Ballantyne, and other writers, figured on their list of authors. The charming series of “Art Gift Books,” from the French of M. Jules and Mme. Michelet, and M. Arthur Mangin--“The Insect,” “The Bird,” “The Mysteries of the Ocean,” and “The Desert World,” as well as other works of the same class--are illustrated in the best style of art. But it was as caterers for the people, in an abundant supply of pure, high-toned popular literature, and not as rivals of the great publishing houses through which the most eminent writers appeal to select classes of readers, that the Nelsons achieved their greatest success. In the tribute paid to the worth of William Nelson by the Rev. Dr. Alison when his life-work was finished, it is said: “His influence, and that of the firm of which he was the head, has gone forth healthfully to the ends of the earth. Religious principle, no less than skill and taste and enterprise, has been in all their work as publishers of literature. No man can measure the good which that incessant stream of excellent books issuing from their press has done for the world. To a large extent they have been for the multitude, rather than for the learned few.” But this was the summing up of the work of a lifetime. Much had to be achieved in its progress, step by step, ere such results could even be aimed at. Under the energetic management of the young publisher the picturesque tenement at the head of the West Bow, which had sufficed for his father’s bookselling operations, soon proved inadequate for the growing business. A neighbouring “land,”--as an entire pile of building in the Old Town of Edinburgh is still called,--situated at the head of Blyth’s Close, Castle Hill, with the palace of Mary of Guise in its rear, was secured; and there the first steps were taken which ultimately developed into the great establishments of Hope Park and Parkside. Machinery was brought into use wherever available; and a well-organized division of labour was introduced, until at length nearly every process, from the initial type-setting to the final issue of the bound and illustrated volume, was executed on the premises. The locality where this new departure was made, preparatory to the great works at Hope Park, with its hundreds of work-people, and its wholesale branches at London and New York, is one rich in literary associations. Near by, on the northern slope of the Castle bank, is the house of Allan Ramsay, poet and bookseller; Blair’s Close, long noted among the most ancient nooks of the Castle Hill, was the abode of Alison Cockburn, authoress of “The Flowers of the Forest,” and of other plaintive as well as humorous Scottish songs. To St. James’s Court, on the east side, James Boswell brought Dr. Samuel Johnson, and entertained him in the house where he had succeeded to the historian David Hume. There was an old-world literary flavour about the place that gave a certain piquancy to the start of the young adventurer deserting the classic grove for the