William Nelson A Memoir 2

William Nelson A Memoir 2

The young Scottish Covenanter did not forget his early training, amid

the temptations of the great metropolis. Along with a few other

Scotchmen of his own age, he established a weekly meeting for religious

fellowship; and it is told of one of the little band, who was employed

at the dock-yard, that he forfeited his situation rather than work on

the Sabbath day. But he had already won the favourable opinion of Lord

Melville, who, on learning of his dismissal, severely rebuked the

officials, and soon after advanced him to a higher post. From London,

Thomas Nelson made his way to Edinburgh with what little capital his

frugality had enabled him to accumulate, and there he started his first

book-store, stocked chiefly with second-hand books, but from which ere

long he began the issue of cheap reprints of the “Scots Worthies” and

other popular religious works, in monthly parts. He had to proceed

cautiously in this new venture, for his capital was small; but he had

the courage to shape out a course of his own. With sagacious foresight

he overleapt the intermediate stages of publishing and bookselling, and

grafted on to the traffic of the mediæval fairs some of the most modern

usages of free trade. The full results of this bold step are even now

only partially developed, though its ultimate advantages are beginning

to be generally recognized, and to force themselves on the attention of

the great publishing houses, accustomed hitherto to cater only with

small editions of costly volumes for the libraries of the wealthy,

supplemented in recent years by the expedient of lending libraries.

 

The removal of Mr. Thomas Nelson’s book-store to the picturesque

tenement at the Bowhead marks the first progressive step of the young

innovator. The venerable timber-fronted land projected with each

successive story in advance of the lower one, after the fashion of that

obsolete civic architecture in vogue before Newton had revealed his law

of gravitation. The first story above the paving rested on substantial

oak piers, forming a piazza opening on to the Bow, within which stood

the exposed book-stall of the primitive trader. Behind this was the

stone-vaulted buith, or shop, as in the old luckenbuiths alongside of

St. Giles’s Cathedral. The north façade fronted on the Lawnmarket, a

wide thoroughfare, where at certain seasons the dealers in linens and

woollens set up their stalls, much after the fashion which the poet

Dunbar describes them hampering the High Street before the Flodden wall

was built. Already at that early date the printing-press of Walter

Chepman, the Scottish Caxton, was at work; and before long the craft had

its representatives among the traders’ buiths. In a later century Allan

Ramsay began his prosperous career as a seller of his own metrical

“broadsides;” and Dr. Johnson’s father, the respected bookseller and

magistrate of the cathedral city of Lichfield, was wont to set up his

book-stall on market days in the neighbouring towns.

 

Here then, at the Bowhead, with its north front to the Lawnmarket, stood

within our own recollection the well-stored book-stall, the nucleus and

germ of the great Parkside printing establishment, with its hundreds of

workmen in every branch of the trade. The busy scene of a market day in

the old locality, as it could still be seen sixty-five years ago, is

graphically depicted in Turner’s view of the High Street, engraved in

1825 for Sir Walter Scott’s “Provincial Antiquities.” The book-trade, as

prosecuted by Mr. Thomas Nelson, depended in no inconsiderable degree on

the application of the stereotyping process to the production of cheap

editions of popular works of established repute. He was a pioneer in the

production of literature for the million; but he catered for the taste

of an age very different from our own, in his effort to put standard

works, already stamped with the approval of the wise and good, within

reach of the peasant and the artisan. “The Pilgrim’s Progress” was

already an English classic; and with this were issued such works as

Baxter’s “Saints’ Rest,” Booth’s “Reign of Grace,” “MacEwan on the

Types,” and other works of a like class. To those were by-and-by added

Jeremy Taylor, Leighton, Romaine, and Newton, the old Scottish and

Puritan divines, and Josephus, all produced by means of stereotype

plates, which admitted of a limited issue adapted to the demand of the

market. With the development of the business in later years, the issues

of the publishing house embraced an ampler and much more varied range.

But William carefully treasured his father’s private library. The spirit

of the bibliomaniac developed itself in this special line, and the

collection of old theological works included many choice specimens and

rare editions of his father’s favourite divines. They were latterly

treasured in a cabinet at Hope Park, along with other relics on which

William Nelson set a high value; and their loss on the destruction of

the Hope Park Works in 1878 by fire was one of his greatest causes of

regret. From his own choice collection of theological works, Mr. Thomas

Nelson made his first selections; but after a time he realized the

necessity of catering for the tastes of other classes of readers; and

so by-and-by there were added to them “Robinson Crusoe,” “Rasselas,”

“The Vicar of Wakefield,” Goldsmith’s “Essays,” his “Deserted Village,”

and other poems, along with popular favourites of a like class. Thus

prosecuted, the business gradually expanded until the Bowhead

establishment was no longer sufficient for the accommodation required.

 

But free trade in books was in conflict with the ideas inherited from

the privileged guilds of elder centuries. Competition had hitherto been

restricted within narrow limits; and the daring innovator was regarded

by the regular trade with all the disfavour of a revolutionist, against

whom every effort was to be employed to thwart the sale of his

publications. He had accordingly to find other channels of trade.

Periodical visits were made to the smaller towns, over the country,

north and south, and beyond the Scottish border. Thus a safe and

extended business was gradually established, destined ultimately to

revolutionize the book-trade. By its means was inaugurated a system of

supply of popular literature, at prices within reach of the masses, long

before other publishers of this class entered into competition on the

same field.

 

The influences of early training are traceable throughout the whole of

Mr. Thomas Nelson’s career, and have left their impress on the business

which owed its origin to his patient assiduity. He remained to the last

faithful to the Covenanting Presbyterian Church, which maintained a

stern adherence to the principles for which the martyrs of the Covenant

had witnessed a good confession alike on the battlefield and the

scaffold. His career in business had been an arduous struggle under many

disabilities. As I remember him in my own boyhood, he was a grave,

silent, yet not ungenial man; but one who seemed preoccupied with

thoughts and cares in which a younger generation could claim no share.

He had married, somewhat late in life, a bright young wife, by whom he

had a family of four sons and three daughters; of whom the eldest son,

the subject of this memoir, was born on the 13th of December, 1816.

 

On Mrs. Nelson the care and training of the young family devolved, as

the successful prosecution of the business necessarily required the

frequent and prolonged absence of their father. Yet his interest in them

was not less fervent. An incident illustrative of this has also its

bearings in relation to a characteristic feature of the devout faith of

the old Covenanting fathers. He dreamt that a terrible accident had

befallen his younger son John, then a youth of ten years of age, who was

absent at Pettycur in Fife. He set off on the following morning, and

crossed the Forth, burdened with foreboding visions of death. On his

arrival, he learned that his boy had fallen into the sea, and been

brought back apparently lifeless; but he had been revived, and then lay

asleep after the exhaustion of this vital struggle. It fully accorded

with the devout piety of the old Covenanter to recognize in his dream a

divine message and proof of providential interposition.

 

Of Mrs. Nelson, Dr. John Cairns, who knew her intimately, refers, in his

“In Memoriam” address on the death of this younger son, to her look of

bright intelligence and winning affection, as indelibly impressed on the

memory of all who were familiar with her. She possessed the happy

mixture of tender, motherly guidance with an unusual amount of firmness

and decision of character; and exercised great influence in the training

of her son, who was passionately devoted to her. She was in perfect

sympathy with her husband in his religious opinions, and venerated the

memories of the confessors and martyrs of the Covenant; so that their

sons and daughters were reared in strict conformity to the devout faith

of Cameron, Peden, Cargill, and other fathers and confessors of that old

Scottish type. Few men were more liberal-minded in later years than

William Nelson; but the influence of early training survived through

life, begetting some familiar traits of the best type of Scottish

character evolved from that elder generation which so impressed the mind

of the poet Wordsworth:--

 

“Pure livers were they all, austere and grave,

And fearing God; the very children taught

Stern self-respect, a reverence for God’s Word,

And a habitual piety, maintained

With strictness scarcely known on English ground.”

 

Some characteristic manifestations of the results of such early training

will come under review in the narrative of later years.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II.

 

_HAUNTS OF BOYHOOD._

 

 

The curious ancient thoroughfare, the scene of early bookselling and

publishing operations, has been described in the previous chapter: for

many youthful recollections of William Nelson are associated with the

West Bow. In those years Edinburgh was still the romantic town described

by Scott in his “Marmion,” piled steep and massy, close and high, along

the ridge between the Cowgate and the Nor’ Loch. Since then nearly all

the antique historical mansions of the Castle Hill and the adjoining

Bowhead have disappeared. An extensive range was swept away about 1835

in clearing the area for Johnston Terrace and the Assembly Hall of the

Scottish Church. The famous old palace of Mary of Guise has given place

to the rival Assembly Hall and the New College of the Free Church; and a

broad highway now sweeps round the Castle rock where in early years

antique lands, closes, and wynds, once the abodes of the Scottish

gentry, were crowded together on the slope reaching to the Grassmarket.

 

The fine timber-fronted tenement at the corner of the Bowhead,

constructed mainly of oak, was a choice example of the burghers’

dwellings in Old Edinburgh, with their trading booths opening on the

street. Similar front lands in the High Street were the abodes of the

merchants and traders. The “Gladstone Land” still stands near by in the

Lawnmarket, bearing the initials of Thomas Gladstone, a merchant of

Edinburgh in the days of Charles I. and Cromwell, to whose gifted

descendant the restoration of the City Cross is due. The old nobles and

landed gentry, judges and advocates, preferred the retirement of the