eye for capabilities, and was constantly on the watch to. secure the services of young men in the great wholesale houses, who, as the firm of Smith & Son rose in reputation, often came to ask for employment. He never let a promising young fellow pass him, but was always ready to engage him, even if, as would sometimes happen, there was no niche into which he could be fitted at the moment.1

Sometimes a young man, "too big for his boots," would show an inclination to sniff at being put in charge of a railway bookstall. The trade had an indifferent reputation at first, and such an appointment was not looked upon as that of a legitimate bookseller.

"We'll raise it, Mr," replied young Smith to one who had offered some such objection—“we'll raise it. I am not at all sure that it may not be made as respectable as Paternoster Row."

These young men were educated to gauge the literary taste of the various districts. Some curious information, showing how this varied according to locality, is given in the 'Times' article quoted from above.

Stations have their idiosyncracies. Yorkshire is not partial to poetry. It is difficult to sell a valuable book at any of the stations

1 This faculty of detecting "form at a glance" (if it may be permitted to borrow from the phraseology of a system so foreign to Smith's habits and character as the turf) never left him. During his later years it happened that he attended a meeting of fifteen or twenty persons, held to promote a certain object, in the house of his colleague, the Right Hon. Edward Stanhope, M.P. One of the gentlemen present, at the request of Mr Stanhope, acted as secretary during the proceedings, which lasted about an hour. Twelve months later, Smith went to Mr Stanhope and asked the name of the gentleman who had acted as secretary on that occasion, for he said he had been so favourably impressed with his business-like qualities in the short time he had witnessed them that he wished to meet him again, in order, if a second interview confirmed his impressions, to offer him a high and lucrative post in the house in the Strand.

HIS INFLUENCE ON YOUNG MEN.

35

between Derby, Leeds, and Manchester. Religious books hardly find a purchaser at Liverpool, while at Manchester, at the other end of the line, they are in high demand.

One secret of young Smith's influence upon young men, and the ascendancy which he gained over them, was the patience he showed in waiting for development of character and powers. So long as he saw a man willing-so long as his shortcomings could be explained by inexperience and not by negligence-he was most slow to discourage him by rebuke: he used to say that he preferred, even at the risk of temporary loss of profits, to let a man find out his own mistakes rather than check him at once. No one knew better than Smith the truth of the adage, ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius; but no one bore more constantly in mind that to be carved into an effigy is not the only use to which timber may be put, and that, of the two, a gatepost is more often of service than a god.

It was remarkable how soon cach new hand entering the employment seemed to imbibe the spirit pervading the concern, to become jealous for its character and zealous in its interests. No doubt this may be accounted for in part by the system of allowing the clerks a liberal percentage on the sales at their stalls; but it is not possible to discourse with one of the staff who knew the business in its beginnings, without acquiring the conviction that, in large measure, this esprit de corps had its origin in the personal influence of the junior partner.

When the Milanese critic Lomazzo chose cognisances or emblems for the master-painters of the Italian Renaissance, symbolising their various genius, he assigned to Michael Angelo the dragon of contemplation, and to Mantegna the serpent of sagacity, but for Raphael he reserved the image. of man the type of intelligence and urbanity. It may

1

1 Symonds, Italian Renaissance: The Fine Arts.

seem a strained analogy that suggests itself between the characters of two men whose life-work differed as widely in kind as their social environment, but, in truth, the biographer of each has to record traits and method of influence upon others closely similar. Vasari wrote of Raphael that his kindly nature prevailed, even more than his art, to endear him to men; he dwells on his gentleness, his modesty, his courtesy, his anxiety to help others-above all, his freedom from jealousy,—a sin besetting artists not more closely than statesmen.1 These are precisely the qualities which distinguished Smith above his fellows, whether in the days. when he was busy building up the great business in the Strand, or in after-days, when he was called on to undertake some of the highest offices in the State. Indeed, had he lived in an age when men were named according to their personal qualities, no more fitting appellation could have been devised for him than Smith-the Smoother.2 Further, there was something in the concord prevailing among all classes in the employment of the Strand house, a concord established by the younger Smith, and enduring now that he has gone to his rest-something in the devotion to and confidence in their chief, felt and expressed by every one in that vast workshop, that calls to mind the spirit described by Vasari as animating the painters, sculptors, builders, decorators, engravers, and other handicraftsmen who worked under Raphael in his Roman bottega.

But it would be a mistake to suppose that Smith was indiscriminate in indulgence. His principle was, once he had chosen and appointed a man to his duty, to put complete

1 Vasari, Lives of the Painters, vol. viii. pp. 6, 60.

2 There is no reality in Archbishop Trench's specious derivation of "smith one that smiteth"; the laws of comparative philology are against it, and point to the real affinity with "smooth." A smith is therefore not one who smites but one who smoothes-a polisher.