s is doing wonders for a
provincial town; and that a _commercial_ one!! Of Mr.
Gutch's spirit and enterprise some mention has been made
before at p. 404, ante. He is, as yet, hardly _mellowed_ in
his business; but a few years only will display him as
thoroughly _ripened_ as any of his brethren. He comes from a
worthy stock; long known at our _Alma Mater
Oxoniensis_:--and as a dutiful son of my University Mother,
and in common with every one who is acquainted with his
respectable family, I wish him all the success which he
merits. Mr. George Dyer of Exeter is a distinguished
_veteran_ in the book-trade: his catalogue of 1810, in two
parts, containing 19,945 articles, has, I think, never been
equalled by that of any provincial bookseller, for the value
and singularity of the greater number of the volumes
described in it. As Lysander had mentioned the foregoing
book-vending gentlemen, I conceived myself justified in
_appending_ this note. I could speak with pleasure and
profit of the catalogues of booksellers to the _north of the
Tweed_--(see p. 415, ante); but for fear of awaking all the
frightful passions of wrath, jealousy, envy--I stop:
declaring, from the bottom of my heart, in the language of
an auld northern bard:

I hait flatterie; and into wourdis plane,
And unaffectit language, I delyte:

(_Quod Maister Alexander Arbothnat; in anno_ 1572.)]

[Footnote 420: There is something so original in the
bibliomanical character of the above-mentioned Mr. Miller
that I trust the reader will forgive my saying a word or two
concerning him. Thomas Miller of Bungay, in Suffolk, was
born in 1731, and died in 1804. He was put apprentice to a
grocer in Norwich: but neither the fragrance of spices and
teas, nor the lusciousness of plums and figs, could seduce
young Miller from his darling passion of reading, and of
buying odd volumes of the _Gentleman's_ and _Universal
Magazine_ with his spare money. His genius was, however,
sufficiently versatile to embrace both trades; for in 1755,
he set up for himself in the character of _Grocer_ and
_Bookseller_. I have heard Mr. Otridge, of the Strand,
discourse most eloquently upon the brilliant manner in which
Mr. Miller conducted his complicated concerns; and which,
l