Page:The Scourge - Volume 5.djvu/18

6 Dealings with the booksellers.

dinner, given at. the Crown and Anchor in honour of Mr. Cobbett. He knew that if he made a speech, the newspaper reporters, good souls, would give his name and his opinions to the public. The side which he took was very acceptable to the taste of his new sectarian friends; they gloried in his conduct, and for a moment forgot that a teacher of the word of God should not be a political preacher at a drunken tavern dinner. Security in his honour was the result; many most respectable and worthy men were duped by his seeming virtue — they took by thalian this pseudo-Wesleyan, introduced him to the notice of the whole sect, and procured for him their friendship. With a host, therefore, of the best characters at his command, should his intentions be suspected, he immediately began a scene of depredations, and the line he principally chose for the exercise of his infamous talents, was of all others — the bookselling.

Behold then this reverend seer commence purchaser and seller of books by wholesale. Behold him travel to the shop of two respectable persons in that line, in Fleet-street, and obtain under false presences books at various times, to the amount of 350/. which he immediately handed over to the auction bookseller and receive about one third less than their value. These books were sold to him upon his assurance that they were for several friends; one parcel was delivered at a Friend's house in Bridge-street, as for that friend ; but our reverend hypocrite took care to be at the house the moment they were delivered, and to remove them almost instantly in a coach, and to turn them into cash. Innumerable are the pranks which he has played in this manner. From another person in Gos well-street, he obtained, £200's worth, under the specious pretext that he would secure for him the appointment of bookseller to a society, to which he falsely pretended he had been appoint ed librarian, and of course furnished with authority to Olivette order. These books were sold by one of the most respectable houses in Paternoster-row, to the Goswell-street bookseller, who pledged his notes for the