e, the
beadle had been to his house, and finding he had left it in his usual
health, it was feared some accident had happened. The congregation then
dispersed, much concerned at the absence of the worthy pastor, who,
however, atoned in the evening, by unwonted eloquence, for his
unpremeditated prank of the morning.

HOLBORN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD.

As a second-hand bookselling locality, Holborn is one of the oldest of
those in which the trade is still carried on vigorously. As a
bookselling locality it has a record of close on three centuries and a
half. As early as 1558, a publisher was issuing cheap books in
connection with John Tisdale, at the Saracen's Head, in Holborn, near to
the Conduit, and in one of these booklets we are enjoined to

'Remember, man! both night and day,
Thou needs must die, there is no Nay.'

Probably the earliest, and certainly one of the earliest, books
published in Holborn was the 'Vision of Piers Plowman,' 'now fyrst
imprinted by Robert Crowley, dwellyng in Ely-rents in Holburne,' in
1550, which contains a very quaint address from the printer. In and
about the year 1584, Roger Warde, a very prolific publisher, was
dwelling near 'Holburne Conduit, at the sign of the "Talbot,"' and a
still more noteworthy individual, Richard Jones, lived hard by, at the
sign of the Rose and Crown.

Early in the seventeenth century, several members of the fraternity had
established themselves in and around Gray's Inn Gate, then termed, more
appropriately, Lane. Henrie Tomes published 'The Commendation of Cocks
and Cock-fighting' (1607), which, no doubt, the 'young bloods' of the
period perused much more diligently than more instructive and edifying
books with which Mr. Tomes also could have supplied them.

Its most famous bibliopolic resident, however, is Thomas Osborne, or Tom
Osborne, as he was called in the trade and by posterity. Tom Osborne's
fame began and ended with himself. Nobody knew whence he came, and
probably nobody cared. His catalogues cover a period of thirty
years--1738-1768--and include some very remarkable libraries of many
famous men. In stature he is described as short and thick, so that Dr.
Johnson's famous summary method of knocking him down[192:A] was not
perhaps so difficult a feat as is generally supposed. To his
inferiors--including, as he apparently but ruefully thought, Dr.
Johnson--he generally spoke in an authoritative and insolent manner. As
ignorant as Lackington