Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/379

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339
339

BUTTERWORTH AND CHURCHILL. 339 still attended the congenial meetings of the Stationers' Company. The day of his death was, curiously enough, the most important day in the law publishing year the first day of term 2nd November, 1860. On the previous evening he had given his annual admonition to those around him in business to awake up from the lethargy of the long vacation, and on the following morning it was found that he had passed away, as if in sleep. For nearly sixty years Butterworth had occupied a leading position as a publisher and as a citizen, and during that period had won the friendship and respect of all who came in contact with him. The alms which' his industry enabled him to make were con- scientiously, quietly, and discriminatingly bestowed : and the painted glass memorial window erected to him in the choir of the Cathedral of St. Paul's was a fitting tribute from a very large number of friends and admirers, many of whom had experienced the kindly assistance of his friendship and advice. As we have previously seen, divinity and education were among the first subjects to attract a special attention, and works relating to them would otherwise have come within our category of technical books. No sooner, however, were the lawyers fairly supplied with special text-books than the doctors began to clamour for the like, and the^publisher who has of all others most zealously administered to their wants is still happily amongst us. John Churchill was born about the commencement of the century, and was apprenticed in the year 1816 to Messrs. Cox and Son, medical booksellers in South- wark. " The house of business was/' he says, " immq-