During Dodsley’s illness, Rivington and his sons managed the _Annual Register_, and when on his death it was sold to Orridge and others, they started an annual of their own, which lasted till 1812, and then till 1820 was in abeyance, resumed again till 1823, and in the following year the two were merged into one, and after being published for a few years by the Baldwins, its management returned again to their own hands. Through the _Register_ they were brought into connection with Burke, and were subsequently publishers of his more important works. At all times the Rivingtons took a very great interest in the Stationers’ Company; this was especially the case with James, who served as master, and at the same time he, his two brothers, and his four sons were all members of the livery. He held many public appointments, was in commission of the peace, a governor of most of the Royal hospitals, and a director of the “Amicable Society,” and of the Union Fire Office. He died, universally regretted, on the 16th of February, 1792, in his seventy-second year, and was followed by his widow in the succeeding October. Owing to the split we have referred to in his business, and to his uniform generosity, the fortune he left behind him was not large--indeed, money hoarding has been an attribute of none of the Rivington family. His two elder sons, Francis and Charles, carried on the business vigorously. Another son, Robert, captain of the “Kent”--East Indiaman--fell, gallantly defending his ship in the Bay of Bengal, and was thus celebrated in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_:-- * * * * * “His manly virtue mark’d the generous source, And naval toil confirm’d the naval force; In fortune’s adverse trial undismay’d, A seaman’s zeal and courage he display’d; For honour firmly stood, at honour’s post, And gain’d new glory when his life he lost!” A fourth son John, a printer in St. John’s Square, had died previously in 1785.