KELLY AND VIRTUE. 377 To go to a very different branch of his business, Mr. Virtue was not idle in the production of any book likely to win the favour of the public. In 1847, Dr. Cumming, then widely known as a preacher only, de- livered a series of lectures at Exeter Hall upon the Apocalypse, which riveted public attention. He was urged by his friends to publish the lectures upon their completion, and said that he would be willing to do so, if he was sure that the proceeds would suffice to pay for putting up stained glass windows in his church. Mr. Virtue heard this, ascertained the value of the windows, and offered their outside cost down in hard cash in exchange for the copyright. Dr. Cumming eagerly accepted the offer, and by the " Apocalyptic Sketches " the publisher realized the handsome sum of four thousand pounds. He afterwards made the author a present of a hundred pounds, and engaged him to write a continuation, at an honorarium of five pounds per sheet of thirty-two pages, which eventually proved to be equally successful. Many years before his death, Mr. George Virtue parted with the business to his son, Mr. James Sprent Virtue, the present head of the firm. On the 8th December, 1868, George Virtue, senior, died in his seventy-sixth year, having earned the re- spect of all the hundreds to whom he afforded employ- ment, and of the outside world ; for all recognised that integrity and strict justice to his employes was a main cause of his success, while his prosperity had been aided by thorough business habits and intense application to his duties. He had been one of the representatives of the ward of Farringdon Without in the Common Council of the City of London for many years, and was held in the 24
