Chapter IX: Part 9

Into the next and grandest venture of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge Mr. Knight could not afford to take part--fortunately, indeed, for the scheme, magnificent but futile, proved a deathblow to the Society. The “New Biographical Dictionary” was intended to assume proportions beyond anything of the kind hitherto attempted; but to the astonishment of the committee it was found that when the letter A was completed seven half volumes had been filled, and a loss of £5000 had been incurred. This was bad enough, but when contributors were requested to send in suggestions as to the letter B, one man alone forwarded more than 2000 names. By this time the Society had exhausted its available funds, and, frightened by the prospect, thought itself quite justified in retiring from the public scene. “Its work is done, for its greatest object is achieved--fully, fairly, and permanently. The public is supplied with cheap and good literature to an extent which the most sanguine friends of improvement could not in 1826 have hoped to witness in twenty years.”

In 1843, Mr. Knight had published his “Life of Shakespeare,” a work by which, as a valuable history of Elizabethan times, and a charming, though necessarily an imaginary, sketch of our greatest poet, the author will, we think, though multitudinous in his writings, be most distinctly remembered. His edition of Shakespeare, which for reverent love and editorial labour is almost unrivalled, has appeared in various guises, as the “Popular,” the “Library,” the “National,” the “Cabinet” (three editions), the “Medium” (three editions), and the “Stratford” (three editions).

By far the most remarkable of Mr. Knight’s labours, and perhaps the most useful, was his “Shilling Volumes for all Readers” (1844-1849), 186 volumes, 16mo., in all; for though his editorial labours were terminated when about two-thirds of the work was completed, he still considered himself responsible as regards the general character of the works. “I may confidently state,” he says, “that in this extensive series, no single work, and no portion of a work, can be found that may not safely be put into the hands of the young and uninformed, with the security that it will neither mislead nor corrupt.” In a postscript to the last volume he adds: “I now venture to believe that I have accomplished what I proposed to do. First, I have endeavoured to produce a series of books which comprehends something like the range of literature which all well-educated persons desire to have at their command.” Without attempting any very exact classification of the various subjects of the volumes, they may be thus distributed into large departments of knowledge:--

Analytical Accounts of Great Writers, English and Foreign 13
Biography 33
General History 5
English History 26
Geography, Travel, and Topography 33
Natural History 17
Fine Arts and Antiquities 8
Arts and Sciences, Political Philosophy, &c. 14
Natural Theology and Philosophy 15
General Literature 16
Original Fiction 6
----
186

After this noble endeavour in a good cause, it is literally heartrending to read Mr. Knight’s candid confession that not twenty volumes of the series achieved a circulation of 10,000 copies.

As soon as the Poor Law Board was established, Mr. Knight became officially connected with it as an authorized publisher, and from that time he almost entirely gave up general publishing, and his works were entrusted to the care of other firms.

The copyright of the “Encyclopædia” remained in his possession, and was turned to good account in the “National Encyclopædia,” and later on in the “English Encyclopædia,” in which, however, nothing was reprinted without thorough revision, many of the articles being entirely new.

Several of Mr. Knight’s productions, such as “The Land we Live in,” commenced in 1847, turned out, in the hands of the “copy publisher,” to be perfect mines of wealth.

In 1854 appeared the “Popular History of England;” it was completed in 1862.

In 1851 we find Mr. Knight going about as joint manager with Mr. Payne Collier, of that band of illustrious amateur actors who have become so famous. Among them we find Charles Dickens, Mark Lemon, G. Cruikshank, Wilkie Collins, and R. H. Horne. “A joyous time, this,” writes Mr. Knight, who had played the part of “One Tonson, a bookseller,” “left-legged Jacob” having, he adds, “but a paltry representative.”

Among Mr. Knight’s chief literary labours, we must instance his “Half-Hours with the Best Authors”--a book that has achieved a world-wide popularity; “Once upon a Time;” and “Passages of a Working Life for Half a Century” (in 3 volumes), a charming and interesting autobiography, to which we are indebted for most of the facts in this short notice of his life.

Full of years and of honours, Mr. Knight died at Addlestone, in Surrey, on the 9th of March, 1873, aged eighty-one; and five days afterwards was buried in the family vault at Windsor. The funeral was very large, from the number of literary men attending, who wished to show their feeling of affection and respect for the deceased. In the newspaper notices, too, the tribute of praise was unanimous and hearty; and it was resolved that the gratitude of writers and readers should not stop here. A committee has been formed to erect some kind of memorial, and many of the leading men of letters, as well as some of the leading publishers, are taking part in it. It has been hoped that this memorial may assume the shape of a free public library for London, and thus initiate a movement that, to our shame, has made such successful way in our great provincial towns. Nothing else could so appropriately perpetuate the memory of a life so earnest in its purpose of spreading cheap literature far and wide, so brave in difficulty, so utterly unmindful of self-gain in the work planned out and done; that none who know its story can gainsay Douglas Jerrold’s most happy epitaph, “Good Knight.”

* * * * *

JOHN CASSELL, though of a family originally Kentish, was born at Manchester on 23rd January, 1817. The child of poor parents, his school education was very simple and elementary, and at an early age he adopted the trade of carpentry. In most lads of that class, education, such as it is, is totally ended when once they leave the school-house to follow some manual calling; but from the day that Cassell took his first serious step in life he determined to educate himself, to break down the trammels of class ignorance, first of all in his own case, and, that once accomplished, to assist with all the energy he possessed, his brother workmen to do the same. At first he found his evening studies, after a hard day’s work at the bench, somewhat irksome and painful; but by degrees his reading became less and less elementary, and eventually he acquired, not only a considerable knowledge of English literature, but a fund of general information which, on the platform, as well as in private life, stood him in good stead; and he also attained sufficient proficiency in French to be afterwards essentially serviceable in his repeated visits to the Continent.

But, after all, his most valuable knowledge was acquired in the carpenter’s shop, and among his fellow-workmen; for here he gained an insight into the inner life--the struggles, privations, and miseries, as well as the hopes and ambitions--of the working classes; and this knowledge was carefully stored up until he should, at a future time, see some way of firing their minds and ameliorating their condition.

In 1833 the total abstinence movement was commenced in Lancashire, under the active leadership of Mr. Joseph Livesey, of Preston, and known as “The Temperance Movement,” went through the length and breadth of the land. About two years later, Livesey first met young Cassell in a lecture-room or chapel in Manchester. “I remember quite well,” he writes, “his standing on the right, just below or on the steps of the platform, in his working attire, with a fustian jacket and a white apron on”--a young man of eighteen, in the honestest and best of uniforms--his industrial regimentals.

Into the temperance movement John Cassell threw himself heart and soul; and thinking that London would afford a wider field for temperance missionary labours, and that his daily bread, as an artizan, might there be more easily earned, he left Manchester and arrived in the Metropolis in October, 1836, and in a few days he found his way to the New Jerusalem school-rooms in the Westminster Bridge Road, and made his first public speech. He is described by one who was present, as “a gaunt stripling, poorly clad, and travel-stained; plain, straightforward in speech, but broad in provincialism.” Shortly afterwards, he is again to be traced to Milton Street, Barbican. But his appearance here marked an episode in his life; for his energy, his evident thoroughness, and his frank confession that he carried all his worldly goods in his little wallet, and that the few pence in his pocket were his only fortune, at once gained him friends. A gentleman present took him to his own home, and shortly afterwards presented him to Mr. Meredith, who enrolled the young enthusiast forthwith among the paid band of temperance agents he was generously supporting at his own cost. With characteristic energy Cassell started on a temperance tour--a journey fraught with difficulty and hardship; and a few months after we find a notice of him in the _Preston Temperance Advocate_: “John Cassell, the Manchester carpenter, has been labouring with great success in the county of Norfolk. He is passing through Essex on his way to London. He carries his watchman’s rattle--an excellent accompaniment of temperance labours.” A strange life that gaunt young prophet must have led; trudging about from town to village, sounding an alarum ever as he went with his rattle, seeking by all means in his power to rivet a momentary attention, and then from barrel-head or tree-stump preaching in his broad Lancashire idiom a “New Crusade”--not against such puny foes and nations as Turk or Saracen--not of mere battles to be fought out by the exertion of so much or so little physical strength--but of hideous vices to be conquered--vices that sat like skeletons beside half the hearths in England then--and of noble mental victories to be achieved. The women heard his rude eloquence, and tears rushed to their eyes, as they prayed that their brothers and sons might hearken and be convinced. The men paused on their way to the pot-house, and heard how homes now desolate might be made happy, how the weeping wife and the starving children might be rendered contented and cheerful, how their own sodden lives might be again cleansed and brightened;--then independence rose again from the hideous thrall that bound them, and many paused for ever. Even those who knew the proper use of alcohol listened with respectful attention to one who sought so earnestly to provide a safeguard for other men weaker than themselves. And thus Cassell trudged on, meeting often with scoffs and sneers, suffering much weariness and many privations, but still hopeful, eager, and earnest. In Lincolnshire his eloquent zeal won him not only a convert but a wife, and from this time he found that temperance lecturing was but a sorry provision for a family.[20]

Supported by his friends he now determined to aid the movement in another manner--and he started a temperance publishing office and bookshop at the very house in the Strand now occupied by Mr. Tweedie, the present temperance publisher. For some time his trade went on successfully, but he endeavoured to add to his resources by the congenial management of a large tea and coffee business in Fenchurch Street, and the liabilities he thus incurred overreached his capital.

Now, however, Cassell had many influential friends, and one of these had sufficient faith in his capacity to start him afresh in life--this time on a much larger scale. In his new business in La Belle Sauvage Yard, he was associated with Messrs. Petter and Galpin, who before then were not very considerable printers in the neighbourhood--and they determined to devote themselves to the broader work of producing cheap and popular books, then commencing to be in great demand--not from policy only, though as the life of Robert Chambers shows it was a moment when the tide of fortune might be advantageously made use of by those brave enough and wise enough to see it--but also because it had by this time been discovered that before the masses could be in any signal way really raised in social condition they must be educated.

Being widely known as a man sprung from the people--as still one of themselves--the working classes had faith in Cassell, and readily purchased his books when they were not so readily tempted to try the publications of the various societies. His knowledge of their real conditions and their wants was very useful, and while his opinion in every matter was most carefully adopted, the business department remained rather in the hands of his junior partners, especially in later years.

In 1850 the _Working Man’s Friend_ appeared, the precursor of many similar works, and was followed, immediately after the Great Exhibition, by the _Illustrated Exhibitor_--a comprehensive and well-executed scheme intended to preserve a permanent reflection of the World’s Great Fair. This same idea was successfully repeated in 1862.

Among all the works published by the firm perhaps the most useful was, and indeed is, the _Popular Educator_; in this, for the weekly sum of one penny, the vast store-house of human knowledge was thrown open; the matter, carefully systematised and arranged so as to encourage self-tuition, aided many a struggler in the path of progress. This was ably followed by the _Technical Educator_. In the former of these works Lord Brougham took an immense interest, and his opinion of John Cassell was as pleasing as it was often repeated.

Of the illustrated works issued in the same cheap method many were English, or rather European, classics, such as the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” “Don Quixote,” “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs,” “Shakespeare,” “Robinson Crusoe,” “Gulliver’s Travels,” &c. Like Tegg or Lackington, Cassell must be looked upon rather as an encourager of the reading than of the writing world; but among the works claiming originality as well as cheapness, the _History of England_ is perhaps the best; the _Natural History_ is well printed, well illustrated, and, as far as regards the more legitimate department of the publisher’s trade, worthy of praise; the “letter-press,” or literary portion, has, however, been much criticised. The _Family Paper_ and the _Quiver_ attained a very wide circulation, and while the latter is still one of the most favourite distinctly religious serials of the day, the former, until it was changed into the _Magazine_, held faithfully to its promise of pure and wholesome literature.

In furtherance of his various schemes, Cassell often travelled, particularly to France, where he was well known, and where he was thus enabled to effect a very considerable business in the exchange and purchase of illustrations for his various works. In 1859 he visited America, and, with the reputation that preceded him, met with a very flattering reception. On his return, with the energy that distinguished his character he started a company for the manufacture of petroleum, which was the first in England to recognise the value of the new discovery. He also published a series of articles entitled “America as it is,” in which the contest between North and South was discussed with a keenness of vision that results proved to be correct and almost prophetic.

Among the important items of his business, and according to popular repute one of the most profitable, was the issue of weekly papers, which, the outer pages being left blank for local news, were circulated under various titles throughout the United Kingdom. But the greatest venture of the firm was undoubtedly the _Family Bible_, which was commenced in 1859. The cost of production is said to have amounted to £100,000; in six years upwards of 350,000 copies were sold, and it is at present calculated that half a million have been disposed of. Of the influence of this and other kindred works in displacing the infamous prints and penny serial horrors, the _Bookseller_ says--“We recently took a survey of the shop-windows in the notorious locality known as the Seven Dials. Here in one street, were three shops, the windows of which were filled with really respectable publications. In one shop scarcely anything was displayed but _Cassell’s Family Bible_. In every one, of at least twenty-four, figured some event of sacred history. On making inquiries we found that a very large number in the very poorest neighbourhood was taking in the work every week, and expressed their delight to possess a long coveted article of furniture in the shape of a _family Bible_.”

Up to his death Cassell was true to his early resolutions of fostering the progress of temperance and education, and on these subjects he was a frequent and popular lecturer. He took also a lively interest in the business of the firm, but latterly the management was virtually in the hands of his partners. The “History of Julius Cæsar,” by the ex-emperor, was, however, entrusted to his care, and was the last publication in which he took an active interest. On the 1st of April, 1865, he died at his residence in Regent’s Park. He is described as having “a fine, massive, muscular frame, active and temperate habits of life, a cheerful disposition, a well-regulated mind, and troops of friends.” Rising from the ranks, he was by his industry able to leave his wife a shareholder in one of our largest book-manufacturing firms to the extent of, it is said, forty-two thousand pounds. The main interest of his life must, however, be considered to lie in the earnestness with which he laboured in causes he felt worthy of all labour, rather than in his career as a publisher, for the books he issued were little other than reprints of books whose popularity had been previously tested.

At the time of Cassell’s death it is said that upwards of 500 men were employed at the works; that 855,000 sheets were printed off weekly, requiring a consumption of 1310 reams of paper. Latterly Messrs. Petter and Galpin have launched out into a vastly superior style of book-publishing, and in placing the works of Gustave Doré before the English public have taken very high rank as Fine Art publishers. In other ways, too, they have shown a disposition to combine the production of valuable original works with the cheaper serials with which the name of their firm has been so long and successfully associated.

* * * * *

It is impossible to close this chapter without referring to the productions of Mr. Bohn. Our limited space and the value of his publications--all the more valuable, doubtless, from being mainly reproductions of standard works--alone prevent us from according him a separate chapter.

Mr. Henry George Bohn, born in the year 1796, was the son of a London bookseller, who came, however, of a German family. At an early age he entered into his father’s business, but throughout life, engrossed as deeply as any of his compeers in bookselling and publishing transactions, he ever found time and opportunity for literary labour, and, in all, twelve important works are due to his pen, either as author, translator, or editor. The first of his labours, the “Bibliotheca Parriana,” was published in 1827. Very soon after, starting on his own account, he acquired a high reputation as a dealer in rare and curious books, and for the spirit with which he entered into the “remainder trade;” in this latter branch even Tegg was compelled to confess that Mr. Bohn eventually surpassed him. The merest reference to his monster “Guinea Catalogue” will give an idea of the magnitude of his transactions at this period. Far, however, from being a mere trade guide, this catalogue is an invaluable literary work--the most useful, as it certainly is the largest, that has come from Mr. Bohn’s pen. It is quaintly described by Allibone as “an enormously thick _nondescripto_; Teutonic shape, best model; ... an invaluable lexicon to any literary man, and ten guineas would be a cheap price for a work calculated to save time by its convenience for reference, and money by its stores of information as to the literary and pecuniary value of countless tomes.” The _Literary Gazette_, in an appreciative and well-earned compliment, says: “Mr. Bohn has outdone all former doings in the same line, and given us a literary curiosity of remarkable character. The volume is the squattest and the fattest we ever saw. It is an alderman among books, not a very tall one; and then, alderman-like, its inside is richly stuffed with a multitude of good things. Why, there is a list of more than 23,000 articles, and the pages reach to 1948!... This catalogue has cost him an outlay of more than £2000, and it describes 300,000 volumes, a stock which could hardly be realized at much less a ‘plum.’”

In 1846, Mr. Registrar Hazlitt suggested the idea of a cheap uniform library of world-known books to David Bogue, the bookseller, who consequently commenced his European Library. In 1846-7, fifteen works were published, edited for the most part by Mr. W. Hazlitt. Mr. Bohn, however, discovered that in many of these works copyrights, of which he was the owner, were infringed, notably in Roscoe’s “Lorenzo de’ Medici” and “Leo X.” An injunction was obtained against the further issue of one of Bogue’s volumes, and in defence, if not retaliation, Mr. Bohn determined to enter the field as a publisher of a similar series. In 1846 he produced the first volume of his Standard Library, which, running on for 150 volumes, was sold at the then astoundingly small price--considering their size, their quality, and the care with which they were edited and printed--of 3_s_. 6_d_. each. In 1847, the Scientific Library was commenced, and was rapidly followed by the Antiquarian Library, the Classical, Illustrated, and Historical Libraries, the British Classics, &c. Bogue’s small venture stood a poor chance against enterprise of this gargantuan scale, and in a short time his fifteen volumes came into Mr. Bohn’s possession. Without counting the Shilling Library, or the more expensive works which were from time to time issued, Mr. Bohn continued the various libraries which are so immediately associated with his name, until the total number of 602 volumes afforded the student a collection of such books as he might otherwise have spent a lifetime and a fortune in acquiring. To few publishers, if to any, is the cheapening of the highest and rarest classes of English and foreign literature more deeply indebted than to Mr. Bohn. Strangely enough, however, Mr. Bohn was the only member of the trade who endeavoured in 1860 to exert his influence against the abolition of the paper duty.

Among the best known of Mr. Bohn’s own productions are his editions of Lowndes’ “Manual,” Addison’s works, his “Polyglot of French Proverbs,” his translation of Schiller’s “Robbers,” and his “Guide to the Knowledge of Pottery and Porcelain,” which, though published in 1849, is still the standard work on the subject. His position as an antiquarian is widely acknowledged, and he is a Vice-President of the Society of Arts.

At an early period of his life Mr. Bohn married a daughter of the senior partner in the firm of Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., an alliance that doubtless strengthened his business connections. His trade sales were for many years among the most important in London, lasting for three or four days, and were conducted after the manner of the good old school of booksellers--now, alas! almost extinct--with the pleasing accompaniments of singing and supper. Though Mr. Bohn, a few years since, transferred his “Libraries” and his premises in York Street to Messrs. Bell and Daldy, he has not yet entirely severed his connection with the bookselling world, though as the “father of the trade” he has long since earned the right to leisure and retirement--a right acknowledged not alone in England, for in June, 1869, the _New York Round Table_ devoted an interesting article to Mr. Bohn’s retirement from the publishing world, and observed that many of his articles in “Lowndes” were unsurpassed in bibliography, especially those on Shakespeare and Junius. “Indeed,” adds the writer, “if we may believe report, such has been the unceasing devotion of Mr. Bohn to work that for years he has subjected himself to a weekly examination by his surgeon to warn him of the first symptoms of the collapse that such an unintermitted strain upon his mind might be supposed to produce.”

_HENRY COLBURN_:

THREE VOLUME NOVELS AND LIGHT LITERATURE.

Round Henry Colburn clusters a body of writers, lighter and gayer, and consequently more ephemeral than any we have yet noticed--men and women, too, for the matter of that, who purchased immediate success too often with a disregard of future reputation.

As a lad, Henry Colburn was placed in the establishment of William Earle, bookseller, of Albemarle Street, and after this preliminary training obtained the situation of assistant to a Mr. Morgan, the principal of a large circulating library in Conduit Street. Here he had, of course, ample opportunity of gauging the reading taste of the general public, and it is probably from this early connection with the library-subscribing world that he determined henceforth to devote himself almost exclusively to the production of the light novelties which he saw were so eagerly and so incessantly demanded. In 1816 he succeeded to the proprietorship of the library, and conducted the business with great spirit and success until, removing to New Burlington Street, he resigned the Conduit Street Library to the hands of Messrs. Saunders and Ottley, who, until their recent dissolution, were famous, not only for their circulating library, but for the tender care they bestowed upon the works of suckling poets and poetasters.

Before this change of residence, however, Colburn had already made several serious ventures on his own account. All through his long career we shall find that he speculated in journalistic venture with as much spirit as he showed in any of his daring schemes to win popular credit and applause. In 1814, with the assistance of Mr. Frederick Shoberl, he originated the _New Monthly Magazine and Universal Register_, on “the principles of general patriotism and loyalty,” founded, as its name implied, in direct opposition to Sir Richard Philips’ _Old Monthly_. Among the early editors were Dr. Watkins and Alaric Watts, but in 1820 a new series was commenced under the title of the _New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal_, and Thomas Campbell, the poet, was appointed editor. The agreement still exists in Beattie’s “Life of Campbell,” and was unusually liberal. He agreed to edit the periodical for three years, to supply in all twelve articles, six in verse, six in prose; and for these and his editorial services he received five hundred pounds per annum, to be increased if the circulation of the magazine materially improved. He was, of course, assisted by a sub-editor, and allowed a liberal sum for the payment of contributors. The magazine prospered, and passed successively through the editorial hands of Bulwer Lytton (1832) and Theodore Hook. In 1836 a third series appeared under Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and though Colburn parted with the proprietorship to Messrs. Chapman and Hall, and they in their turn to Messrs. Adams and Francis, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth was till yesterday at his editorial post, delighting our children with precisely the same kind of enthralling romances with which he beguiled our fathers.

In 1817 Colburn determined to introduce a paper upon the plan of a popular German prototype, and on the 26th January the first number of the _Literary Gazette_ appeared, price one shilling. H. E. Lloyd, a clerk in the Foreign Department of the Post-Office, a good linguist, and a well-known translator from the German, was the chief contributor, and appears to have shared the editorial duties with Miss Ross, a lady afterwards pensioned by the Government. The reputation achieved was great, especially in reference to the Fine Arts, which were skilfully handled by William Carey, and at the twenty-sixth number Mr. Jerdan, formerly editor of the _Sun_, purchased a third of the property, and became the regular editor. Messrs. Longman eagerly embraced the offer of a third share, and with a staff of contributors, who varied from Canning to Maginn, the _Literary Gazette_ obtained a wide popularity, and was recognized as an authority upon other matters than literature. At present, however, the _Gazette_ is most gratefully remembered as having encouraged in its poetical columns (fairly and impartially opened to merit, however obscure), the earliest writings of Mrs. Hemans, Bowles, Hood, Swain, James Smith, Howitt, and even Tupper. In 1842 Jerdan bought out Colburn and the Messrs. Longman, and from his hands the editorship passed to L. Phillips, L. Beeve, and J. L. Jephson. In 1858 a new series was commenced, under, successively, S. Brooks, H. Christmas, W. R. Workman, F. Arnold, John Morley, and C. W. Goodwin. In 1862 it was finally incorporated with the _Parthenon_.

In 1816, the year before the foundation of the _Literary Gazette_, Colburn had, as we have seen, migrated to New Burlington Street, and soon rendered his shop famous as the chief emporium for the purchase and sale of novels and other light literature. The first book issued from the new establishment was Lady Morgan’s “Zana”--a work certainly not worth much, but scarcely meriting an attack in the _Quarterly_, which Talfourd stigmatises as “one of the coarsest insults ever offered in print by man to woman;” however, through the power of her ladyship’s name, and with the aid of skilful advertising--in which Colburn was perhaps the greatest expert in a time when the art had not reached its present high state of development--“Zana” proved eminently successful. Talented in a manner Lady Morgan certainly was, and, as a proof, is said to have made more than twenty-five thousand pounds by her pen. She had published a volume of verses at the unfortunately early age of fourteen, and this idea of precocity seems to us to accompany all her works.

At the suggestion of his friend Mr. Upcott, Colburn undertook, in 1818, the publication of “Evelyn’s Diary,” and its success would have been almost unparalleled had it not been followed in 1825 by the “Diary of Pepys.” For more than 150 years this work reposed unread and unknown, until Mr. John Smith succeeded in deciphering the stenographic characters which had concealed so much amusement from the world. The work, edited by Lord Braybrooke, was published in two volumes at six guineas, and though this and the two succeeding editions, at five guineas, were almost worthless from the editorial excisions they had undergone from the too-modest fingers of the noble editor, the issues went off very rapidly, and Colburn obtained a very handsome profit on the £2200 he had paid for the copyright. In the fourth edition of 1848 Lord Braybrooke was urged to restore those characteristic passages which he had before condemned, and the full value of the work, as a photographic picture of an amusing, though dissolute, time was firmly established. Evelyn had before given us the history of Charles the Second’s Court, with a gravity and openly-expressed reprobation which finely suited his character of a worthy and dignified old English country gentleman; but still it is now to the pages of Pepys that all the world turns for an account of the royal domestic life of certainly the most infamous period of our annals. He is so charmingly garrulous, jotting down each night such quaint thoughts on what he had seen during the day, writing them by his fireside, with the same nonchalance with which he put on his night-cap, and with as little suspicion of ever being surprised in the one act as the other, that his truthfulness, his openness, and his scarcely-concealed partiality for as much vagabonding and frolicsome society as Mrs. Pepys would permit, carry the reader irresistibly along with him.

It is, however, when we come to the novels that Colburn ushered into the world, that we strike upon the one vein of profitable ore that he made so peculiarly his own; and _facile princeps_ of all his novelistic clients, stands Theodore Hook. To understand the genius of all Hook’s works, it is essential to take a short retrospective view of his life and character. Two things, above all else, strike us in regarding him--that he possessed the greatest love of joke and frolic, and the most marvellous memory with which ever man was gifted. As a boy of seventeen, he dashed off an amusing comedy; this, he tells us in the really autobiographical sketch of “Gilbert Gurney,” was the process. “To work I went, bought three or four French vaudevilles, and filching an incident from each, made up my very effective drama, the ‘Soldier’s Return.’” And for this bantling he received the handsome first-earnings of fifty pounds. Living, at a time when other boys were at school, in the gayest of all society in London, a welcome guest behind the curtain at every theatre, and hailed as a good fellow in every literary coterie, young Hook led a rollicking, devil-may-care life, giving the world back with interest the rich amusement he gathered from it. Now, making a random bet that a corner house in Berners Street should, within a week, be the most famous house in London; and within the time taking his opponent to a commanding window, that he might acknowledge that the wager had been fairly won; and the strange scene in the thoroughfare must have soon convinced him. The Duke of York, drawn by six grey horses, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor in formal state, every woman of notorious virtue, every man of any fame or notoriety, porters bustling up with wine-casks and beer-barrels, milliners with bonnet-boxes crushed and battered, pastry-cooks with dainty dishes that the street gamins soon picked out of the gutters, undertakers with rival coffins, variously made to exact measurement, hackney-coaches, and vans, and waggons by the hundred--in fact, half the world of London was there by invitations especially adapted to move each individual case, and the other half soon came as spectators. The impotent “Charleys” of the day found their efforts useless to dispel the block and crush, and long before the crowd was cleared away, the next day’s papers were ringing with the “Berners Street Hoax.” Again, we find him donning a scarlet coat, and, as the Prince Regent’s messenger, delivering a letter to an obnoxious actor, eagerly inviting him to dine with that august personage; and then joining in the crush outside Holland House, to see his enemy come away discomfited as an impostor. No occasion was sacred from his jests, and his exuberant spirits were scarcely in accordance with the tranquillity of academic life. At his very matriculation the Vice-chancellor, struck by his youthful appearance, asked him if he was fully prepared to sign the thirty-nine articles. “Oh, certainly, sir,” replied Hook with cool assiduity, “forty, if you please.” Indignantly he was told to withdraw, and it took weeks of friendly interposition to appease the outraged dignitary. At the age of twenty he wrote his first novel, but it was a failure, and he shortly afterwards received the appointment of accountant-general and treasurer at the Mauritius. Here he stayed for some years, leading a life of pleasure, and going to the office only five times in the whole period, when suddenly a commission was appointed to inquire into the accounts, and he was dragged off from a supper, given in his honour, to prison, charged with a theft of £20,000, and sent under arrest to England. This “complaint of the chest,” as he observed to a friend who was astonished to see him back so soon, was afterwards reduced to £12,000, and for this he was judged to be accountable, and put into the debtors’ prison. Here, from his diary, he seems to have enjoyed himself as much as ever, drinking as a loyal subject should, to the “health of my august detainer, the king.” However, political influence was brought to bear upon the Government, and he was set at liberty with the burden of the debt hanging very lightly round his neck.

In 1820 he founded the _John Bull_ newspaper, strongly in favour of the king’s interests, scurrilous as it was witty; everybody read it, and for some years it yielded him £2000 per annum. His life we see had been sufficiently various, and not an incident of it was ever forgotten, for his memory was probably unrivalled. He made a bet that he would repeat in order the names of all the shops on one side of Oxford Street, and he only misplaced one; and he gained another wager by saying from memory a whole column of _Times_ advertisement, which he had only once conned over; and on another occasion he utterly discomfited a universal critic, by engaging him in a conversation anent lunar eclipses, and then discharging three columns of the “Encyclopædia Britannica” at him, without pause or hesitation. He had, too, the gift of improvising verse in our stubborn English tongue, and was known on one occasion to introduce the names of fifty guests at a supper-table, in a song of fifty verses--each verse a rhymed epigram.

With attainments and experiences like these, Colburn may be considered as a wise rather than a venturous man when he offered Hook £600 to write a novel. The idea of the “Sayings and Doings” was struck out at a _John Bull_ gathering, and the book when published in 1824, was so successful that 6000 copies of the three volumes were soon disposed of,[21] and the generous publisher made the author a present of £350. For the _second series_ (published in 1825), and the _third series_ (published in 1828), he received a thousand guineas each. In 1830 appeared “Maxwell,” perhaps the best of his novels, and this was followed by the “Parson’s Daughter” (1833), “Jack Brag” (1837), and numerous others, for all of which he was very handsomely paid. But though he was earning at this period, upwards of £3000 a year by his pen, he was spending more than £6000, and was obliged, not only to make fresh engagements with his publishers, but to fore-draw to a very large extent, and to change his plans considerably with each instalment of indebtedness. Colburn and Bentley seem to have treated him with marked esteem and consideration, and his letters perpetually show this: “I have been so liberally treated by your house, that it seems almost presuming upon kindnesses” (1831). Again, in 1837: “I assure you I would not press the matter in a quarter where I am proud and happy to say--as I do to everybody--I have met with the greatest liberality.”

In 1834 he took the management of the _New Monthly_, and to its pages he contributed what may be considered an autobiographical sketch. “Gilbert Gurney” and the sequel “Gilbert Married,” the second of which unfortunately was not autobiographical; for he had formed ties with a woman who had not only sacrificed everything to him, but during the period of his imprisonment and his many troubles had behaved with exemplary faithfulness and unremitting attention; and these ties he had not the courage to legally strengthen. At his death the crown seized what little property he possessed, in the shape of household chattels and newspaper shares, to liquidate his unfortunate debt, and his children were left penniless. A subscription was raised--if literary men are improvident (though many have more excuses for improvidence than Theodore Hook), they are at least kindly-hearted--and a sum of £3000 was collected, to which the King of Hanover contributed £500. As a strange test of Hook’s joviality it is stated that the receipts of the dining-room of the Athenæum Club fell off by £300 when his well-known seat in “Temperance Corner” became vacant.

Another of the novelists with whom Colburn had long and intimate dealings was G. P. R. James, one of the most indefatigable writers that ever drove pen over paper. We give for the sake of clearness, a tabular statement of his extraordinary labours:--

51 Novels in 3 Volumes 153 Volumes.
2 ” 4 ” 8 ”
6 ” 2 ” 12 ”
16 ” 1 ” 16 ”
Edited Works 14 ”
Miscellaneous Contributions would fill say 10 ”
---
223 Volumes.

Truly a gargantuan labour! Some of James’s early writings had attracted the attention of Washington Irving, who strongly advised the undertaking of some more important work, and as a consequence “Richelieu” was commenced. After it had received Scott’s approval it was submitted to Colburn, and published in 1828 with a success that determined the young author’s future career. We cannot, of course, follow the progress of the 223 volumes as they issued from the press. It would be absurd to look for originality in a book-manufacturer of this calibre, and, as Whipple says, James “was a maker of books without being a maker of thought.” Still they served their purpose of enriching the author and publishers, and at a time when the public appetite was less jaded than at present, his works were eagerly looked for, and even now many readers agree with Leigh Hunt:--“I hail every fresh publication of James, though I hardly know what he is going to do with his lady, and his gentleman, and his landscape, and his scenery, and his mystery, and his orthodoxy, and his criminal trial.”

In 1826 Colburn published Banim’s “Tales of the O’Hara Family,” a book that excited a very strong interest in the public mind, and in the same year he issued “Vivian Grey,” by a young author whose life was to be as romantic as his story. Mr. Disraeli’s first book contains a curious confession of his youthful aspirations, and even a curiously exact prototype of his future life. This was followed in 1831 by the “Young Duke.” “Bless me!” the elder Disraeli exclaimed when he read this eloquent account of aristocratic circles, “why the boy has never sat in the same room as a duke in his life.” Mr. Disraeli’s novels soon became famous for the portraits or caricatures of distinguished living people, scarcely disguised under the slightest of all possible pseudonyms; to those living in the metropolis the likenesses were evident enough, and a regular key was published to each for the benefit of our country cousins.

In 1829 Colburn published “Frank Mildmay,” a novel full of false morality and falser style, but delineating sea life with such a flavour of fun and frolic, adventures and brine, that Marryat was at once hailed as a true successor to Smollett. This was followed by a rapid succession of sea stories, among the best of which undoubtedly are “Peter Simple” and “Midshipman Easy.” The perusal of these works has probably done more to turn youthful aspiration and energies to the choice of a profession than any series of formal injunctions ever penned. Old King William, the Sailor-King, was so entranced with “Peter Simple” that he begged to be introduced to the author, and promised to bestow some honourable distinction upon him for his services; but afterwards recollecting suddenly that he “had written a book against the impressment of seamen,” he refused to fulfil his pledge. When, later on, Colburn published Marryat’s “Diary in America,” the Yankees felt terribly outraged, and the severe criticism that followed speedily emptied his shelves of a large edition.

This was emphatically the period of fashionable novels, and the great outside world was perpetually calling out for more and more romantic accounts of that attractive region to which middle-class thought could only aspire in reverent fancy. And though these novels seemed written primarily to illustrate the moral lesson of Touchstone to the Shepherd--“Shepherd, wert thou ever at court?” “No.” “Then thou art damned”--the public received the oracle, not only with humility, but thankfulness. For a time Mr. Bulwer Lytton was a disciple of this fashionable school, but even “Pelham” has an interest greater than any other specimen of its class, for though, in some degree, an illustration of the maxim that “manners make the man,” the threads of a darker and more tragic interest are interwoven with the tale. As an artistic worker, as a true delineator of our subtler and deeper passions, Lord Lytton was far above any other of Colburn’s writers--above, indeed, any other writer of the day; while his sophistry, immense as it undoubtedly is, only lends a more forcible and enthralling interest to his plots. None of Colburn’s novelists--and their name was legion--brought in more grist to the publishing mill than Lord Lytton; and, when the meal had been baked several times, Messrs. Routledge paid the author £20,000 for all future use of these works--as popular now perhaps in their cheap editions as they have ever been before.

To return for a moment more immediately to Colburn’s life, we find him still speculating in periodical literature, and with the same success as ever. In 1828 he commenced the _Court Journal_, and in the following year started the _United Service Magazine_, while for many years he possessed a considerable interest in the _Sunday Times_ newspaper; and all these periodicals are still held in popular esteem.

The printing expenses of his enormous business had been very considerable, and in 1830 he resolved to take his principal printer, Mr. Richard Bentley, into partnership; but the alliance did not last long, and in August, 1832, the connection was dissolved, and Colburn relinquished the business in New Burlington Street to Mr. Bentley, giving him a guarantee in bond that he would not recommence publishing again within twenty miles of London.

However, his heart was so intuitively set upon the profitable risks of a publisher’s career, that he could not quietly retire in the prime of life, and, accordingly, he started a house at Windsor, so as to be within the letter of the law, but the garrison town was sadly quiet after the literary circles of London, and to London he again returned, paying the forfeiture in full. This time he opened a house in Great Marlborough Street, as his old establishment in New Burlington Street was, of course, in possession of Mr. Bentley, whose business had already assumed formidable proportions. At Great Marlborough Street, Colburn succeeded in rallying round him all his old authors, and, perhaps, the greatest triumphs that date from thence, are Miss Strickland’s “Lives of the Kings and Queens of England and Scotland,” for the copyright of the first of which he paid £2000. Burke’s “Peerage,” “Baronetage,” and “Landed Gentry” were also among his most profitable possessions.

Throughout the whole of his business life, Colburn had a very keen perception as to what the public required, and of the market value of the productions offered him; and yet he was almost uniformly liberal in his dealings. His judgment of copyrights was occasionally assisted by Mr. Forbes and Mr. Charles Ollier.

Of course, among the multitude of books he produced, many were utterly worthless, beyond affording a passing recreation to the library subscribers, and many even were pecuniary failures. The most ludicrous of these failures was a scheme originated by John Galt, a constant contributor to the _New Monthly_. This was a periodical, which, under the title of the _New British Theatre_, published the best of those dramatic productions, which the managers of the great playhouses had previously rejected. The audacity of the scheme carried it through for a short time, but soon the unfortunate editor was smothered amid such a heap of dramatic rubbish, coming at every fresh post, to the table of the benevolent encourager of youthful aspirations, that he was fain to acknowledge the justice of the managers’ previous decisions.

Although Colburn was throughout his career chiefly successful as a caterer for the libraries, supplying them with novels, which, by some mysterious law, were required to consist of three volumes of about three hundred pages each, the cost of the whole fixed immutably at one guinea and a half, his “Modern Novelists,” containing his best copyright works, in a cheap octavo form, attained the number of nineteen, being published at intervals between 1835 and 1841, and formed a valuable addition to the popular literature of the time.

Finally, Colburn, having acquired an ample competence, retired from business, in favour of Messrs. Hurst and Blackett, still, however, retaining his name to some favourite copyrights. He had been twice married, the second time, in 1841, to the daughter of Captain Crosbie, R.N.

After a period of well-earned leisure, rendered pleasingly genial by the constant society of his literary friends, Henry Colburn died, on the 16th of August, 1855, at his house in Bryanston Square.

The whole of his property was sworn to be under £35,000, and went to his wife and her family. Two years later, the seven copyrights he had reserved were sold by auction, and realised the large sum of £14,000, to which Miss Strickland’s “Lives of the Queens of England” alone contributed £6900.

As publisher of three volume novels, Colburn was succeeded by two principal rival houses, with the foundation of each of which he was in some way concerned. As Mr. Bentley’s establishment in New Burlington Street was only a further development of Colburn’s old house, a few words may not be out of place concerning it. In 1837, Mr. Bentley proposed to start a periodical to rival the _New Monthly_, and at the preliminary meeting it was proposed to call it the _Wit’s Miscellany_, but James Smith objected to this as being too pretentious, upon which Mr. Bentley proposed the title of _Bentley’s Miscellany_. “Don’t you think,” interposed Smith, “that that would be going too far the other way?” However, the name was adopted (Mr. Bentley denies the accuracy of this anecdote--but _se non è vero, è ben trovato_). One of the chief contributors to the new _Miscellany_ was Barham, who had been a school chum of Mr. Bentley’s at St. Paul’s, and, until 1843, the “Ingoldsby Legends” delighted the public in the pages of the _Miscellany_. The last poem of the “Legends” was published in Colburn’s _New Monthly_, but by Barham’s express wish, the song he wrote on his death-bed, “As I Lay Athynkynge,” appeared, as fitly closing his career, in _Bentley_. The first editor of _Bentley’s Miscellany_, was no less a man than Charles Dickens, who had previously contributed the “Sketches by Boz” to the _Morning Chronicle_, and who soon, as the author of _Pickwick_, became the most popular writer of the day. Mr. Bentley was one of the first publishers to secure Dickens’s services, and in his magazine “Oliver Twist” appeared. The editorship afterwards passed into the hands of Mr. Harrison Ainsworth and Mr. A. Smith. For the magazine, as for his ordinary business, Mr. Bentley secured the aid of most of the writers who had graduated first under Colburn; and to enumerate them would, with the exception of “Father Prout,” be merely a repetition of names already mentioned, and those who have won popularity since then have scarcely yet had time to lose it. An amusing story, however, worth repeating, has been recently told by the _Athenæum_, anent “Eustace Conway,” a novel by the late Mr. Maurice. “We believe,” says that journal, “we are not going too far in telling the following story about it. Mr. Maurice sold the novel to the late Mr. Bentley somewhere about the year 1830; but the excitement caused by the Reform Bill being unfavourable to light literature, Mr. Bentley did not issue it till 1834, when he had quite lost sight of its author, then a curate in Warwickshire. The villain of the novel was called Captain Marryat; and Mr. Maurice, who first learned of the publication of his book from a review in our columns, had soon the pleasure of receiving a challenge from the celebrated Captain Marryat. Great was the latter’s astonishment on learning that the anonymous author of ‘Eustace Conway’ had never heard of the biographer of ‘Peter Simple,’ and, being in Holy Orders, was obliged to decline to indulge in a duel.” Mr. Bentley died in September, 1871, and was succeeded in the business by his son, who for many years had been associated with him.

_THE RIVINGTONS, THE PARKERS, AND JAMES NISBET_:

RELIGIOUS LITERATURE.

Not only is the Rivington family the oldest still existing in bookselling annals, but even in itself it succeeded, a century and a half ago, to a business already remarkable for antiquity. In 1711, on the death of Richard Chiswell, styled by Dunton “the Metropolitan of booksellers,” his premises and his trade passed into the hands of Charles Rivington, and the sign of the “Bible and the Crown” was then first erected over the doorway of the house in Paternoster Row; and from that time to this the “Bible and the Crown” might have been fairly stamped upon the cover of nearly every book issued from the establishment, as a seal and token of its contents.