fortunate in having had a father who was a bookseller; who qualified him for conducting the business of a printing office; who inspired him with a desire to augment his slender stock of knowledge; and made him proprietor of an apparatus, the most powerful which exists, for the purpose of diffusing enquiry and eliciting the truth. Through the medium of the press, he has often seen the influence of fact and argument, and the claims of reason and justice, admitted; while imbecility of mind has shrunk under the lash of common sense.
The Rev. T. F. Dibdin, in his remarks on the character of Wynkyn de Worde, says, "The business or profession of a printer, under the guidance of sound principles and a correct taste, may rank in utility and general pleasure with any other that is cultivated by human beings."
This concession, from a man of classical erudition and laborious research, is highly complimentary.
In the retrospect of life, those who have passed a large portion of it, in literary pursuits, can truly say, that those hours have constituted the only substantial sweets which have rendered existence of any value. Even Chesterfield, than whom no man ever attended more to the triflings of fashionable society, has said, "I am never more in company than when alone."
The publisher is far from intending, by those quotations, to assume any importance; for in the scale of intellect, how trifling are our petty attainments! and however displayed, when they are compared with the immense extent of science, they are very insignificant. Man always appears little when he attempts to put on, either consequential or haughty assumptions. The publisher would rank with those, who,
