We have, by this time, given historico-biographical notices of publishers and booksellers, representing very various phases of the “trade;” but we have still to show how, in the economy of publishing, and through an ingenious division of labour, the smaller booksellers in town, and all the booksellers in the country and the colonies, are kept constantly supplied with books and periodicals. Before a new book is published, the work is taken round to the larger houses in the “Row,” and other parts of London, and “subscribed,” that is the first price to the trade, and the actual selling price to the public are quoted, and orders at the former price are given, according to the purchaser’s faith in the expected popularity of the work in question. The wholesale houses, in their turn, supply all the country, colonial, and smaller London orders, reaping, of course, a due advantage from having the volumes demanded already stowed in their warehouses. By far the largest business in this branch of the trade is executed by the old-established firm of Simpkin, Marshall, and Company, and though they by no means confine their attention solely to the commission-paying business of middlemen--for they are themselves publishers of educational and other widely-circulating works--yet their name has long, throughout the length and breadth of the land, been held synonymous with this wholesale supply of the requirements of other houses. The real founder of this enormous traffic was, Benjamin Crosby. The son of a Yorkshire grazier, he came to London to seek his fortunes, and was apprenticed to James Nunn, a bookseller in Great Queen Street. As soon as his indentures had expired, he obtained a situation under George Robinson--the “King of the Booksellers”--and, in a few years after this, succeeded to the business of Mr. Stalker, of Stationers’ Hall Court. Crosby was one of the first London booksellers who travelled regularly through the country, soliciting orders for the purpose of effecting sales and extending his connections. In a short time he acquired a pre-eminence as a supplier of the country houses, and also as one of the largest purchasers at trade sales, especially when publishers’ stocks were sold off. The extension of the business had been very materially assisted by the unremitting exertions of two assistants--Simpkin and Marshall--and when, in 1814, he was stricken by a sudden attack of paralysis, he made over a certain portion of his stock and the whole of his country connection to Robert Baldwin, and Cradock and Joy, he left the remainder, with the premises and the London connection, to Simpkin and Marshall. Soon after this, a second attack deprived him of his speech, and for a time of his reason, and he died in the following year, 1815.