ads, not one of them later than 1700, and some
of them a hundred years older. I wheedled an old woman out of these, who
loved them better than her psalm-book. Tobacco, sir, snuff, and the
Complete Syren, were the equivalent! For that mutilated copy of the
Complaynt of Scotland I sat out the drinking of two dozen bottles of
strong ale with the late learned proprietor, who in gratitude bequeathed
it to me by his last will. These little Elzevirs are the memoranda and
trophies of many a walk by night and morning through the Cowgate, the
Canongate, the Bow, St Mary's Wynd--wherever, in fine, there were to be
found brokers and trokers, those miscellaneous dealers in things rare
and curious. How often have I stood haggling on a halfpenny, lest, by a
too ready acquiescence in the dealer's first price, he should be led to
suspect the value I set upon the article!--how have I trembled lest some
passing stranger should chop in between me and the prize, and regarded
each poor student of divinity that stopped to turn over the books at the
stall as a rival amateur or prowling bookseller in disguise!--And then,
Mr Lovel, the sly satisfaction with which one pays the consideration,
and pockets the article, affecting a cold indifference, while the hand
is trembling with pleasure!--Then to dazzle the eyes of our wealthier
and emulous rivals by showing them such a treasure as this' (displaying
a little black smoked book about the size of a primer)--'to enjoy their
surprise and envy, shrouding meanwhile, under a veil of mysterious
consciousness, our own superior knowledge and dexterity;--these, my
young friend, these are the white moments of life, that repay the toil
and pains and sedulous attention which our profession, above all others,
so peculiarly demands!'"

There is a nice subtle meaning in the worthy man calling his weakness
his "profession," but it is in complete keeping with the mellow
Teniers-like tone of the whole picture. Ere we have done I shall
endeavour to show that the grubber among book-stalls has, with other
grubs or grubbers, his useful place in the general dispensation of the
world. But his is a pursuit exposing him to moral perils, which call for
peculiar efforts of self-restraint to save him from them; and the moral
Scott holds forth--for a sound moral he always has--is, If you go as far
as Jonathan Oldenbuck did--and I don't advise you to go so far, but hint
that you should stop earlier--say to yourself, Thus far, and