It is pleasant, amid the farrago of religious cant and trash with which the “Lessons from his Life” are surrounded, to find some glimmering of the real man--the enterprising and successful bookseller. “From his energy of character, and from habit, he was more accustomed to lead others than to be led himself; therefore, any attempt to alter or set aside arrangements which he had himself devised ... was almost sure to meet with, on his part, a strenuous and determined resistance.” In 1854, when the cholera was raging in London, his brave conduct was far above any party praise. The position of chairman of the Middlesex Hospital devolved temporarily upon him, and fearlessly he set about his difficult duty. Day after day he was at his post, directing all things, and alleviating, with every means in his power, the physical sufferings of the patients; and still, while adopting all that was proper to check the progress of the disease, not unmindful of administering the consolations of religion. He died on the 8th November, 1854, having been seized with a violent illness on his return from a before-breakfast visit to the Orphan Working School at Haverstock Hill. In a funeral sermon, preached by Dr. Hamilton at Regent’s Square church, his character is thus summed up, both sides of it being cautiously exhibited:--“With a sanguine temperament, he had strong convictions and an eager spirit; and, whilst he sometimes magnified into an affair of principle a matter of secondary importance, he was impatient of opposition, and did not always concede to an opponent the sincerity he so justly claimed for himself. Then, again, his openness was almost excessive, and his determination to flatter nobody sometimes led him to say things more plain than pleasant.... Those only could appreciate his excellence who either knew his entire mode of life, or whose casual acquaintance was confined to the walks of his habitual benevolence.” As a publisher, he was eminently successful, and reaped a due reward for his honest industry; never had he a bad debt but once, and, on recovering that unexpectedly, he presented the amount of it, in a silver service, to a church. The books he issued were chiefly of an ephemeral religious class, and literature is certainly less indebted to his success than were the charitable institutions of the day. Mr. James Murray, who had been Nisbet’s partner in business for many years, succeeded to the command of the firm; and, after his death at Richmond in June, 1862, Mr. Watson, the present manager, was appointed by the family to superintend the whole concern. [Illustration] [Illustration] _BUTTERWORTH AND CHURCHILL_: TECHNICAL LITERATURE.