qual footing with the most illustrious and
accomplished of his day.' At the end of the last century he resigned
the business to his shopman, David Bremner, 'whose anxiety for acquiring
wealth rendered him wholly careless of indulging himself in the ordinary
comforts of life, and hurried him prematurely to the grave.' He was
succeeded by James Payne (the youngest son of the famous Tom) and J.
Mackinlay, both of whom also came to premature ends, the former through
being long confined as a prisoner in France.

Among the most famous of the Strand booksellers of the earlier part of
the present century were Rivington and Cochran, of No. 148 (near
Somerset House), and Thomas Thorpe, of 38, Bedford Street. With these
two firms it really seemed a question as to which could issue the most
bulky catalogues. The earliest example which we have seen of the former
is dated 1825; it extends to over 800 pages, and comprises nearly 18,000
items in various languages and in every department of literature. Thomas
Thorpe was undoubtedly the giant bibliopole of the period. If anything
striking or original occurred in the bookselling world, it was generally
Thorpe who did it. Dibdin describes him as 'indeed a man of might.' His
catalogues, continues the same writer, 'are of never-ceasing production,
thronged with the treasures which he has gallantly borne off, at the
point of his lance, in many a hard day's fight, in the Pall Mall and
Waterloo Place arenas. But these conquests are no sooner obtained than
the public receives an account of them, and during the last year only
his catalogues, in three parts, now before me, comprise no fewer than
179,059 articles. What a scale of buying and selling does this fact
alone evince! But in this present year two parts have already appeared,
containing upwards of 12,000 articles. Nor is this all. On September 24,
1823, there appeared the most marvellous phenomenon ever witnessed in
the annals of bibliopolism.[241:A] The _Times_ had four of the five
columns of its last page occupied by an advertisement of Mr. Thorpe,
containing the third part of his catalogue for that year. On a moderate
computation, this advertisement comprised 1,120 lines. The effect was
most extraordinary. Many wondered, and some remonstrated; but Mr. Thorpe
was master of his own mint, and he never mentions the circumstance but
with perfect confidence, and even gaiety of heart, at its success.'
Thorpe issued catalogues from 1829 to 1851,