"I will therefore conclude with a wish, that my readers may enjoy the feast with the same good humor with which I have prepared it.... Those with keen appetites will partake of each dish, while others, more delicate, may select such dishes as are more light and better adapted to their palates; they are all genuine British fare; but lest they should be at a loss to know what the entertainment consists of, I beg leave to inform them that it contains forty-seven dishes of various sizes, which (if they calculate the expense of their _admission tickets_) they will find does not amount to twopence per dish; and what I hope they will consider as _immensely_ valuable (in compliance with the precedent set by Mr. Farley, a gentleman eminent in the culinary science), a striking likeness of their _Cook_ into the Bargain. "Ladies and Gentlemen, pray be seated; you are heartily welcome, and much good may it do you."--_From Preface to Lackington's "Memoirs and Confessions," published 1826._ JAMES LACKINGTON. One of the most successful booksellers of the last century was James Lackington, whose enormous place of business at the corner of Finsbury Square, London, was styled somewhat grandiloquently "The Temple of the Muses." A flag floated proudly over the top of the building, and above the principal doorway stood the announcement, no less true than sensational, "The Cheapest Bookshop in the World." Lackington was an innovator in the trade, and had introduced methods and principles of doing business which at first awaked the ire of the bookselling fraternity, but were at length generally adopted, thus inaugurating a new era in the history of this important business. His name cannot be omitted from any complete history of booksellers, and it is none the less deserving of a place in the category of illustrious shoemakers; for Lackington commenced life as a shoemaker, and for some time after he had entered on bookselling speculations continued to work at the humble trade to which he had served an apprenticeship.