Read this, ye covetous wretches in all trades, who when you get a good customer are for making the most of him! But if you have neither honour nor honesty, you should at least possess a little common sense. Reflect on the many customers that your overcharges have already driven from your shops! Do you think that you can find customers enough so deficient in penetration as not to discover your characters? No such thing. Your exorbitant charges are a general subject of conversation and dislike: you cannot with confidence look your own customers in the face, as you are conscious of your meanness and imposition, and your sordid disposition is evidently the reason that some gentlemen are led to look with contempt and disdain on tradesmen. But when men in trade are men of honour, they will in general be treated as such; and were it otherwise, "One self-approving hour whole years outweighs POPE. "Self esteem is one of the first ingredients of man's happiness," and I pity from my soul many poor wretches whom I observe bartering away their constitutions and what few liberal sentiments they may possess, rising early and sitting up late, exerting all the powers of the body and mind, to get what they call a competency; no matter by what means this is effected. "Silver to gold we own should yield the prize ; Thousands actually destroy themselves in accomplishing their grand design; others live to obtain the long-wished for country retreat. But, alas! the promised happiness is as far from them as ever, often farther. The busy bustling scene of business being over, a vacuity in the mind takes place, spleen and vapours suceeed, which increase bodily infirmities, death stares them in the face. The mean dirty ways by which much of their wealth has been obtained make retrospect reflections intolerable. Philosophy stands aloof, nor ever deigns to visit the sordid soul. Gardens and pleasure grounds become dreary desarts; the miserable possessors linger out a wretched existence, or put a period to it with a halter or a pistol. "Sated, loathing, hopeless here of bliss, "Were this not common would it not be strange? I cannot omit to quote the following fine lines from Mr Soame Jenyns, as they naturally occur to my recollection. "Useless in business, yet unfit for ease, Nor skill'd to mend mankind, nor form'd to please. 'Tis conscious virtue crowns the blest retreat." "Solitude (says Cowley) can be well fitted and set aright but upon very few persons: they who have knowledge enough of the world to see the follies of it, and virtue enough to despise all vanity." The profits of my business the present year, 1791, will amount to four thousand pounds.* What it will * Since this was wrote my business is enlarged; in 1792, my profits were about 5,000%, increase to I know not; but if my health will permit me to carry it on a few years longer, there is very great probability, considering the rapid increase which each succeeding year has produced, that the profits will be double what they now are; for I here pledge my reputation as a tradesman never to deviate from my old plan of giving as much for libraries as it is possible for a tradesman to give, and selling them, and new publications also, for the same small profits that have been attended with such astonishing success for some years past. And I hope that my assistants will also persevere in that attentive, obliging mode of conduct which has so long distinguished No. 46 and 47, Chiswell street, Moorfields; conscious, that should I ever be weak enough to adopt an opposite line of conduct, or permit those who act under my direction so to do, I should no longer meet with the very extraordinary encouragement and support which I have hitherto experienced; neither should I have the smallest claim to a continuance of it under such circumstances. 1 am, dear friend, yours. LETTER XLI. "But by your revenue measure your expense, " YOUNG'S Love of Fame. "Learn what thou ow'st thy country and thy friend, DEAR FRIEND, DRYDEN'S Persius. THE open manner of stating my profits will no doubt appear strange to many who are not acquainted with my singular conduct in that and other respects. But you, sir, know that I have for fourteen years past kept a strict account of my profits. Every book in my possession, before it is offered to sale, is marked with a private mark of what it cost me, and with a public mark of what it is to be sold for; and every article, whether the price is sixpence or sixty pounds, is entered in a day-book as it is sold, with the price it cost and the money it sold for: and each night the profits of the day are cast up by one of my shopmen, as every one of them understand my private marks. Every Saturday night the profits of the week are added together and mentioned before all my shopmen, &c., the week's profits, and also the expenses of the week are then entered one opposite the other, in a book kept for the purpose; the whole sum taken in the week is also set down, and the sum that has been paid for books bought. These accounts are kept publicly in my shop, and ever have been so, as I never saw any reason for concealing them, nor was ever jealous of any of my men's profiting by my example and taking away any of my business, as I always found that such of them as did set up for themselves came to my shop, and purchased to the amount of ten times more than they hindered me from selling. By keeping an account of my profits, and also of my expenses, I have always known how to regulate the latter by the former. "To live above our station shews a proud heart; and to live under it, discovers a narrow soul." Horace says, "A part I will enjoy as well as keep, My heir may sigh and think it want of grace; And I have done that without the trifling way of setting down a halfpenny-worth of matches, or a penny for a turnpike. I have one person in the shop whose constant employment it is to receive all the cash, and discharge all bills that are brought for payment; and if Mrs Lackington wants money for housekeeping, &c., or if I want money for hobby-horses, &c., we take five or ten guineas, pocket it, and set down the sum taken out of trade as expended; when that is gone, we repeat our application, but never take the trouble of setting down the items. But such of my servants as are entrusted to lay out money are always obliged to give in their accounts, to shew how each sum has been expended. "Bless'd who with order their affairs dispose, COOKE'S Hesiod. It may not be improper here to take a little notice of some very late insinuations of my old envious friends. It has been suggested that I am now grown immensely rich, and that having already more property than I can reasonably expect to live to expend, and no young family to provide for, I for these reasons ought to decline my business, and no longer engross trade to myself that ought to be divided into a number of channels, and thus support many families. In answer to which I will observe, that some of these objectors were in trade before me, and when I first embarked in the profession of a bookseller, despised me for my mean beginning. When afterwards I adopted my plan of selling cheap, and for readymoney only, they made themselves very merry at my expense for expecting to succeed by so ridiculous a project, (as they in their consummate wisdom were pleased to term it,) and predestined my ruin, so that no doubt I ought to comply with anything they desire, however unreasonable it may appear to me. To deny that I have a competence would be unpardonable ingratitude to the public, to go no higher; ""Tis one thing madly to despise my store: Another not to heed to treasure more; |