_William Nelson._
[Illustration: Yours Faithfully
William Nelson]
_William Nelson_
A MEMOIR
BY
SIR DANIEL WILSON, LL.D., F.R.S.E.,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO.
[Illustration: colophon]
Printed for Private Circulation.
_T. Nelson and Sons, Edinburgh._
_1889._
TO
Mrs. William Nelson
THIS
MEMOIR OF HER HUSBAND
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY
HIS OLD FRIEND AND
SCHOOLMATE
FOREWORD.
The volume here produced for the eye of friends is the memorial of one
whose life presented a rare example of simplicity, of thoroughness in
working up to a high standard in all that he undertook, and fidelity in
his responsible stewardship as a man of wealth and a captain of
industry. The friendship between us extended in uninterrupted union,
with the maturing estimation of years and experience, from early boyhood
till both had passed the assigned limits of threescore years and ten. It
would have been easy to swell the volume into the bulky proportions of
modern biography: for William Nelson keenly enjoyed the communion of
friendship; and his correspondence furnishes many passages calculated to
interest others besides those who knew and loved him as a friend. But
the aim has been simply to present him “in his habit as he lived;” and
thus to preserve for relatives, personal friends, and for his
fellow-workers of all ranks, such a picture as may pleasantly recall
some reflex of a noble life; and record characteristic traits of one of
whom it can be so truly said: “To live in hearts of those we love is not
to die.”
D. W.
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO,
_September 26, 1889_.
CONTENTS.
I. INTRODUCTORY, 13
II. HAUNTS OF BOYHOOD, 26
III. SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMATES, 41
IV. THE CASTLE HILL, 61
V. HOPE PARK, 77
VI. EGYPT AND PALESTINE, 87
VII. CHURCH--MARRIAGE, 108
VIII. SALISBURY GREEN, 121
IX. GLIMPSES OF TRAVEL, 137
X. HOLIDAYS ABROAD, 156
XI. PARKSIDE, 173
XII. CIVIC INTERESTS, 194
XIII. HOME HOLIDAYS, 213
XIV. PROJECTED TRAVEL--THE END, 228
_William Nelson._
CHAPTER I.
_INTRODUCTORY._
In the early years of the present century the Scottish capital retained
many features of its ancient aspect still unchanged; but among all the
old-world haunts surviving into modern times, the most notable, alike
for its picturesque quaintness and its varied associations, was the
avenue from the Grassmarket to the upper town. The West Bow, as this
thoroughfare was called, derived its name from the ancient bow, or
archway, which gave entrance to the little walled city before the civic
area was extended by the Flodden wall of 1513. But the archway remained
long after that date as the entrance to the upper town--the Temple Bar
of Edinburgh--at which the ceremonial welcome of royal and distinguished
visitors took place.
The West Bow had accordingly been the scene of many a royal cavalcade
of the Jameses and their queens; as well as of such representative men
as Ben Jonson and his brother-poet Drummond of Hawthornden, of Laud,
Montrose, Leslie, Cromwell, and Dundee. Among its quaint antique piles
were the gabled Temple Lands, St. James’s Altar Land, and the
timber-fronted lodging of Lord Ruthven, the ruthless leader in the
tragedy when Lord Darnley’s minions assassinated Rizzio in Queen Mary’s
chamber at Holyrood. There, too, remained till very recent years the
haunted house of the prince of Scottish wizards, Major Weir; and near by
the Clockmaker’s Land, noted to the last for the ingenious piece of
workmanship of Paul Remieu, a Huguenot refugee of the time of Charles
II. Nearly opposite was the dwelling of Provost Stewart, where, in the
famous ’45, he entertained Prince Charles Edward, while Holyrood was for
the last time the palace of the Stuarts. The alley which gave access to
the old Jacobite provost’s dwelling bore in its last days the name of
Donaldson’s Close; for here was the home of one of Edinburgh’s most
prosperous typographers, James Donaldson, who bequeathed the fortune won
by his craft to found the magnificent hospital which now rivals that of
the royal goldsmith of James I.
Such were some of the antique surroundings amid which the subject of the
present memoir passed his youth, and which no doubt had their influence
in developing an archæological taste, and that reverence for every
historical feature of his native city, which bore good fruit in later
years. But his more intimate associations were with the singularly
picturesque timber-fronted dwelling at the head of the West Bow, with
another fine elevation toward the Lawnmarket, which, till 1878, stood
unchanged as when the Flodden king rode past on his way to the Borough
Moor. A painting of the old house adorned the walls at Salisbury Green
in later years; and when at last the venerable structure was demolished,
some of its oaken timbers were secured by William Nelson and fashioned
into antique furniture for himself and his friends. This picturesque
building was the haunt of an old Edinburgh bookseller, the founder of
the well-known printing and publishing house of Thomas Nelson and Sons.
Mr. Thomas Nelson, the father of the subject of the present memoir, and
the originator of the great publishing firm, recurs to the present
writer in the memories of his own early years as a fine example of the
old Scottish type of silent, indomitable perseverance and sterling
integrity. The traditions of the race are thus set forth in a memorandum
in William Nelson’s handwriting:--“The Nelsons of our branch resided at
Throsk, a few miles east from Stirling, not far from the field of
Bannockburn. There was a tradition among us that some of our race lived
there at the time the battle was fought, and as a boy I was willing to
believe it.” There, at any rate, the Nelsons are known to have been for
four or five generations; and Thomas Nelson was born at Throsk in 1780.
His grandmother had seceded with the Erskines from the National Church;
and the spirit of that elder race of Scottish nonconformists was
inherited by their children. They joined a congregation of Reformed
Presbyterians, or Covenanters, at Stirling; and the boy grew up on his
father’s farm under all the influences of that earnest, unwavering
religious faith, which has so often seemed the fitting complement to the
ruggedness of the Scottish character, while it has, in not a few
instances, furnished the best preparation, for a successful career in
business. His father led a retired life on his carse farm, with Stirling
sufficiently near to admit of his enjoying the privilege of regular
worship with the devout little band of Presbyterian nonconformists
there. So little was he affected by the enterprise of younger
generations that he could not be persuaded to turn to profitable account
a small pottery on the land he occupied. He was content with the humble
career of a small farmer. But the monotony of farm-life was varied by
long journeys, staff in hand, in which the boy accompanied his father,
to attend the great gatherings at the sacramental seasons. In the
persecuting times the devout adherents of the Covenant had been wont to
assemble in some secluded glen to enjoy in safety the privileges of the
communion service, and their descendants continued the practice in more
peaceful times. Under such training the boy reached his sixteenth year,
when, after a brief experience as a teacher, some chance report of
prosperous adventure in the West Indies tempted the youth with its
illusive visions. Bidding his friends and home farewell, his father
accompanied him for some miles on the road to Alloa, giving his best
counsel and advice to the lad by the way. When they reached the place of
parting, his father said to him, “Thomas, my boy, have you ever thought
that where you are going you will be far away from the means of grace?”
“No, father,” said he, “I never thought of that, and I won’t go.”
Thus abruptly the scheme was abandoned. They retraced their steps to the
old farm, and the boy found employment for a time at Craigend, near
Stirling. There he formed the acquaintance of Symington, whose
steam-engine was first applied to navigation, and sailed with him in
some of the earliest trial-trips on the Carron Water. The pottery which
his father had neglected was started on a neighbouring farm, and young
Nelson was anxious to get the management of it. But the scheme appears
to have been distasteful to his father, whose secret desire probably was
that his boy should follow his own example, and so escape the world’s
trials and temptations. But the son’s ambition aimed at something more
advantageous than the homely career of a lowland farmer; and so,
by-and-by, he betook himself to London, entered the service of a
publishing house there, and began the training which ultimately begot
the great publishing firm that bears his name.
The young Scottish Covenanter did not forget his early training, amid
the temptations of the great metropolis. Along with a few other
Scotchmen of his own age, he established a weekly meeting for religious
fellowship; and it is told of one of the little band, who was employed
at the dock-yard, that he forfeited his situation rather than work on
the Sabbath day. But he had already won the favourable opinion of Lord
Melville, who, on learning of his dismissal, severely rebuked the
officials, and soon after advanced him to a higher post. From London,
Thomas Nelson made his way to Edinburgh with what little capital his
frugality had enabled him to accumulate, and there he started his first
book-store, stocked chiefly with second-hand books, but from which ere
long he began the issue of cheap reprints of the “Scots Worthies” and
other popular religious works, in monthly parts. He had to proceed
cautiously in this new venture, for his capital was small; but he had
the courage to shape out a course of his own. With sagacious foresight
he overleapt the intermediate stages of publishing and bookselling, and
grafted on to the traffic of the mediæval fairs some of the most modern
usages of free trade. The full results of this bold step are even now
only partially developed, though its ultimate advantages are beginning
to be generally recognized, and to force themselves on the attention of
the great publishing houses, accustomed hitherto to cater only with
small editions of costly volumes for the libraries of the wealthy,
supplemented in recent years by the expedient of lending libraries.
The removal of Mr. Thomas Nelson’s book-store to the picturesque
tenement at the Bowhead marks the first progressive step of the young
innovator. The venerable timber-fronted land projected with each
successive story in advance of the lower one, after the fashion of that
obsolete civic architecture in vogue before Newton had revealed his law
of gravitation. The first story above the paving rested on substantial
oak piers, forming a piazza opening on to the Bow, within which stood
the exposed book-stall of the primitive trader. Behind this was the
stone-vaulted buith, or shop, as in the old luckenbuiths alongside of
St. Giles’s Cathedral. The north façade fronted on the Lawnmarket, a
wide thoroughfare, where at certain seasons the dealers in linens and
woollens set up their stalls, much after the fashion which the poet
Dunbar describes them hampering the High Street before the Flodden wall
was built. Already at that early date the printing-press of Walter
Chepman, the Scottish Caxton, was at work; and before long the craft had
its representatives among the traders’ buiths. In a later century Allan
Ramsay began his prosperous career as a seller of his own metrical
“broadsides;” and Dr. Johnson’s father, the respected bookseller and
magistrate of the cathedral city of Lichfield, was wont to set up his
book-stall on market days in the neighbouring towns.
Here then, at the Bowhead, with its north front to the Lawnmarket, stood
within our own recollection the well-stored book-stall, the nucleus and
germ of the great Parkside printing establishment, with its hundreds of
workmen in every branch of the trade. The busy scene of a market day in
the old locality, as it could still be seen sixty-five years ago, is
graphically depicted in Turner’s view of the High Street, engraved in
1825 for Sir Walter Scott’s “Provincial Antiquities.” The book-trade, as
prosecuted by Mr. Thomas Nelson, depended in no inconsiderable degree on
the application of the stereotyping process to the production of cheap
editions of popular works of established repute. He was a pioneer in the
production of literature for the million; but he catered for the taste
of an age very different from our own, in his effort to put standard
works, already stamped with the approval of the wise and good, within
reach of the peasant and the artisan. “The Pilgrim’s Progress” was
already an English classic; and with this were issued such works as
Baxter’s “Saints’ Rest,” Booth’s “Reign of Grace,” “MacEwan on the
Types,” and other works of a like class. To those were by-and-by added
Jeremy Taylor, Leighton, Romaine, and Newton, the old Scottish and
Puritan divines, and Josephus, all produced by means of stereotype
plates, which admitted of a limited issue adapted to the demand of the
market. With the development of the business in later years, the issues
of the publishing house embraced an ampler and much more varied range.
But William carefully treasured his father’s private library. The spirit
of the bibliomaniac developed itself in this special line, and the
collection of old theological works included many choice specimens and
rare editions of his father’s favourite divines. They were latterly
treasured in a cabinet at Hope Park, along with other relics on which
William Nelson set a high value; and their loss on the destruction of
the Hope Park Works in 1878 by fire was one of his greatest causes of
regret. From his own choice collection of theological works, Mr. Thomas
Nelson made his first selections; but after a time he realized the
necessity of catering for the tastes of other classes of readers; and
so by-and-by there were added to them “Robinson Crusoe,” “Rasselas,”
“The Vicar of Wakefield,” Goldsmith’s “Essays,” his “Deserted Village,”
and other poems, along with popular favourites of a like class. Thus
prosecuted, the business gradually expanded until the Bowhead
establishment was no longer sufficient for the accommodation required.
But free trade in books was in conflict with the ideas inherited from
the privileged guilds of elder centuries. Competition had hitherto been
restricted within narrow limits; and the daring innovator was regarded
by the regular trade with all the disfavour of a revolutionist, against
whom every effort was to be employed to thwart the sale of his
publications. He had accordingly to find other channels of trade.
Periodical visits were made to the smaller towns, over the country,
north and south, and beyond the Scottish border. Thus a safe and
extended business was gradually established, destined ultimately to
revolutionize the book-trade. By its means was inaugurated a system of
supply of popular literature, at prices within reach of the masses, long
before other publishers of this class entered into competition on the
same field.
The influences of early training are traceable throughout the whole of
Mr. Thomas Nelson’s career, and have left their impress on the business
which owed its origin to his patient assiduity. He remained to the last
faithful to the Covenanting Presbyterian Church, which maintained a
stern adherence to the principles for which the martyrs of the Covenant
had witnessed a good confession alike on the battlefield and the
scaffold. His career in business had been an arduous struggle under many
disabilities. As I remember him in my own boyhood, he was a grave,
silent, yet not ungenial man; but one who seemed preoccupied with
thoughts and cares in which a younger generation could claim no share.
He had married, somewhat late in life, a bright young wife, by whom he
had a family of four sons and three daughters; of whom the eldest son,
the subject of this memoir, was born on the 13th of December, 1816.
On Mrs. Nelson the care and training of the young family devolved, as
the successful prosecution of the business necessarily required the
frequent and prolonged absence of their father. Yet his interest in them
was not less fervent. An incident illustrative of this has also its
bearings in relation to a characteristic feature of the devout faith of
the old Covenanting fathers. He dreamt that a terrible accident had
befallen his younger son John, then a youth of ten years of age, who was
absent at Pettycur in Fife. He set off on the following morning, and
crossed the Forth, burdened with foreboding visions of death. On his
arrival, he learned that his boy had fallen into the sea, and been
brought back apparently lifeless; but he had been revived, and then lay
asleep after the exhaustion of this vital struggle. It fully accorded
with the devout piety of the old Covenanter to recognize in his dream a
divine message and proof of providential interposition.
Of Mrs. Nelson, Dr. John Cairns, who knew her intimately, refers, in his
“In Memoriam” address on the death of this younger son, to her look of
bright intelligence and winning affection, as indelibly impressed on the
memory of all who were familiar with her. She possessed the happy
mixture of tender, motherly guidance with an unusual amount of firmness
and decision of character; and exercised great influence in the training
of her son, who was passionately devoted to her. She was in perfect
sympathy with her husband in his religious opinions, and venerated the
memories of the confessors and martyrs of the Covenant; so that their
sons and daughters were reared in strict conformity to the devout faith
of Cameron, Peden, Cargill, and other fathers and confessors of that old
Scottish type. Few men were more liberal-minded in later years than
William Nelson; but the influence of early training survived through
life, begetting some familiar traits of the best type of Scottish
character evolved from that elder generation which so impressed the mind
of the poet Wordsworth:--
“Pure livers were they all, austere and grave,
And fearing God; the very children taught
Stern self-respect, a reverence for God’s Word,
And a habitual piety, maintained
With strictness scarcely known on English ground.”
Some characteristic manifestations of the results of such early training
will come under review in the narrative of later years.