Chapter XV: Part 15

Latterly, however, Irish bookselling, as far as individual enterprize goes, has been commonly associated with the name of James Duffy. He was born in 1809, and after being apprenticed to a draper in the country, found employment in Dublin, and here, like Robert Chambers, he invested his spare coppers in picking up old books. At last he found trade so bad that he determined to emigrate, and accordingly, as he possessed no funds, he took his books to an auctioneer; at the sale, to his surprise, he found that the books he had purchased for pence, now produced as many shillings. Upon this he determined to drop the scheme of emigration, and to turn bookseller. As we have before mentioned, he collected the Bibles which the Catholics received from the Church of England propagandists only to turn into money, and took them over to Liverpool, where he exchanged them for books less unlawful in Papist eyes. At first he hawked these about the country, but eventually took a place of business in Anglesea Street, Dublin, and there began to publish the “Bruton Series” of thrilling tales of robbers, battles, adventures, and the like, at the low price of twopence each. In 1842 he was appointed bookseller to the Repeal Agitators, and produced, under their auspices, the “Library of Ireland,” consisting of patriotic and national collections of poems, &c., edited or written by some of the most brilliant of the National party. However, the movement for Repeal collapsed, and before this Duffy had discerningly turned his attention to less ephemeral publications, and produced editions of Carleton, Banin, and other native celebrities. The famine of 1846 affected every trade, and as the people had no money to buy bread, the sale of books was, of course, utterly hopeless, and Duffy found that he could not meet his engagements. His creditors granted him time, and the money was to be paid in instalments. He sold his copyrights in England, and paid the first instalment promptly. But when the time was due for the second he saw no prospect of meeting it. A neighbour, however, called John Donnegan, hearing that he was ruined, carried him a stocking full of money, his lifetime’s hoardings, threw it down before him, with “Just take that, and see if it is any use to you! Pay me when you can,” and refusing to take any receipt, rushed out again. The stocking contained nearly £1200, and Duffy was able not only to pay his creditors, but to turn his attention to the publication of more important works than he had hitherto attempted, such as the Douay Bible, Missals, Prayer-books, and many historical works, and it was not long before he was in a position to repay the kindly loan. About 1860 he opened a branch house in London, and at that period the success of his publishing career may be said to have culminated, for after the death of his wife he confined himself almost entirely to disposing of his old stock. He died on the 4th of July of the year 1871, regretted by his fellow-citizens in Dublin, and by his brother bibliopoles throughout the kingdom.[33]

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If it were not for want of space there are several towns in the Midland Counties which deserve notice here on account of their bibliopolical fame--none more so, perhaps, than Derby, which at present possesses no less than three large bookselling firms, which have also branch businesses in London, Messrs. Richardson and Son having in addition another establishment at Dublin. As Roman Catholic publishers some of their productions have achieved an enormous circulation, notably “The Crown of Jesus,” which, honoured with the approval of the Pope, and of all the English dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church, long since attained an issue of 100,000 copies. The works of Frederick William Faber, D.D., late of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, have also been among the most popular of Messrs. Richardson and Son’s publications. The Mozleys, of Derby, have long been in the trade, and are represented both in the country and in London; one of the family was well known in connection with the editorial staff of the _Times_ newspaper. The Mozleys publish the _Monthly Packet_, edited by Miss Younge, and also the majority of that lady’s separate works. A third firm, Messrs. Bemrose and Sons, have gained a considerable reputation as archæological publishers, and as the proprietors of Mrs. Warren’s “Household Manuals.”

At Halifax, where the book trade is of a more recent date, Messrs. Milner and Sowerby, by their services in the cause of cheap publications of really good and standard works, have done much to counteract the effects of cheap and pernicious literature. “The Cottage Library” has long been known all over England, and was one of the first shilling series of really good books published--certainly the first in a neat form and with a neat binding, issued at this low price, and is still, in its extent and scope, unrivalled.

Manchester was one of the first provincial towns in England to which the printer and bookseller came, for it must be remembered that the trades were for centuries almost synonymous. The art of printing is said to have been introduced here in 1588, when Penny went through the kingdom with an itinerant press, but his plant was seized and destroyed by the fifth Earl of Derby. However, the innovation was effected, and the new art was firmly lodged. Manchester, nevertheless, in these early days was a place of such importance that a mere catalogue of the members of the trade would more than fill the few pages at our command. Among the booksellers of the last century we can only mention Haslingden, who published “Tim Bobbin”--a book still famous; the Sowlers, one of the descendants of whom started the _Courier_, under the editorship of Alaric A. Watts, in 1825, and the journal still enjoys a wide popularity; Joseph Harrop, who originated the _Manchester Mercury_ in 1752, published the “History of Man” in sixpenny numbers, but Harrop’s well-known folio Bible was issued by his son and successor; the firm of Clarke Brothers amassed a large fortune in school books and stationery; and about the same time Banks and Co. were also doing an immense trade upon a thoroughly reprehensible system. Hayward, who was their managing partner, opened shops in various places, placed his own servants in possession, and made them accept bills to a very large amount. These bills were discounted at the Manchester Bank, and when the crash came the bank was a creditor upon the estate to the amount of £120,000, while the London publishers were indebted to the extent of £100,000. Among the shopmen in charge under Hayward’s system was Timperley, a printer, and a man of considerable literary ability. To pay the debts contracted through this wholesale acceptance of bills, he consigned his stock to an auctioneer, who, after disposing of it by auction, ran off with the proceeds of the sale. Timperley, heart-broken by misfortune, accepted a literary engagement with Fisher and Jackson, of London, and in their service he died. In early days he had been a soldier, had gone through many campaigns, had served at Waterloo, and had well earned his pension of a shilling per diem. He is now known chiefly as the author of the “Manchester Historical Recorder,” and of “Timperley’s Typographical Dictionary”--one of the most accurate, laborious, and voluminous compilations ever made, and one to be gratefully remembered by all students of the history of the printing press in this country. Another worthy of typographical fame was Bent, who, after doing a large bookselling business among the Manchester Unitarians, then, at all events, the most cultivated portion of the inhabitants, started “Bent’s Literary Advertiser,” the first bookseller’s organ, and which latterly has been incorporated in the _Bookseller_. The _Bookseller_ was started in 1857 by Mr. Whitaker, and among its earliest contributors were many men of some note, especially Alaric Watts. From the first it filled an acknowledged void, and, as a trade journal, has never been surpassed. From the interest of the notes and trade gossip contained in its pages, as well as from the more solid information in its lists of works and announcements, it has secured a wide popularity here and abroad, and has been the precursor of similar journals in America and elsewhere.

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Among other important Manchester publishers were R. & W. Dean, who introduced stereotyping into the city, and issued a large series of popular and useful books. From some cause or another, they failed, and their stereos came into the possession of Samuel Johnson, the father of the Liverpool bookseller. Johnson now became a publisher on a very extensive scale, and is said to have been the originator of the royal 32mo. literature, which is now chiefly identified with Halifax.

In our own times, Manchester bookselling has been principally represented by the brothers Abel and John Heywood--a name almost as widely known as that of any London firm. The brothers were born at Prestwich, of very humble parentage; their father, indeed, is said at one time to have been in receipt of parish relief. Abel began life as a warehouse boy, on the scanty pittance of eighteenpence a week; but at the age of twenty he was summarily dismissed by his master in a fit of passion. He now obtained the wholesale agency for the _Poor Man’s Guardian_, and was very shortly afterwards fined £54 for selling it without a stamp. He could not pay the fine, and was sent to prison for four months; but his family managed the shop during his incarceration, still selling the _Guardian_ as before, but in a quieter manner. In 1834 and in 1836 he was again fined, but now he could afford to pay. The Government next tried to seize the papers while in the hands of the carriers, and they were obliged consequently to be sent through the country carefully concealed--embedded in a chest of tea or a hamper of shoes. As soon, however, as the duty was reduced from fourpence to a penny, the poorer classes were able to pay for stamped papers. Abel Heywood was, nevertheless, again the subject of a legal prosecution for the publication of a penny pamphlet by Haslam. Acting with vigorous promptness, he caused three or four copies of Shelley’s works to be purchased from the chief Manchester booksellers, and then contended that the poems were more blasphemous than his pamphlet. The Government did not care to excite the ill-feelings of the reading public by sending booksellers of position to prison, and as the cases were precisely similar, they relinquished the prosecution. Probably this decisive conduct suggested the same course to Hetherington, who was afterwards the cause of that famous trial, the Queen _v._ Moxon.

In 1838, Fergus O’Connor started the _Northern Star_, and for four years its prosperity at the time was unexampled. Heywood sold 18,000 copies weekly. By degrees his periodical trade increased enormously. In 1847 he joined some paper-stainers, and the firm soon became one of the largest in the world. In the year 1860 the paper duty paid by them amounted to more than £20,000. Among the most successful of his recent publications have been “Abel Heywood’s Penny Guide Books.” The series now embraces upwards of seventy-five numbers, referring to every place of importance or interest in the kingdom. He has also issued the whole of the popular tale, “The Gates Ajar,” for the same price--one penny--giving in a pamphlet form what usually occupies a goodly volume.

Abel Heywood, however, was as well known as a distinguished public man as a successful bookseller. In 1835 he was appointed a Commissioner of Police, and during the Manchester riots in 1842 and 1849 he took a conspicuous part in quelling the disturbances. Elected to the corporation, he became an alderman in 1853, and in 1859 he was third in the list of candidates at the general Parliamentary elections. In 1862 he was elected Mayor of Manchester; in 1864 he took his son, Abel, into partnership.

John Heywood commenced life in the same lowly circumstances as his brother, and at the age of fourteen found employment as a handloom weaver. Within ten years his wages rose from half-a-crown to thirty shillings a week; and when in receipt of this latter sum he regularly allowed his mother a pound a week. At the age of four-and-twenty he married, and to improve his worldly position, accepted the management of a small factory at Altrincham, in Cheshire; but as the speculation proved a failure, he returned to his former occupation of “dressing” for power-loom weavers, at which he remained until his thirty-fifth year. Desirous of rendering even his spare time profitable, he had bought a paper-ruling machine, upon which he worked in the evenings; and Abel, who was now a successful bookseller in Oldham Street, offered him a situation in his establishment as paper-ruler, with a salary of two pounds a week: and in his brother’s employ he remained for seven years. In 1842, however, determined to make a start for himself, he took a little shop in Deansgate, and, assisted by his son John, a lad of thirteen, the business, originally infinitesimal, increased rapidly and vastly. At first they confined their efforts almost entirely to the sale of weekly or Sunday papers, and they were able to carry abroad conveniently under their arms all the newspapers they could dispose of. In a few months, however, the aid of a wheelbarrow was required, and this, in turn, was discarded for a pony and trap. After adding every possible enlargement to the old premises, they were obliged in 1859 to take a shop on the opposite side of the street; and year after year, as the business expanded, addition after addition was made to the premises, until three buildings were rolled into one, and at the end of another seven years a huge six-storey manufactory was built in the rear of the triangular shop. The increase of the working staff kept pace with the growth of the establishment, and now, instead of the armful or the barrow-load, a special railway truck, with a freightage of about two tons, comes down from London five times a week; some hundred and fifty assistants supply the place of the lad of thirteen, and nine spring-carts have been introduced in lieu of the little pony trap. A thousand parcels are made up each day, and between three and four hundred orders are received by every morning’s post; for, besides being the largest newsvendors and booksellers out of London, the firm are the largest copybook makers in the kingdom. Fifteen hundred gross of copybooks are despatched from the warehouses every month; and it is stated that the weekly issue of newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals amounts to the almost incredible number of a quarter of a million.

In 1864, John Heywood, senior, died, and the business devolved upon his son, who had inherited all his father’s energy and industry. In 1867 he introduced a platten printing machine, adapted to take impressions from the stereo-plates of his school-books--known as “John Heywood’s Code,” “John Heywood’s Manchester Reader,” &c.--and before long he resolved to become a regular printer as well as a publisher, and the “Excelsior Printing Works” were erected about a mile from Deansgate, where 355 people are constantly employed in the manufacture of books, in a manner very similar to that previously described in our accounts of the Messrs. Nelson and Collins, of Scotland. Among the books published by Mr. John Heywood are dialectic works, many of which are regarded, justly, as Lancashire classics. One of his latest triumphs has been the issue of the “Science Lectures for the People,” delivered at the Hulme Town Hall, and sold separately at a penny each--a fact that says something as to the good taste of the factory lads. Four monthly and three weekly periodicals are published by Mr. John Heywood. Of the former the _Railway Guide_ is the most widely circulated, while the _Lithographer_ is indispensable to the many decorative artists of the neighbourhood; and _Ben Brierley’s Journal_, with its vernacular contributions, finds its way to every Lancashire fireside. Of the latter, the _Sphinx_, a satirical journal, is the most popular.

The career of the two Heywoods is a striking example of the labour, energy, and success which Lancashire folk are apt to think the true attributes of the typical “Manchester man;” and if they have not been instrumental in adding much to the higher literature of the world, their publications have very widely extended the taste for knowledge among the lower orders in the north of England.

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Even in Birmingham the trade of bookselling was introduced at a comparatively recent date. Dr. Johnson tells us that his father used to open a bookstall here on market days; and Boswell adds, in a note, that there was not then a single regular bookshop in the whole town. Elsewhere he tells us that “Mr Warren was the first established bookseller in Birmingham, and was very attentive to Johnson, who he soon found could be of much service to him in his trade by his knowledge of literature; and he even obtained the assistance of his pen in furnishing some numbers of a periodical essay, printed in the newspaper of which Warren was proprietor.” Mr Warren, however, though Johnson’s first encourager, has long since been forgotten, and Birmingham bookselling is now universally identified with the name of William Hutton; and from his autobiography, published in 1816--perhaps the most interesting record of a self-made life that has ever been personally indited--we give a short sketch of his career.

William Hutton was born at Derby, in 1723. His father, a drunken wool-comber, scarcely brought home wherewithal to keep the wretched family from starvation, and “consultations were held (when the child was six years old) about fixing me in some employment for the benefit of the family. Winding quills for the weaver was mentioned, but died away. Stripping tobacco for the grocer, by which I was to earn fourpence a week, was proposed, but it was at last concluded that I was too young for any employment.” Next year, however, the result of the consultation was otherwise, and he was placed in a silk-mill; the youngest, and by far the smallest, of the 300 persons employed, a lofty pair of pattens were tied on to his feet so that he might be able to reach the engine; and he continues:--“I had now to rise at five every morning, summer and winter, for seven years; to submit to the cane whenever convenient to the master; to be the constant companion of the most rude and vulgar of the human race; never taught by nature, nor ever wishing to be taught.” Brutally treated, so that the scars of his chastisements remained on his body through life, he left the mill as soon as ever his apprenticeship expired; “a place,” he says, “most curious and pleasing to the eye,” but which had given him a seven years’ heart-ache. He was now bound for another term to an uncle--a stocking-maker at Nottingham. “My task was to earn for my uncle 5_s._ 10_d._ a week. The first week I could reach this sum I was to be gratified with sixpence, but ever after, should I fall short or go beyond it, the loss or profit was to be my own.” In this situation, he was not only thrashed by his master, but starved by his aunt; and, goaded by the taunts of the neighbours, he fled away, but was reluctantly compelled to return. In 1744 his apprenticeship expired, and for two years longer he remained as a journeyman in the same employment, but he now made the melancholy discovery--for all trade was in a very wretched condition at the time--that he had served two separate terms of seven years, to two separate trades, and yet could subsist upon neither.

A gradually acquired taste for reading led him to purchase a few books, and their tattered condition prompted him to try his hand at binding; and, as he could get no employment in his own avocations, he determined to start afresh as a bookbinder. His friends sneered at his ambitious hopes, but his sister supported him firmly. There were no binding tools to be purchased then in the country, so his sister “raised three guineas, sewed them in my shirt-collar, for there was no doubt but I should be robbed,” and put eleven shillings in his pocket as a sop to the expected highwayman, and off he started for London, walking fifty-one miles the first day and reaching it on the third. Here he invested his three guineas in tools, and stayed three days, seeing all that could be seen for nothing, his only paid entertainment being a visit to Bedlam, which cost a penny. Three days more, and he was back at Nottingham, terribly worn-out and footsore, but with fourpence still remaining out of his little travelling fund.

He now took a small shop, fourteen miles from Nottingham, at an annual rent of twenty shillings, and “in one day became the most eminent bookseller in Southwell,” but he still lived at Nottingham. “During the rainy winter months,” he says, “I set out from Nottingham at five every Saturday morning, carried a burthen of from three to thirty pounds’ weight to Southwell, opened shop at ten, starved it all day upon bread, cheese, and half a pint of ale; took from 1_s._ to 6_s._, shut up at four, and by trudging through the solitary night and the deep roads five hours more, I arrived at Nottingham by nine, where I always found a mess of milk-porridge by the fire, prepared by my valuable sister. But nothing short of resolution and rigid economy could have carried me through this scene.”

There was little profit, however, in such a life, laborious as it was, and in 1750 he made an exploring journey to Birmingham, where he found there were only three booksellers--Warren, Aris, and Wollaston, and here he resolved to settle, hoping that he might escape the envy of “the three great men.”

He obtained the use of half a little shop for the moderate premium of one shilling per week, but he had as yet to find wherewith to stock it. On a visit to Nottingham, he met a friendly minister, who asked, for the weather was inclement, why he had ventured so far without a great-coat, and who on receiving no reply, shrewdly guessed Hutton’s impoverished condition, from his draggled, thread-bare garments, and offered him a couple of hundred-weight of books at his own price, and that price to be postponed to the future, and by way of receipt the young bookseller gave him the following: “I promise to pay to Ambrose Rudsall £1 7_s._, when I am able.” The debt was speedily cancelled.

His period of probation was sufficiently severe: “Five shillings a week covered all my expenses, as food, washing, lodging, &c.,” but by degrees the better-informed and wealthier of the young clerks and apprentices began to frequent his shop, and were attracted by his zeal, and his evident love for the books he sold. With his skill in binding, he could furbish up the shabbiest tomes, and greatly increase their marketable value. By the end of his first year he found that he had, by the most rigid economy, saved up twenty pounds. Things were brightening, but the overseers, who at that time possessed a terrible power over the poorest classes, ostensibly dreading lest he should become chargeable to the parish, refused his payment of the rates, and bade him remove elsewhere. In this strait he exhibited much worldly wisdom, and invested half his little hoarding in a fine suit of clothes, purchased from one of the overseers, who happened to be a draper.

In the following year, 1751, he took a better shop, next door to a Mr. Grace, a hosier, and in a quiet, undemonstrative manner, fell in love with his neighbour’s niece. “Time gave us,” he says, “numberless opportunities of observing each other’s actions, and trying the tenour of conduct by the touchstone of prudence. Courtship was often a disguise. We had seen each other when disguise was useless. Besides, nature had given to few women a less portion of deceit.” The uncle at length consented to the match, and, with Sarah, Hutton received a dowry of £100; and, as he had already amassed £200 of his own, from this happy moment his fortunes ran smoothly upwards.

He now increased an otherwise profitable trade by starting a circulating library--perhaps the first that was attempted in the provinces; and about this same time, 1753, he acquired a very useful friend in the person of Robert Bage, the paper-maker, and undertook the retail portion of the paper business. “From this small hint,” he says, “I followed the stroke forty years, and acquired an ample fortune.” And yet, though waxing yearly richer and richer, he adds, “I never could bear the thought of living to the extent of my income. I never omitted to take stock or regulate my annual expenses, so as to meet casualties and misfortunes.” By degrees he became invested with civic dignities, and little by little he acquired the standing of a landed proprietor. Without neglecting his business he now found leisure for literary composition; and in his last work--“A Trip to Coatham”--he tells us, “I took up my pen, and that with fear and trembling, at the advanced age of fifty-six, a period when most would lay it down. I drove the quill thirty years, during which time I wrote and published thirty books.”

His first work, the “History of Birmingham,” appeared, and these thirty tomes of verse and prose followed in quick succession.

In 1802 he published his best-known work, the “History of the Roman Wall.” Antiquarians had, before this, described the famous line of defence, but hitherto no one had attempted a personal inspection. Seventy-five years old, still hale and hearty, with an enthusiasm akin to that of youth, he started on foot for Northumberland, accompanied by his daughter on horse-back. Intent upon reaching the scene of his antiquarian desires, “he turned,” writes his daughter, “neither to the right nor the left, except to gratify me with a sight of Liverpool. Windermere he saw, and Ullswater he saw, because they lay under his feet, but nothing could detain him from his grand object.” On his return journey, after every hollow of the ground, every stone of the Wall, between Carlisle and Newcastle, had been examined, he was bitten in the leg by a dog, but even this did not restrain him. Within four days of home “he made forced journeys, and if we had had a little further to go the foot would have knocked up the horse! The pace he went did not even fatigue his shoes. He walked the whole 600 miles in one pair, and scarcely made a hole in his stockings.”

Almost to the last he preserved his physical powers comparatively intact. When he was eighty-eight, he writes--“At the age of eighty-two I considered myself a young man. I could, without fatigue, walk forty miles a day. But during the last few years I have felt a sensible decay, and, like a stone rolling downhill, its velocity increases with its progress. The strings of the instrument are one after another giving way, never to be brought into tune.” Yet he did not die till 1815, at the ripe old age of ninety-two.

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At the close of the last century Hutton lost a valuable collection of books, and other valuable property, through the lawless riots that took place in his native city; of these disturbances the author of the _Press_ says:--

“When Birmingham, for riots and for crimes,
Shall meet the keen reproach of future times,
Then shall she find, amongst our honoured race,
One name to save her from entire disgrace.”

This “one name” was that of John Baskerville, a printer, a contemporary of Hutton, and one of the most famous English type-founders. Commencing life as a schoolmaster, his inclination for books turned his attention to type-founding, but he spent £600 before he produced one letter that thoroughly satisfied his exquisitely critical taste, and probably some thousands before his business began to prove remunerative; and, after all, his printing speculations yielded more honour than profit. Upon paying a heavy royalty to the University of Cambridge, he was allowed to print a Bible in royal folio, which, for beauty of type, is still unrivalled; but the slender and delicate form of his letters were, as Dr. Dibdin remarks, better suited to smaller books, and show to the greatest advantage in his 12mo. “Virgil” and “Horace.” His strenuous endeavours, and his large outlay, met with but little return; and he writes of the “business of printing” as one “which I am heartily tired of, and repent I ever attempted.” He died in 1775, and appears to have printed nothing during the last ten years of his life. By the direction left in his will, he was buried under a windmill in his own garden, with the following epitaph on his tomb-stone: “Stranger! beneath this cone, in unconsecrated ground, a friend to the liberties of mankind directed his body to be inurned. May the example contribute to emancipate thy mind from the idle fears of superstition, and the wicked arts of priesthood.” His fount of type was unluckily allowed to leave the country, and was purchased by Beaumarchais, of Paris, who produced some exquisite editions, particularly of Voltaire’s works, but who lost upwards of one million livres in his speculations.

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A successful modern bookselling venture in this city resulted from the establishment of the “Educational Trading Company (Limited)”--a novel phase in the trade--of which the chief proprietor and chairman was Mr. Josiah Mason. The business management was placed in the hands of Mr. Kempster, and, by a thorough system of travellers, who personally canvassed the proprietors of schools and colleges, offering them very liberal terms, a large connection was almost immediately established. The company’s operations were, of course, confined to the publication of cheap educational works; and some of these, such as Gill’s and Moffat’s series, attained a wide popularity, and necessitated, in 1870, the opening of a London branch at St. Bride’s Avenue, and another branch house at Bristol.

One of the most famous booksellers and printers of the West of England was Andrew Brice, who was born in Exeter in the year 1690. He was educated in early life with a view to the ministry, but family misfortunes obliged him to become apprentice to Bliss, a printer in that city. Long before the expiry of his apprenticeship the improvident young printer married, and, being unable to support a wife and two children upon the pittance he received, he enlisted as a soldier in order to break his indentures, and, by the interest of his friends, soon procured a discharge. He commenced business on his own account, and started a newspaper, but, possessing only one kind of type, he carved in wood the title and such capitals as he stood in need of. Becoming embarrassed through a law suit, in which heavy damages were cast against him, he was obliged to bar himself in his own house to escape the debtor’s gaol. He spent seven long years in this domestic confinement, but still continued to conduct his business with assiduity, and, as a solace, to compose a poem, “On Liberty,” the profits of which enabled him to compound with the keepers of the city prison. After regaining his freedom his business largely increased, and, in 1740, he set up a printing-press at Truro, the first introduced into Cornwall; the miners were, however, at that time in little need of literature, and he soon removed the types to Exeter. Among his chief publications were the “Agreeable Gallimanfly; or, Matchless Medley,” a collection of verses chiefly the production of his own pen; the “Mob-aid,” so full of newly-coined words that, in Devonshire, “Bricisms” were for long synonymous with quaint novelty of expression; and the folio “Geographical Dictionary,” which occupied ten years in publication and is still far from complete. Brice was at all times a shielder of the oppressed; and when the Exeter play-actors were purchased out of their theatre by the Methodists, who converted it into a chapel, and indicted them as vagrants, he published a poem--“The Playhouse Church; or, new Actors of Devotion,” which so stirred up popular feeling that the Methodists were fain to restore the place to its former possessors, who, under Brice’s patronage, opened their house for some time gratis to all comers. In gratitude the players brought his characteristics of speech and dress into their dramas, and even Garrick eventually introduced him, under, of course, a pseudonyme, in the “Clandestine Marriage.” At the time of his death, in 1773, he was the oldest master-printer in England. His corpse lay for some days in state at the Apollo Inn; every person admitted to view it paid a shilling, and the money so received went towards defraying the expense of his funeral, which was attended by three hundred freemasons, for he had not only been a zealous member of the fraternity, but at the period of his decease he was looked upon as the father of the craft.

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Another West of England worthy, though he was only a bookseller for the short space of seven years, has perhaps higher claim upon our attention than any other provincial bibliopole. Joseph Cottle was born at Bristol in the year 1770, and at the age of twenty-one he became a bookseller in his native city. In 1795 he published a volume of his own “Poems”--and himself an author he was generously able to appreciate the work of better men. Through extraordinary circumstances he became acquainted with Coleridge, Southey, Wordsworth, and Lamb, when they were still unknown to fame, and with a rare perception of genius he was able to assist them materially towards the goal of success. From his interesting “Early Recollections,” we gather that one evening Coleridge told him despondently that he had been the round of London booksellers with a volume of poems, and that all but one had refused to even look over the manuscript, and that this one proffered him six guineas for the copyright, which sum, poor as he was, he felt constrained to decline. Cottle at once offered the young author thirty guineas, and actually paid the money before the completion of the volume, which appeared in 1796.

To Southey he made the same bid for his first volume, and the offer was eagerly accepted. Cottle at once, however, added, “You have read me some books of your ‘Joan of Arc,’ which poem I perceive to have great merit. If it meet with your concurrence I will give you fifty guineas for this work, and publish it in quarto, when I will give you in addition fifty copies to dispose of among your friends.” Southey corroborates this account, and further says, “It can rarely happen that a young author should meet with a bookseller as inexperienced and as ardent as himself; and it would be still more extraordinary if such mutual indiscretion did not bring with it cause for regret to both. But this transaction was the commencement of an intimacy which has continued without the slightest shade of displeasure at any time on either side to the present day.” Cottle ordered a new fount of type “for what was intended to be the handsomest book that Bristol had ever yet sent forth,” and owing, perhaps, more to the party feelings of the periodical press, and the subject of the poem, than to any intrinsic merit, other than as holding out vague hope of future promise, the young author acquired a sudden reputation, which was afterwards fully sustained by his prose if not by his poetry.

Later on Cottle was introduced to Wordsworth, who read him portions of his “Lyrical Ballads.” The venturous bookseller made him the same offer of thirty guineas for the first-fruits of his genius, saying that it would be a gratifying circumstance to issue the first volumes of three such poets, and (a veritable prophecy) “a distinction that might never again occur to a provincial bookseller.” After mature consideration, Wordsworth accepted the offer; but the “Lyrical Ballads,” in which also Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner” first appeared, went off so slowly that he was compelled to part with the greater part of the five hundred copies to Arch, a London bookseller. We have already related how Cottle, and after him, Longman, rendered material assistance to Chatterton’s sister, by an edition of the poems of the Sleepless Boy who perished in his Pride, and how in 1798 Cottle disposed of all his copyrights to Longman, and obtained his consent to return the copyright of the “Lyrical Ballads” to the author.

Though Cottle henceforth gave up bookselling, he did not forego book-making. In 1798 he published his “Malvern Hills,” in 1801 his “Alfred,” and in 1809 the “Fall of Cambria.” These last effusions attracted the venom of Lord Byron’s pen, who writes in bitter prose, “Mr. Cottle, Amos, Joseph, I know not which, but one or both, once sellers of books they did not write, now writers of books that do not sell, have published a pair of epics,” and in bitterer verse:

“Bœotian Cottle, rich Bristowa’s boast,
Imports old stories from the Cambrian coast,
And sends his goods to market, all alive,
Lines forty thousand, cantos twenty-five.

* * * * *

Oh, Amos Cottle!--Phœbus! what a name
To fill the speaking trump of future fame!--
Oh, Amos Cottle! for a moment think
What meagre profits spring from pen and ink!
When thus devoted to poetic dreams
Who will peruse thy prostituted reams?
Oh, pen perverted, paper misapplied!
Had Cottle still adorned the counter’s side,
Bent o’er the desk, or, born to useful toils,
Been taught to make the paper which he soils,
Plough’d, delved, or plied the oar with lusty limb,
He had not sung of Wales, nor I of him.”

Of course, this confusion of the names of the two brothers was intentionally meant to strengthen the gibe. Though Cottle was at best an indifferent poet his name would have survived as a generous friend even if Lord Byron had not honoured him with his satire.

After having personally encouraged the youthful genius of such authors as Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth, and after having enjoyed their friendship and esteem, it was natural that Cottle, when their names had become familiar words in every household in England, should wish to preserve what he could of the history of their early days. In 1837 he published his “Early Recollections,” but as he had felt compelled to decline to contribute them in any mutilated form to the authorised, and insufferably dull, life of Coleridge, the work was greeted by the _Quarterly Review_ with a howl of contemptuous abuse, as consisting of the “refuse of advertisements and handbills, the sweepings of a shop, the shreds of a ledger, and the rank residuum of a life of gossip.” This is certainly “slashing criticism” with a vengeance: Cottle based the value of his book upon the ground of his having been a bookseller, and to taunt him with the fact is as unmanly as the whole description of the work is false. He lays the slightest possible stress upon the assistance he had been able to render the illustrious authors pecuniarily, and only brings it forward at all as furnishing matter for literary history; and to most students the literary history of the early struggles of genius does possess the highest interest. Cottle was certainly unskilled in the art of composition, and was undoubtedly garrulous, but the gossip anent such writers, when prompted, as in this case, by truth and affection, is worth tomes of disquisitions upon their virtues or their faults. Joseph Cottle died as recently as 1854, and his memory is already half-forgotten, and yet had we wished to close our annals of the “trade” by tributes paid by illustrious writers to the worth and integrity of its members, we could find none more fitting than the letters of two famous poets to an obscure provincial bookseller.

“DEAR COTTLE,--On the blank leaf of my poems I can most
appropriately write my acknowledgments to you, for your too
disinterested conduct in the purchase of them.... Had it not
been for you none, perhaps, of them would have been published,
and some not written.

“Your obliged and affectionate friend,
S. T. COLERIDGE.”

Again:--

“Do you suppose, Cottle, that I have forgotten those true and
most essential acts of friendship which you showed me when I
stood most in need of them? Your house was my house when I had
no other.... Sure I am that there never was a more generous or
kinder heart than yours, and you will believe me when I add
that there does not live that man upon earth whom I remember
with more gratitude and affection.... Good-night, my dear old
friend and benefactor.

“ROBERT SOUTHEY.”

BILLING, PRINTER, GUILDFORD, SURREY.

FOOTNOTES

[1] “Essai sur les Livres dans l’Antiquité.”

[2] For a very interesting article on this subject, see _Cornhill Magazine_, vol. ix.

[3] Carnan is said, by Mr. Knight, to have been so frequently prosecuted that he invariably kept a clean shirt in his pocket, that he might lessen the inconvenience of being carried off unexpectedly to Newgate.

[4] D’Urfey was a music-master.

[5] This anecdote is often incorrectly related of Wilkes and the _Essay on Woman_.

[6] The _Daily Post_, Feb. 13, 1728.

[7] A most interesting and voluminous collection of “notes” in reference to Curll was contributed to “Notes and Queries” (2nd series, vols. ii., iii., and x.) by M.N.S. Many of our facts in relation to him have been taken from that source, and for a far fuller account, in the rough material, we refer the reader thither.

[8] West says he sat next Lackington at a sale when he spent upwards of £12,000 in an afternoon.

[9] _Bookseller_, June, 1865.

[10] As we shall have no other opportunity of referring to the third in rank of the leading quarterlies, we must, perforce, compress its history in a foot-note. The _Westminster Review_ was started more than fifty years ago, by Jeremy Bentham, who was succeeded in editorship by Sir John Browning, in conjunction with General Perronet Thompson, whose labours in the cause of radical reform gave him considerable notoriety at the time. They made way for the accomplished statesman Sir William Molesworth, the editor of _Hobbes_. A profounder thinker still, Mr. John Stuart Mill, followed. Most of his philosophical essays appeared in its pages, at a time when Grote and Mr. Carlyle were both contributing. For more than twenty years now the _Review_ has been in the hands of Dr. Chapman, who, beginning life as a bookseller in Newgate Street, was the first English publisher to recognise the value of Emerson’s writings. Under Dr. Chapman, what is now the great feature--the Quarterly Summary of Contemporary Literature--was introduced. The _Review_ has lately attracted much attention by the bold manner in which the “Social Evil” and the “Contagious Diseases Acts” have been discussed in its columns, and these articles are generally attributed to the able pen of the editor himself.

[11]
I. “On Dryden.” (_E. R._, 1828.)
II. “History.” (_E. R._, 1828.)
III. “Mirabeau.” (_E. R._, 1832.)
IV. “Cowley and Milton.”
V. “Mitford’s Greece.”
VI. “Athenian Orator.”
VII. “Barère’s Memoirs.”
VIII. “Mill’s Essay on Government.” (_E. R._, 1829.)
IX. “Bentham’s Defence of Mill.” (_E. R._, 1829.)
X. “Utilitarian Theory of Government.” (_E. R._, 1829.)
XI. “Charles Churchill.”

Many of these may be found in the volume of _Miscellanies_ published by Longmans. It has been denied that No. XI. is by Macaulay at all.

[12] For a further account of these extraordinary sales, see Allibone’s _Dictionary of English Literature_, vol. ii., from which many of the above facts have been drawn.

[13] Among the sufferers by this failure was the family of Robert Watt, M.D., author of “Bibliotheca Britannica,” for which £2000 had been given in bills, all of which were dishonoured. He was a ploughboy until his seventeenth year, wrote many medical treatises, and occupied his concluding years with a work precious and indispensable to every student. The whole plan of the “Bibliotheca” is new, and few compilations of similar magnitude and variety ever presented, in a first edition, a more complete design and execution.

[14] _Quarterly Review_, vol. lxx.

[15] Given to Dallas.

[16] Published by James Power, music seller.

[17] Written at Geneva, and published by John Hunt, London.

[18] This sketch was written before the publication of Mr. W. Chambers’s life of his brother, but has been revised in accordance with that interesting memoir.

[19] Mr. Long has deposited in the Public Library at Brighton his private copy of the “Encyclopædia,” interleaved with the names of the contributors, and other interesting information as to the progress of the work.

[20] Mr. G. W. M. Reynolds, of the “Mysteries of London” notoriety, commenced life also as a temperance lecturer, and was at one time editor of the _Teetotaller_ Newspaper.

[21] Lockhart, in his article in the _Quarterly_, says that Hook’s diary shows a clear profit of £2000 on the _first series_. This must be incorrect.

[22] The term _Conger_ is ingeniously said to be derived from the eel, meaning that the association, collectively, would swallow all smaller fry.

[23] _Aldine Magazine_, p. 50.

[24] It was from the intricacy of thought of some few of the poems of the “Christian Year,” that Sydney Smith christened it by the name of “The Sunday Puzzle.”

[25] For the facts in the earlier portion of this memoir we are indebted to an interesting obituary notice in the _Bookseller_.

[26] For a very interesting bibliographical account of Mr. Tennyson’s works, showing the various changes which the poems have undergone, see “Tennysoniana,” by R. H. Shepherd (1856).

[27] For a full account of this interesting and successful bookseller _see_ “Life of Alderman Kelly,” by the Rev. R. C. Fell (1856).

[28] Tegg left a manuscript autobiography, which was published twenty years after his death, in the _City Press_; to this interesting memorial we are indebted for the facts in our present narrative.

[29] This “Petition” was first printed in the _Examiner_, 7th April, 1839, and afterwards republished.

[30] The _Bookseller_, June, 1864.

[31] The _Bookseller_, 1861.

[32] The above account is abridged from the _Bookseller_ of November, 1869.

[33] To a timely notice in a recent number of the _Bookseller_ we are indebted for the main facts in Duffy’s life.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.

Arithmetic and date-sequence errors have not been corrected.

Page 22: The second illustration (“1547”) may be part of the illustration just above it.

Page 93: “as the rious” was printed that way; may be a typgraphical error for “as the various”.

Page 152: “Dr. Thomas Stewart Trail” may be a misspelling of “Traill”.

Page 221: “looked up his pistols” may be a misprint for “locked”.