York Round Table devoted an interesting article to Mr. Bohn's retirement from the publishing world, and ob- served that many of his articles in "Lowndes" were un- surpassed in bibliography, especially those on Shake- speare and Junius. "Indeed," adds the writer, "if we may believe report, such has been the unceasing