Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/361

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AND JAMES NISBET. 32! revise it, and it was purposed to make it the standard edition. One copy upon vellum was intended for the King, but as he died before its completion, her present Majesty Queen Victoria was graciously pleased to accept it. After some years Parker's interest in the Bible Press flagged, and much dissatisfaction was caused, and about 1853 he retired altogether from the management. Parker had from a very early date thought of printing his own books, and started an office that was afterwards removed to St. Martin's Lane, but ul- timately relinquished the management to Mr. Har- rison, whom he took into partnership. When the Council of Education was formed Parker was ap- pointed publisher, and gave every assistance in the way of funds and encouragement, and Mr. Hullah, in particular, found in him a warm supporter. Parker was twice married ; by his first wife he had two sons, Frederick and John William, and this latter, born in 1820, after receiving a good education at King's College, was admitted into the house in 1843, and in a few years took the chief management of the general business. Under Mr. John William Parker, Jun., the house be- came identified with the Liberal and Broad Church party, and till his death he held the reins of Fraser's Magazine entirely in his own hands. Strangely had that periodical altered since the days of Maginn and Fraser. Now it was the centre, in connection with 445, West Strand, from which issued the teachings of Maurice, Kingsley, and Tom Brown the nursery of muscular Christianity in one sense the cradle of Christian Socialism. Mr. Parker, Jun., in his capacity of publisher and