After his marriage, he again opened a shop in St. John’s Street, Clerkenwell, and here he “wrote all night and worked all day,” while his partner was drinking himself to death. His wife was ill, two of the children died, and the future looked terribly gloomy; for a “supposed friend” prevailed upon him to discount a bill for £172 14_s._ 9_d._ out of his little capital of two hundred pounds, and the bill, of course, turned out to be utterly worthless. In this strait he acted with much energy, dissolved his partnership, called a meeting of his creditors, and found a friend who nobly came forward as a security; and he left his home, declaring he would never return until he could pay the uttermost farthing. “God,” he writes solemnly, “never forsook me. A man may lose his property and yet not be ruined; peace and pride of heart may be more than equivalents.” Tegg now took out a country auction licence, and determined to try his fortune in the provinces. A few words on the book-auction trade may have a passing interest here. According to Dibdin, the first book auction of which we have any record in England occurred in 1676, when Cooper, the bookseller, prefixed the following address to his catalogue:--“Reader, it hath not been usual here in England to make sale of books by way of auction, or who will give most for them; but it having been practised in other countries, to the great advantage of both buyers and sellers, it was therefore conceived (for the encouragement of learning) to publish the sale of those books in this manner of way.” The innovation was successful. Cooper established a reputation as a book-auctioneer, and in London such sales became common. In a few years we read of the practice being extended to Scotland, and to the larger towns in England, such as Leeds and York. John Dunton, with his usual versatility, took over a cargo of books to sell at Dublin, and after that date attendance at the country fairs with books to sell by auction became quite a distinct branch among the London booksellers. The leading auctioneer in Dunton’s time was Edward Millington. “He had a quick wit and a wonderful fluency of speech. There was usually as much wit in his ‘One, two, three!’ as can be met with in a modern play. ‘Where,’ said Millington, ‘is your generous flame for learning? Who but a sot or a blockhead would have money in his pocket, and starve his brains?’” At this time it appears that bids of one penny were very commonly offered and accepted. Book-auctioneering soon became a distinct trade altogether, and required not only much fluency of speech and power of persuasion, but a very exact knowledge of the science of bibliography. For this latter speciality Samuel Paterson, of King Street, Covent Garden, was particularly famous. Perhaps no bookseller ever lived who knew so much about the contents of the books he sold. When, in compiling his catalogues, he met with an unknown book he would sit perusing it for