Chapter II (3)

When Moorfields became improved into Finsbury Circus, the bookselling element was by no means extinguished. James Lackington (1746 to 1816), who had established himself as a bookseller in Chiswell Street, was issuing catalogues from that address from 1779 to 1793. He first started selling books on Midsummer Day, 1774, in Featherstone Street, St. Luke's. It was from Chiswell Street that Lackington dated those rambling letters which he styles 'Memoirs of the Forty-five First Years' of his life. In twelve years he had progressed so rapidly, from the sack of old rubbish for which he paid a guinea and with which he began business as a bookseller, that a move to more commodious premises became necessary. In 1794 he transferred his stock to one of the corners of Finsbury Square--which had been then built about five years--and started his 'Temple of the Muses.' The original building was burnt down some years ago, but the late Charles Knight has left on record an interesting sketch of the place as it struck him in 1801: 'Over the principal entrance is inscribed, "Cheapest Booksellers in the World." It is the famous shop of Lackington, Allen and Co., "where above half a million of volumes are constantly on sale." We enter the vast area, whose dimensions are to be measured by the assertion that a coach and six might be driven round it. In the centre is an enormous circular counter, within which stand the dispensers of knowledge, ready to wait upon the county clergyman, in his wig and shovel hat; upon the fine ladies, in feathers and trains; or upon the bookseller's collector, with his dirty bag. If there is any chaffering about the cost of a work, the shopman points to the following inscription: "The lowest price is marked on every book, and no abatement made on any article." We ascend a broad staircase, which leads to "The Lounging Rooms" and to the first of a series of circular galleries, lighted from the lantern of the dome, which also lights the ground-floor. Hundreds, even thousands, of volumes are displayed on the shelves running round their walls. As we mount higher and higher, we find commoner books in shabbier bindings; but there is still the same order preserved, each book being numbered according to a printed catalogue. . . . The formation of such an establishment as this assumes a remarkable power of organization, as well as a large command of capital.'

Six years after he had started, Lackington, who had been joined by his friend, John Denis--a man of some capital--published his first catalogue (1779), the title of the firm being Lackington and Co., and the list enumerating some 12,000 volumes. Denis appears to have been a genuine book-collector and a man of some taste, with the very natural result that they soon parted company. Lackington was as vain and officious a charlatan as ever stepped in shoe-leather--a trade to which he had been brought up, by the way--but that he had organizing abilities of a very uncommon order there can be no question. He found the catalogue business a great success, and in due course issued one of 820 pages, with entries of nearly 30,000 volumes and sets of books, all classified under subjects as well as sizes. For thirteen years (after 1763) Lackington did all his own cataloguing. In 1798 the Temple of the Muses was made over to George Lackington, Allen and Co. The former was a third cousin of the founder of the firm, and is described by John Nichols as 'well educated and gentlemanly.'

When he retired from the business, Lackington enjoyed himself to the top of his bent, travelling all over the kingdom in his state coach and scribbling. His 'Confessions' appeared in 1804, and form a sequel to his 'Memoirs,' already mentioned. He died on November 22, 1815, and is buried at Budleigh Salterton, Devon. As a bookseller, he certainly was a success--perhaps, indeed, one of the most successful, all things considered, that ever lived in London. He is a hero in pretty much the same sense as James Boswell. He had, as a matter of course, his detractors. His contemporary booksellers loved him not, for his methods of quick sales and small profits were things unheard of until he appeared on the scene. Peter Pindar's 'Ode to the Hero of Finsbury Square, 1795,' is a choice specimen of this witty writer. It begins:

'Oh! thou whose mind, unfetter'd, undisguised,
Soars like the lark into the empty air;
Whose arch exploits by subtlety devised,
Have stamped renown on Finsbury's New Square,
Great "hero" list! Whilst the sly muse repeats
Thy nuptial ode, thy prowess great _in sheets_.'

Accompanying this ode was a woodcut, which represents Lackington mounting his gorgeous carriage upon steps formed by Tillotson's 'Sermons,' a Common Prayer, and a Bible; from one of his pockets there protrudes a packet of papers, labelled 'Puffs and lies for my book,' and from the other 'My own memoirs.'

The 'Co.' of George Lackington, Allen and Co. was a Mr. Hughes. At the next shuffling of cards the firm consisted of Lackington, A. Kirkman, Mavor--a son of Dr. Mavor, of Woodstock--and Jones. In 1822 the firm consisted of Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, and Lepard, and subsequently of Harding and Lepard (who had absorbed the important business of Triphook, the Cunning Bookseller of Beloe, and it was this trio who published the second edition of Dibdin's 'Library Companion'), by whom the business was transferred to Pall Mall East. George Lackington died in March, 1844, aged seventy-six. In the _Bookseller_ of December 16, 1886, there is an interesting memoir of Kames James Ford, 'the last of the Lackingtonians,' who died at Crouch Hill five days previously, aged ninety-four.

CENTRAL AND EAST LONDON.

Cheapside had never much attraction to the book-collector, but the Poultry (which is in reality a continuation of the Cheapside thoroughfare) was for two and a half centuries a bookselling locality. In 1569, for example, John Alde was living at 'the long shop adjoining to St. Mildred's Church in the Poultry.' From the middle to the end of the seventeenth century the locality had become quite famous for its bookshops. Nat Ponder, who 'did time' for publishing a seditious pamphlet, was Bunyan's publisher. John Dunton's shop was at the sign of the Black Raven. No. 22 was the residence of the brothers Charles and Edward Dilly, and it was here, at a dinner, that Dr. Johnson's prejudices against Wilkes were entirely broken down by the latter's brilliant conversation. The Dillys were great entertainers, and all the more notable literary people of the period were to be met at their house. They amassed a very large fortune. Edward died in 1807, having relinquished the business some years previously to Joseph Mawman, who died in 1827. Mawman, it may be mentioned, wrote an 'Excursion to the Highlands of Scotland,' 1805, which the _Edinburgh_ furiously assailed: 'This is past all enduring. Here is a tour, _travelled_, _written_, _published_, _sold_, and, for anything we know, _reviewed_ by one and the same individual! We cannot submit patiently to this monstrous monopoly.' No. 31 was the shop of Vernor and Hood, booksellers. The latter was father of the facetious Tom Hood, who was born here in 1798. Spon, of 15, Queen Street, Cheapside, was issuing, half a century ago, his 'City of London Old Book Circulars,' which often contained excellent books at very moderate prices.

The district more or less immediately contiguous to the Bank of England was for a long period a favourite bookselling locality, but heavy rents and crowded thoroughfares have completely killed the trade in the heart of commercial London. Early in the seventeenth century, Pope's Head Alley, a turning out of Cornhill, contained a number of booksellers' and publishers' shops. In the latter part of the seventeenth century, Thomas Guy, with a capital of about £200, started selling books at 'the little corner house of Lombard Street and Cornhill'; but his wealth was not derived from this source. It is interesting to note, however, that this little corner shop existed so recently as 1833 or 1834. Alexander Cruden, of 'Concordance' fame, settled in London in 1732, and opened a bookstall under the Royal Exchange, and it was whilst here that he compiled the 'Concordance' which ruined him in business and deranged his mind. William Collins, whose catalogues for many years 'furnished several curiosities to the literary collectors,' started selling books in Pope's Head Alley, in or about 1778, but was burnt out in the following year, when he removed to Exchange Alley, where he remained until the last decade of the last century. John Sewell, who died in 1802 (aged sixty-eight), was one of the last to sport the rubric posts, and his shop in Cornhill was a highly popular resort with book-buyers; he was succeeded by another original character in the person of James Asperne. J. and A. Arch were in Cornhill contemporaneously with Asperne, and it was to these kindly Quakers that Thomas Tegg turned, and not in vain, after being summarily dismissed from Lane's, in Leadenhall Street, and with whom he remained for some years. It was not until some time after he had started on his own account that Tegg commenced his nightly book-auctions at 111, Cheapside, an innovation which resulted in Tegg finding himself a fairly rich man. His next move was to the old Mansion House, once the residence of the Lord Mayor, and here he met with an increased prosperity and popularity. He was elected a Common Councillor of the ward of Cheap, and took a country house at Norwood. Up to the close of 1840, Tegg had issued 4,000 works on his own account (chiefly 'remainders'), and not 'more than twenty were failures.' The more noteworthy second-hand booksellers of this neighbourhood half a century ago were Charles Davis, whose shop was at 48, Coleman Street, and T. Bennett, of 4, Copthall Buildings, at the back of the Bank, each of whom published catalogues. A quarter of a century ago the last-named address was still in possession of second-hand booksellers--S. and T. Gilbert, and subsequently of Gilbert and Field. One of the oldest bookselling firms in the City is that of Sandell and Smith, of 136, City Road, which dates back to 1830. It was whilst exploring in some of the upper rooms of this shop that a well-known first-edition collector, Mr. Elliot Stock, came upon an incomparable array of the class of book for which he had an especial weakness. He obtained nearly a sackload at an average of tenpence or a shilling each, and as many of these are now not only very rare, but in great demand at fancy prices, it is scarcely necessary to say that the investment was a peculiarly good one. The 'haul' included works by Byron, Bernard Barton, Browning, Barry Cornwall, Lytton, Cowper, Dryden, Hogg, Moore, Rogers, Scott, Wordsworth, and a lot of eighteenth-century writers. Half a century ago Edwards' 'Cheap Random Catalogues' were being issued from 76, Bunhill Row.

So far as the East End of London is concerned, there is not, perhaps, very much to say. The second-hand bookselling trade for the past half-century has been confined in a large measure to three firms--R. Gladding, an octogenarian, who dealt almost exclusively in theological books, whose shop was at 76, Whitechapel Road, and who retired at the end of 1893; E. George and Sons, who have been for many years established at 231, Whitechapel Road, and have lately acquired Gladding's shop; and Joseph Smith, 2, Oxford Street, Whitechapel. The two last-named firms are, in their respective ways, of more than usual interest. Mr. E. George, whose father, William George, was also a bookseller, started in business on his own account between thirty and forty years ago, his stock-in-trade consisting of four shillings' worth of miscellaneous volumes, which he exposed for sale on a barrow close to the old Whitechapel workhouse, which occupied the ground on which one of Mr. George's shops now stands. Mr. George has built up one of the most remarkable and extensive business connections in existence. His stock may be roughly calculated at about 700,000 or 800,000 volumes or parts, two large houses and warehouses being literally crammed full from top to bottom. There is scarcely any periodical or transactions of any learned society which they are unable to complete, and in many instances--_Punch_, for example--they have at least a dozen complete sets, besides an infinity of odd numbers and parts. It is scarcely necessary to point out that Messrs. George's business has very little to do with the locality in which their shops are situated. They are the wholesale firm of the trade, and the larger part of their business is done in the United States and among the provincial booksellers of Great Britain, ten huge cases and a complete set of Hansard being on the eve of exportation to America at the time of our visit. It is a curious fact, and one well worth mentioning, that until last year (1894) this firm never issued a catalogue. It is also interesting to point out that their shop at 76, Whitechapel Road is one of the most admirably arranged bookstores in the country. It was specially constructed, and is not unlike a miniature British Museum Reading-room; there are two galleries, one above the other. The second East End worthy has a literary as well as a bibliopolic interest. Joseph Smith will be better remembered by posterity as the compiler of a 'Catalogue of Friends' Books,' and of the 'Bibliotheca Anti-Quakerana,' than as a bookseller. He was twenty years compiling the former, and is perhaps one of the most striking illustrations of the wisdom of the theory that the bookseller who wishes to be a success should never read! Joseph Smith is of the Society of Friends, and among his schoolfellows were John Bright and W. E. Forster.

Second-hand bookselling in the East End has declined during the past quarter of a century from several causes, the chief and most important being the almost complete withdrawal of moderately well-to-do people from the locality. The neighbourhood has become so exclusively inhabited by the poorest of the poor, and by the desolate immigrants from all countries, that the higher phases of bookselling have little chance of flourishing. Mr. E. George informs us that fifteen or twenty years ago he frequently sold in one day books to the value of £15 to genuine residents of the East End, but that he now does not sell fifteen shillings' worth. So far as local customers are concerned, he might just as well have nothing more elaborate than a warehouse.

Many interesting bookish events have, nevertheless, transpired in what is now the slummiest district of London, and if the best of these anecdotes were collected they would fill quite a big volume. They are very varied in character, and some of the stories have very different morals. Here is one related concerning the Rev. Mr. Brand, to whom we have already referred. He was a clergyman of that district, and, it is feared, sometimes neglected his religious duties for the more engrossing charms of the chase. One Friday afternoon he was roaming in the neighbourhood of his church, when his eye fell on the shop of a Jew bookseller which he had not before noticed, and was astonished to see there a number of black-letter volumes exposed for sale. But the sun was rapidly going down, and the Jew, loath to be stoned by his neighbours for breaking the Sabbath, was hastily interposing the shutters between the eyes of the clergyman and the coveted books. 'Let me look at them inside,' said the Rev. Mr. Brand; 'I will not keep you long.' 'Impossible,' replied the Jew. 'Sabbath will begin in five minutes, and I absolutely cannot let myself be drawn into such a breach of Divine Law. But if you choose to come early on Sunday morning you may see them at your leisure.' The reverend gentleman accordingly turned up at eight a.m. on Sunday, intending to remain there till church-time, he having to do duty that day. He had provided himself with the overcoat which he wore on his book-hunting expeditions, and which had pockets large enough to swallow a good-sized folio. The literary treasures of the son of Israel were much more numerous than the Gentile expected. At this time there was not such a rush for Caxtons as we have witnessed since the Roxburghe sale. Mr. Brand found one of these precious relics in a very bad condition, although not past recovery, paid a trifling price for it, and pocketed it. Then he successively examined some rare productions of the presses of Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson, and so forth. The clergyman's purchases soon began to assume considerable proportions. Archimedes was not more fully absorbed in his geometrical problems when the Roman soldier killed him, than the East End clergyman in his careful collations. He was aroused, however, from his reveries by the Jewess calling out: 'Mike, dinner is ready.' 'Dinner!' exclaimed the parson. 'At what time do you dine?' 'At one o'clock,' she replied. He looked at his watch. It was too true. He hastened home. In the meantime, the beadle had been to his house, and finding he had left it in his usual health, it was feared some accident had happened. The congregation then dispersed, much concerned at the absence of the worthy pastor, who, however, atoned in the evening, by unwonted eloquence, for his unpremeditated prank of the morning.

HOLBORN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD.

As a second-hand bookselling locality, Holborn is one of the oldest of those in which the trade is still carried on vigorously. As a bookselling locality it has a record of close on three centuries and a half. As early as 1558, a publisher was issuing cheap books in connection with John Tisdale, at the Saracen's Head, in Holborn, near to the Conduit, and in one of these booklets we are enjoined to

'Remember, man! both night and day,
Thou needs must die, there is no Nay.'

Probably the earliest, and certainly one of the earliest, books published in Holborn was the 'Vision of Piers Plowman,' 'now fyrst imprinted by Robert Crowley, dwellyng in Ely-rents in Holburne,' in 1550, which contains a very quaint address from the printer. In and about the year 1584, Roger Warde, a very prolific publisher, was dwelling near 'Holburne Conduit, at the sign of the "Talbot,"' and a still more noteworthy individual, Richard Jones, lived hard by, at the sign of the Rose and Crown.

Early in the seventeenth century, several members of the fraternity had established themselves in and around Gray's Inn Gate, then termed, more appropriately, Lane. Henrie Tomes published 'The Commendation of Cocks and Cock-fighting' (1607), which, no doubt, the 'young bloods' of the period perused much more diligently than more instructive and edifying books with which Mr. Tomes also could have supplied them.

Its most famous bibliopolic resident, however, is Thomas Osborne, or Tom Osborne, as he was called in the trade and by posterity. Tom Osborne's fame began and ended with himself. Nobody knew whence he came, and probably nobody cared. His catalogues cover a period of thirty years--1738-1768--and include some very remarkable libraries of many famous men. In stature he is described as short and thick, so that Dr. Johnson's famous summary method of knocking him down[192:A] was not perhaps so difficult a feat as is generally supposed. To his inferiors--including, as he apparently but ruefully thought, Dr. Johnson--he generally spoke in an authoritative and insolent manner. As ignorant as Lackington, he was considerably less aware of the fact. Osborne's shop, like that of Jacob Tonson[192:B] at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, was at the Gray's Inn Road gate of, or entrance to, Gray's Inn. His greatest _coup_ was the purchase of the Harleian Collection of books--the manuscripts were bought by the British Museum for £10,000--for £13,000, in 1743. It is said on good authority that the Earl of Oxford gave £18,000 for the binding of only a part of them. In 1743-44, the extent of this extraordinary collection was indicated by the 'Catalogus Bibliotheca Harleianæ,' in four volumes. The first two, in Latin, were compiled by Dr. Johnson at a daily wage, and the third and fourth (which are a repetition of the first two), in English, are by Oldys. A charge of 5s. was made for the first two volumes, which caused a good deal of grumbling among the trade, and was resented 'as an avaricious innovation,' but Osborne replied that the volumes could be either returned in exchange for books or for the original purchase-money. He was also charged with rating his books at too high a price, but a glance through the catalogue will prove this to be an unjust accusation. The copy of the Aldine Plato, 1513, on vellum, for which Lord Oxford gave 100 guineas, is priced by Osborne at £21. The sale of the books appears to have been extremely slow, and Johnson assured Boswell that 'there was not much gained by the bargain.' Nichols' 'Literary Anecdotes' (iii. 649-654) gives a list of the libraries which Osborne absorbed into his stock at different times, but few of these are anything more than names at the present day. Osborne is satirized in the 'Dunciad,' but, according to Johnson, was so dull that he could not feel the poet's gross satire. Sir John Hawkins states that Osborne used to boast that he was worth £40,000, and doubtless this was true. His

'Bushy bob, well powder'd every day,
Bloom'd whiter than a hawthorn hedge in May,'

was one of his acquired peculiarities. Nichols tells us that the expression 'rum books' arose from Osborne's sending unsaleable volumes to Jamaica in exchange for rum.

But whilst Tom Osborne was _the_ bookseller of Holborn, there were many others well established here during the last century, and whose names have been handed down to us by the catalogues which they published. William Cater, for instance, was issuing catalogues from Holborn in 1767, when he sold the libraries of Lord Willoughby, president of the Society of Antiquaries, and in 1774 of Cudworth Bruck, another antiquary. Cater was succeeded in 1786 by John Deighton, of Cambridge. In the person of Henry Dell we get a literary bookseller, who had established himself first in Tower Street, and in or about 1765 in Holborn, where, Nichols tells us, he died very poor. He wrote 'The Booksellers, a Poem,' 1766, which has been pronounced 'a wretched, rhyming list of booksellers in London, and Westminster, with silly commendations of some and stupid abuse of others.' Other Holborn booksellers were: William Fox, 1773-1777; John Hayes, who died November 12, 1811, aged seventy-four, and 'whose abilities were of no ordinary class, and his erudition very considerable'; John Anderson, of Holborn Hill, 1787-1792, who sold the library of the Hon. John Scott, of Gray's Inn; Francis Noble, who, besides being a bookseller, kept for many years an extensive circulating library in Holborn, but who, in consequence of his daughter's obtaining a share in the first £30,000 prize in the lottery, retired from business, and died at an advanced age in June, 1792; Joseph White, 1779-1791; and William Flexney, who died January 7, 1808, aged seventy-seven, and who was the original publisher of Churchill's 'Poems,' and is thus immortalized by that versatile 'poet':

'Let those who energy of diction prize,
For Billingsgate, quit Flexney, and be wise.'

Percival Stockdale, in his 'Memoirs,' speaks highly of his 'old friend' Flexney, 'with whom I have passed many convivial and jovial hours.'

J. H. Prince, of Old North Street, Red Lion Square, Holborn, who wrote and published his own eccentric 'Life' in 1806, and who, trying and failing in nearly everything else, took to bookselling and book-writing, evidently, like many other authors before and since, found soliciting subscriptions for his book 'a most painful undertaking to a susceptible mind.' His motto was, 'I evil ni etips,' or 'I live in spite.' A much more important bookseller of Holborn was John Petheram, who lived at 94, High Holborn in the fifties, and whose catalogues were styled 'The Bibliographical Miscellany'; for some time, with each of his catalogues he issued an eight-page supplement, which consisted of a reprint of some very rare tract; the selection of some of these was in the hands of Dr. E. F. Rimbault. A complete set of these catalogues would be extremely interesting; we have only seen half a dozen of them, and these are in the British Museum. A somewhat similar effort to give an extra interest to catalogues was made a few years ago by J. W. Jarvis and Son, of King William Street, and also by Pickering and Chatto, the Haymarket; but the experiment apparently did not succeed.

Apart from Holborn, properly so called, Middle Row, an insulated row of houses, abutting upon Holborn Bars, and nearly opposite Gray's Inn Road, claims a notice here, for it was long a book-hunting locality, and two bookshops, at least, existed there until the place was demolished in August, 1867. Perhaps its most famous bookseller was John Cuthell, who came to London from Scotland in 1771, and became assistant to Drew, of Middle Row, whom he succeeded. He was publishing catalogues here from 1787, and did a very large export business with America. He was noted for his stock of medical and scientific books. He was still at Middle Row in 1813, when John Nichols published his 'Literary Anecdotes,' to which he was a subscriber. Cuthell died at Turnham Green in 1828, aged eighty-five. He was succeeded by Francis Macpherson, who issued the thirtieth number of his catalogue in April, 1840, from No. 4, Middle Row. The works offered comprised a selection of theological, classical, and historical books. One of the most curious entries relates to an extensive collection of books and pamphlets by and concerning the famous Dr. Richard Bentley, five volumes in quarto, and thirty-one more in octavo and duodecimo; the set (now, we believe, in the British Museum), doubtless the most complete ever offered for sale, was priced at £25, and was probably utilized in Dyce's editions of Bentley's 'Dissertations,' and in an edition of Bentley's 'Sermons at Boyle's Lecture,' both of which Macpherson published. This catalogue is interesting from the number of illustrations which it affords of the transition period of English book-collecting; the various editions of the classics are priced at very moderate figures, whilst English classics are offered at comparatively 'fancy' sums. For example, a very neat copy of the first edition of 'Tom Jones' is offered at 18s., and a fine copy of John Bale's 'Image of Both Churches,' without date, but printed by East at the latter part of the sixteenth century, at £1 7s. J. Coxhead is another Holborn bookseller who may be regarded as a link between the old and the new. He was at 249, High Holborn in 1840, and had been established forty years. His lists were apparently issued only once or twice a year; one of the notices in his catalogue may be quoted here, as showing the chief medium by which country book-collectors were supplied with their books: 'Gentlemen residing in the country had better apply direct to J. Coxhead for any articles from this list, or they can obtain them by giving the order to their country bookseller, and it will be sent in their weekly parcel from London.' At about the same time, and for nearly the same period, David Ogilby was selling second-hand books at the same locality.

One of the most interesting of the Holborn booksellers was William Darton, of 58, Holborn Hill, of whose shop we give an 'interior' view from a plate engraved by Darton himself. William was a son of William Darton, who founded the famous publishing house of Darton and Harvey, of 55, Gracechurch Street, in the latter part of the last century, their speciality being children's books, which had a fame almost as extensive as those of the great Mr. Newbery himself. He was joined by his brother Thomas, and for two generations a successful business was carried on in this place; the three generations of Dartons were prominent members of the Society of Friends. The house chiefly devoted itself to publishing, but it had a fairly large trade in selling the books issued by other publishers. The firm ceased to exist about the time when the Holborn Valley improvements swept away so many of the old landmarks of that locality. Mr. Joseph W. Darton, the sole partner in Wells Gardner, Darton and Co., is a grandson of the founder of the Holborn Hill house and a great-grandson of the original William Darton. A history of the Dartons would form as interesting a volume as that on John Newbery.

Holborn is an additionally interesting book-locality from the fact that it was from here that some of the first book-catalogues were issued. This important innovation owes much to Charles Davis, whose shop was 'against Gray's Inn.' The earliest of these catalogues which we have seen is a very interesting list of 168 pages octavo, and includes 'valuable libraries, lately purchased, containing near 12,000 volumes in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, and English,' 'which will be sold very cheap, the lowest price fix'd in each book, on Thursday, May 7, 1747.' The list is in many respects very curious, not the least of which is that not one of the items offered is priced. One of the facts which strike one most forcibly in this connection is the large capitals which must have been sunk in books even at this early period. Davis, like all the other booksellers--notably Tonson and Lintot--of that period, was a bookseller as well as publisher.

Moving further westward, we find records of bookselling for just a couple of centuries back. Robert Kettlewell was established at the Hand and Sceptre, King's Street, Bloomsbury, whence he issued his kinsman's apparently useful, and certainly very dull, pamphlet, entitled 'Death Made Comfortable; or, The Way to Die Well,' and sold a variety of other books besides. Making a leap of nearly a century, we meet with Samuel Hayes, of Oxford Street, and evidently a relative of John Hayes, to whom we have already referred. Samuel Hayes--when not in a French prison, for he was actually incarcerated by Napoleon when on a visit to France--was at this place of business for sixteen years, 1779 to 1795, and published several catalogues. Isaac Herbert, nephew of the editor of Ames' 'Typographical Antiquities,' was selling books in Great Russell Street in and about 1795; Joseph Bell was established as a bookseller in Oxford Street in the earlier part of the present century; Shepperson and Reynolds were in the same thoroughfare from 1784 to 1793, and sold several very good libraries within the period indicated. Writing in 1790, Pennant mentions that the chapel of Southampton, or Bedford House, Bloomsbury, was at that time rented by Lockyer Davis as a magazine of books. How long it had been in Davis's tenancy is not certain, but he died in 1791. William Davis, the author of several interesting bibliographical books, including two 'Journeys Round the Library of a Bibliomaniac,' was at the Bedford Library, Southampton Row, Holborn, during the early part of the century. Name after name might be quoted if any useful purpose would be served.

There are many links which still connect the Holborn of to-day with the Holborn and immediate district of the past. Three have, however, passed away within recent years. Edward W. Stibbs, whose death occurred in the spring of 1891, at the age of eighty, and whose stock was sold at Sotheby's in the following year, was one of the veterans of the trade, and was essentially of the old school--the school which confined itself almost exclusively to classics. The second removal is that of Mr. J. Brown, whose shop was nearly opposite the entrance to Chancery Lane, and was for nearly thirty years an exceedingly pleasant rendezvous of book-collectors, and whose proprietor was one of the most genial of bibliopoles. The third is Edward Truelove, of 256, High Holborn, the well-known agnostic bookseller, who removed here from the Strand, and who had been in business over forty years. Mr. Truelove retired two or three years since. Further up the road, in New Oxford Street, we find the shop of Mr. James Westell, whose career as a bookseller embraces a period of over half a century, having started in 1841. Mr. Westell first began in a small shop in Bozier's Court, Tottenham Court Road, and this shop has been immortalized by Lord Lytton in 'My Novel,' for it is here that Leonard Fairfield's friendly bookseller was situated.[201:A] Bozier's Court was a sort of eddy from the constant stream which passes in and out of Oxford Street, and many pleasant hours have been spent in the court by book-lovers. After Mr. Westell left, it passed into the hands of another bookseller, G. Mazzoni, and finally into that of Mr. E. Turnbull, who speaks very highly of it as a bookselling locality. Mr. Turnbull added another shop to the one which was occupied by Mr. Westell; but when the inevitable march of improvements overtook this quaint place three or four years ago, Mr. Turnbull had to leave, and he then took a large shop in New Oxford Street, where he now is. During Mr. Turnbull's tenancy in Bozier's Court several rivals started round about him; but one after another failed to make it pay, and retired, leaving him eventually in entire possession. Another old Holborn bookseller, Mr. George Glashier, who started in 1841, still has a large shop in Southampton Row; not the shop which he occupied for very many years within a few yards of Holborn, but nearer Russell Square, a less crowded thoroughfare than the old place in the same street or row. The shop now occupied by Mr. A. Reader, in Orange Street, Red Lion Square, has been a bookseller's for over half a century, one of the most noted tenants of it being Mr. John Salkeld, who removed nearly twenty years since to Clapham Road, and whose charmingly rustic shop, 'Ivy House,' is quite one of the sights of bookish London.

Indeed, nearly every by-street,[202:A] as well as the public highway in and around Holborn, has had its bookseller ever since the beginning of the century. Lord Macaulay, C. W. Dilke, W. J. Thoms, Edward Solly, John Forster, and the visions of many other mighty book-hunters, crowd on one's memory in grubbing about after old books in this ancient and attractive, if not always particularly savoury, locality. The two Turnstiles have always been favourites with bibliopoles. Writing in 1881, the late Mr. Thoms said: 'Many years ago I received one of the curious catalogues periodically issued by Crozier, then of Little Turnstile, Holborn. From a pressure of business or some other cause, I did not look through it until it had been in my possession for two or three days, and then I saw in it an edition of "Mist's Letters" in three volumes! In two volumes the book is common enough, but I had never heard of a third volume; neither does Bohn in his edition of Lowndes mention its existence. Of course, on this discovery, I lost no time in making my way to Little Turnstile; and on asking for the "Mist" in three volumes, found, as I had feared, that it was sold. "Who was the lucky purchaser?" I asked anxiously; adding, "Aut Dilke aut Diabolus!" "It was not Diabolus," was Crozier's reply; and I was reconciled when I found the book had fallen into such good hands, and not a little surprised when Crozier went on to say, "But he was not the first to apply for it. Mr. Forster sent for it, but would not keep it, because it was not a sufficiently nice copy."' Both the Great and the Little Turnstiles, Holborn, have always been, as we have said, famous as book-hunting localities, and they still preserve this reputation. In 1636 a publisher and bookseller, George Hutton, was at the 'Sign of the Sun, within the Turning Stile in Holborne.' J. Bagford, the celebrated book-destroyer, was first a shoemaker in the Great Turnstile, a calling in which he was not successful. Then he became a bookseller at the same place, and still success was denied him. At Dulwich College is a library which includes a collection of plays formed by Cartwright, a bookseller of the Turnstile, who subsequently turned actor.

(After a Drawing by E. J. Wheeler.)]

The chief and most enterprising firm of booksellers in Holborn proper is that of Mr. and Mrs. Tregaskis, at No. 232, the corner of the New Turnstile. The house itself is full of interest, and is quite a couple of hundred years old. A century ago one of the most eventful scenes of David Garrick's career was enacted here, for it was from this house that the great actor was buried. Mrs. Tregaskis first started, as Mrs. Bennett, at the corner of Southampton Row, and some time after removing to her present shop, married Mr. James Tregaskis, and the two together have built up a business which is scarcely without a rival in London. The shop is literally crammed with rare and interesting books, whilst 'The Caxton Head Catalogues' are got up with every possible care. Almost next door to the shop for many years occupied by the late Edward Stibbs, Mr. Walter T. Spencer carries on a trade which is almost entirely confined to first editions of modern authors. From Mr. R. J. Parker's shop at 204, the present writer has picked up a very large number of rare and interesting books, including a first edition of Goldsmith--not, however, the 'Vicar'--at exceedingly moderate sums. Mr. E. Menken, of Bury Street, New Oxford Street, is one of the most successful booksellers of recent years, and his stock is both large and select. Mr. Menken first started in Gray's Inn Road, nearly opposite the Town Hall, five or six years ago, subsequently removing to Bury Street; but his business grew so rapidly that he had to take the adjoining shop into his service. Mr. Menken's model catalogues invariably contain something which every book collector feels it is absolutely necessary to have. He is a man of versatile abilities, literary and otherwise, and includes among his customers no less a person than Mr. Gladstone. Messrs. Bull and Auvache, of 35, Hart Street, Bloomsbury, are extensive dealers in editions of the classics and Bibles. At one time there were no less than four second-hand booksellers in Hyde Street, New Oxford Street, but at present there is only one. Next door but one to Mudie's, we have the shop of Mr. James Roche, who is a link with the past, having started in 1850, and for many years carried on business in a little corner shop in Southampton Row, one door from the Holborn highway. Messrs. J. Rimell and Sons, noted for their extensive collection of works on the fine arts and architecture, are at 91, Oxford Street. Among the literary booksellers of the first quarter of the present century, William Goodhugh, of 155, Oxford Street, deserves a mention here. 'The English Gentleman's Library Manual,' 1827, is his best-known work, although from a literary standpoint it is a poor concern; he also wrote 'Gates' to the French, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic and Syriac, 'unlocked by new and easy methods.' Goodhugh was conversant with several of the Oriental and many European languages. His knowledge of books was a very extensive and profound one, and as a literary bookseller he is an interesting figure in the annals of bibliopolic history. Fifty years ago many good books were picked up out of 'Miller's Catalogue of Cheap Books,' which appeared monthly from 404, Oxford Street, that for September, 1845, being numbered 127. A quarter of a century ago there were several booksellers in Oxford Street, _e.g._, G. A. Davies, at 417; W. Heath, at 497; J. Kimpton, at 303; E. Lumley, at 514; J. Pettit, at 528; and Whittingham.

The further west one goes, the less interesting do the annals of bookselling become, for Oxford Street is essentially a modern locality, and second-hand bookselling never has thrived much in new localities. It was, however, when rummaging over the contents of a stall in a Wardour Street alley that Charles Lamb lighted upon a ragged duodecimo, which had been the delight of his infancy. The price demanded was sixpence, which the owner, himself a squab little duodecimo of a character, enforced with the asseverance that his own mother should not have it for a farthing less, supplementing the assertion with an oath and 'Now, I have put my soul to it.' The book was the 'Queen Like Closet,' which, it is scarcely necessary to say, Elia rescued from the man of profanity. Soho has long been more or less of a bookselling quarter. John Paul Manson, who was in King Street, Westminster, in 1786, and issued from thence 'A Summer Catalogue' in 1795, subsequently removed to Gerard Street, Soho, and died in 1812. He was especially well versed, not only in Caxtons, but in all the best works of the early printers, and many English black-letter books passed through his hands. Dibdin observes that Professor Heyne could not have exhibited greater signs of joy at the sight of the Towneley manuscript of Homer than did Manson on the discovery of Rastell's 'Pastyme of the People' among the books of Mr. Brand. Two sons of this Manson subsequently became partners in the firm of Christie, the art auctioneers. The first Sampson Low started as a bookseller in Berwick Street, Soho, in or about 1790.

Day's Library, the second oldest existing circulating library in London (the oldest is that of Cawthorn and Hutt, established in 1744, Cockspur Street), has continued from the year 1776 within a few hundred yards of its present situation. In that year a Mr. Dangerfield established it on the north side of Berkeley Square, and it was purchased from him by Mr. Rice in 1810 or 1811, under whom it largely developed in extent and reputation. In 1818 he removed into the adjoining Mount Street at No. 123 (south side), where for about fifty years the library remained. Meanwhile it became the property of Mr. Hoby, and after one or two changes successively of Mr. John and Mr. Charles Day, father and son. In Mr. John Day's hands it crossed the road to No. 16 on the north side, and remained there about twenty-four years, till that part of Mount Street was cleared to make way for the present Carlos Place. Then in the year 1890 it again crossed the road to No. 96, where Mr. Charles Day holds a long lease. An early catalogue of the institution shows that the eighteenth-century circulating libraries contained a portion of the weightier works, such as history, biography, travels, etc., a fact which is rarely realized in the face of the popular impression that it was left to the late Mr. C. E. Mudie to supply such works.

ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD AND NEIGHBOURHOOD.

The bookselling and book-hunting annals of the district which starts with St. Paul's, and terminates at Charing Cross, might occupy a goodly-sized volume. We must of necessity be brief, chiefly because both Paternoster Row and St. Paul's Churchyard have been, for the most part, book-publishing rather than second-hand bookselling localities. As a literary highway, Paternoster Row is of considerable antiquity, for Robert Rikke, a paternoster-maker and citizen, had a shop here in the time of Henry IV., and there can be no question that its name originated from the fact that it was at a very early period the residence of the makers of paternosters, or prayer-beads. Before the Great Fire of 1666, Paternoster Row was not much of a bookselling centre, for it was inhabited chiefly by mercers, silkmen, and lacemen, whose shops were a fashionable resort of the gentry who resided at that time in the immediate vicinity. After the Fire, the Row gradually became famous for its booksellers, or rather publishers, who resided at first near the east end, and whose large warehouses were 'well situated for learned and studious men's access thither, being more retired and private.' Although the book-annals of Paternoster Row chiefly deal with matters subsequent to the Great Fire, there were many publishers and booksellers there over a hundred years before that calamity. In and about 1558 there were, for example, two of the fraternity here established--Richard Lant and Henry Sutton, the latter's shop being at the sign of the Black Morion. For over twenty years, 1565 to 1587, Henry Denham was at the Star in Paternoster Row, whence he issued, among a large number of other books, George Turberville's 'Epitaphs, Epigrams, Songs, and Sonnets' in 1570.

The last century, however, witnessed the rise of Paternoster Row as a publishing locality. From 1678 and onwards book-auctions were held at the Hen and Chickens at nine in the morning; at the Golden Lion over against the Queen's Head Tavern, Paternoster Row, at nine in the morning and two in the afternoon, and at other places both in the Row and in its numerous tributaries, such as Ivy Lane, Ave Maria Lane, etc. Although some of the earliest book-auctions held in this country took place in the immediate vicinity of Paternoster Row, and although it had attained a world-wide celebrity as a publishing centre, it has very few interesting records as a second-hand bookselling locality. Awnsham and John Churchill were located at the Black Swan in 1700; William Taylor, the publisher of 'Robinson Crusoe,' 1719, was here at the sign of the Ship early in the last century, and was succeeded by Thomas Longman in 1725, the present handsome pile of buildings, erected in 1863, being on the original spot occupied in part by the founder of the firm. The Longmans had a second-hand department attached to their house in the early part of the present century, as we have already seen. Others which may be here mentioned as being connected with the Row are Baldwin and Cradock; and Ralph Griffiths, of the 'Dunciad'--'those significant emblems, the owl and long-eared animal, which Mr. Griffiths so sagely displays for the mirth and information of mankind'--for whom Goldsmith wrote reviews in a miserable garret. The last firm of second-hand booksellers of note who thrived in Paternoster Row was that of William Baynes and Son; and the last of the race is still remembered by the older generation of book-collectors, with his old-time appearance in frills and gaiters. In 1826 Baynes published one of the most remarkable catalogues (254 pages) of books printed in the fifteenth century which has ever appeared. It is full of extremely valuable bibliographical information. For many years John Wheldon, the natural history bookseller, had a shop, chiefly for the sale of back numbers of periodicals, at 4, Paternoster Row (as well as in Great Queen Street), and this little shop subsequently passed into the tenancy of Jesse Salisbury, who was there until six or seven years ago. The Chapter Coffee-house, where so many important publishing schemes have been mooted and carried out, still lingers in the Row, but modernized out of all recognition.

The chief interest of St. Paul's Churchyard as a book locality centres itself in the publishing rather than the second-hand bookselling phase. One of our earliest printer-publishers, Julian Notary, was 'dwellynge in powles chyrche yarde besyde ye weste dore by my lordes palyes' in 1515, his shop sign being the Three Kings. At the sign of the White Greyhound, in St. Paul's Churchyard, the first editions of Shakespeare's 'Venus and Adonis' and 'Rape of Lucrece' were published by John Harrison; at the Fleur de Luce and the Crown appeared the first edition of the 'Merry Wives of Windsor'; at the Green Dragon the first edition of the 'Merchant of Venice'; at the Fox the first edition of 'Richard II.'; whilst the first editions of 'Richard III.,' 'Troilus and Cressida,' 'Titus Andronicus,' and 'Lear' all bear Churchyard imprints.

Not only were there very many booksellers' shops around the Yard, but at the latter part of the sixteenth century bookstalls started up, first at the west, and subsequently at the other doors of the cathedral. From a letter addressed by Sir Clement Edmonds, March 28, 1620, to the Lord Mayor, we gather that two houses were erected at the west gate of St. Paul's without the sanction of the authorities, and these were ordered to be removed, as were also certain 'sheds or shops that were being erected near the same place.' A chief portion of the stock of these shops and stalls would naturally be devotional books of various descriptions. That these books were not always to be relied on we infer from an amusing anecdote in the Harleian manuscripts, related by Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, to the effect that 'Dr. Us[s]her, Bishop of Armath, having to preach at Paules Crosse, and passing hastily by one of the stationers, called for a Bible, and had a little one of the London edition given him out, but when he came to looke for his text, that very verse was omitted in the print.'

Mr. Pepys' bookseller, Joshua Kirton, was at the sign of the King's Arms. Writing under date November 2, 1660, Pepys chronicles: 'In Paul's Churchyard I called at Kirton's, and there they had got a masse book for me, which I bought, and cost me 12s., and, when I come home, sat up late and read in it with great pleasure to my wife, to hear that she was long ago acquainted with it.' Kirton was one of the most extensive sufferers of the bookselling fraternity in the Great Fire; from being a substantial tradesman with about £8,000 to the good, he was made £2,000 or £3,000 'worse than nothing.' The destruction of books and literary property generally, in and around St. Paul's, in this fire was enormous, Pepys calculating it at about £150,000, and Evelyn putting it at £200,000, or, in other words, about one million sterling as represented by our money of to-day. Evelyn tells us that soon after the fire had subsided the other trades went on as merrily as before, 'only the poor booksellers have been indeed ill-treated by Vulcan; so many noble impressions consumed by their trusting them to y{e} churches.'

From an old woodcut.]

One of the most considerable of the Churchyard booksellers after the Great Fire was Richard Chiswell, the father or progenitor of a numerous family of bibliopoles. John Dunton, indeed, describes him as well deserving of the title of 'Metropolitan Bookseller of England, if not of all the world.' He was born in 1639, and died in 1711. In 1678 he sold, in conjunction with John Dunmore, another bookseller, the libraries of Dr. Benjamin Worsley and two other eminent men. At St. Paul's Coffee-house, which stood at the corner of the entrance from St. Paul's Churchyard to Doctors' Commons, the library of Dr. Rawlinson was, in 1711, sold--'at a prodigious rate,' according to Thoresby--in the evening after dinner. Although not quite _à propos_ of our subject, we can scarcely help mentioning the name of so celebrated a Churchyard publisher as John Newbery, who lived at No. 65, the original site being now covered by the buildings of the R.T.S.; his successors, Griffith and Farran, were at No. 81 until the year 1889, when they moved westward. F. and C. Rivington were at No. 62 for many years, as Peter Pindar tells us:

'In Paul's churchyard, the Bible and the Key,
This wondrous pair is always to be seen,--
Somewhat the worse for wear--a little grey--
One like a saint, and one with Cæsar's mien.'

A mere list of the Churchyard booksellers would fill a goodly-sized volume. In addition to those already mentioned, one of the most famous and successful families who resided here were the Knaptons, where, during the first three quarters of the last century, they built up an enormous trade, and were succeeded by Robert Horsfield, who carried on the business in Ludgate Street, and died in 1798. We possess one of the interesting catalogues of James and John Knapton, whose shop was at the sign of the Crown. It runs to twenty pages octavo, and enumerates an extraordinary variety of literature. The books written and sermons preached by right reverends and reverends occupy the first five pages, arranged according to the authors' names; and then follow the works of ordinary, commonplace mortals, sermons and Aphra Behn's romances, Mr. Dryden's plays and the 'Whole Duty of Man' appearing cheek-by-jowl.

The most important contribution to the earlier history of bookselling appeared from St. Paul's Churchyard in the shape of Robert Clavell's 'General Catalogue of Books printed in England since the Dreadful Fire, 1666, to the End of Trinity Term, 1676.' This catalogue was continued every term till 1700, and includes an abstract of the bills of mortality. The books are classified under their respective headings of divinity, history, physic and surgery, miscellanies, chemistry, etc., the publisher's name in each case being given. Dunton describes Clavell as 'an eminent bookseller' and 'a great dealer,' whilst Dr. Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln, distinguished him by the term of 'the honest bookseller.' Clavell's shop was at the sign of the Stag's Head, whilst his partner in many of his projects was Henry Brome, of the Sun, also in the Churchyard.