THERE are few more attractive phases in the history of book-hunting in London than that of localities. Up to nearly the end of the last century, these localities were for the most part, and for close on 350 years, confined to within a narrow area. With the rapid expansion of London north, east, south, and west, the 'trade' has not only expanded, but its representatives have sprung up in every district, whilst many of the older ones have forsaken the limits of the City, and pitched their tents in Greater London. For centuries bookselling and publishing flourished side by side in St. Paul's Churchyard, Fleet Street, and their immediate neighbourhoods.

Of all the old bookselling localities close to the heart of London, none were more famous than Little Britain and Moorfields. Three years before the Great Fire of London—in 1663—SorbiÈre, in his 'Journey to England,' made the following observation: 'I am not to forget the vast number of booksellers' shops I have observed in London: for besides those who are set up here and there in the City, they have their particular quarters, such as St. Paul's Churchyard and Little Britain, where there is twice as many as in the Rue Saint Jacque in Paris, and who have each of them two or three warehouses.' The bookselling zenith of Little Britain was attained in the seventeenth century; it may almost be said to have commenced with the reign of Charles I., and to have begun a sort of retrogression with the Hanoverian succession. But there were printers and booksellers here at the latter part of the sixteenth century. From a newspaper published in this district in 1664, we learn that no less than 464 pamphlets were published here during four years. It was a sort of seventeenth-century combination of the Paternoster Row and Fleet Street of the present day. It is the place where, according to a widely circulated statement, first made in Richardson's 'Remarks on Paradise Lost,' 1734, an Earl of Dorset accidentally discovered, when on a book-hunt in 1667, a work hitherto unknown to him, entitled 'Paradise Lost.' He is said to have bought a copy, and the bookseller begged him to recommend it to his friends, as the copies lay on his hand like so much wastepaper. The noble Earl showed his copy to Dryden, who is reported to have exclaimed: 'This man cuts us all out, and the ancients too.' Though this anecdote may be apocryphal, certain it is the poem is in a way connected with the neighbourhood, inasmuch as Simmons' shop was in Aldersgate Street. In addition to this fact, Richardson also tells us that Milton lodged for some time in Little Britain with Millington, the famous book-auctioneer, who had then quitted the rostrum and followed the more peaceful vocation of a dealer in old books.

Roger North, in his 'Life of the Right Hon. Francis North,' has an oft-quoted reference to Little Britain. From this interesting account we learn that during the latter part of the seventeenth century it was a plentiful and perpetual emporium of learned authors, and that men went thither as to a market. The trade of the place was, in consequence, an important one, the shops being large, and much resorted to by literary personages, wits, men-about-town, and fashionable notabilities generally. The booksellers then were men of intellect. But referring, by way of contrast, to the place during the earlier half of the eighteenth century, he laments that 'this emporium is vanished, and the trade contracted into the hands of two or three persons, who, to make good their monopoly, ransack, not only their neighbours of the trade that are scattered about the town, but all over England, ay, and beyond sea, too, and send abroad their circulators, and in this manner get into their hands all that is valuable. The rest of the trade are content to take their refuse, with which, and the fresh scum of the press, they furnish one side of the shop, which serves for the sign of a bookseller, rather than a real one; but instead of selling, deal as factors, and procure what the country divines and gentry send for; of whom each hath his book-factor, and, when wanting anything, writes to his bookseller and pays his bill. And it is wretched to consider what pickpocket work, with the help of the press, these demi-booksellers make. They crack their brains to find out selling subjects, and keep hirelings in garrets, at hard meat, to write and correct by the groat; and so puff up an octavo to a sufficient thickness; and there is six shillings current for an hour and half's reading, and perhaps never to be read or looked upon after. One that would go higher, must take his fortune at blank walls, and corners of streets, or repair to the sign of Bateman, King, and one or two more, where are best choice, and better pennyworths. I might touch other abuses, as bad paper, incorrect printing, and false advertising; and all of which and worse are to be expected, if a careful author is not at the heels of them.'

We get an interesting glimpse of a meeting of two book-lovers in this locality from Izaak Walton. In his 'Life of Bishop Sanderson,' Walton writes that about the time Sanderson was printing this excellent preface ('before his last twenty Sermons,' 1655), 'I met him accidentally in London, in sad-coloured clothes, and, God knows, far from costly. The place of our meeting was near to Little Britain, where he had been to buy a book, which he then had in his hand.'

The house of Bateman is worthy of an important chapter in the bookselling annals of Little Britain, and the best-known member (Christopher) of the family is described in the usual sugared style of John Dunton: 'There are few booksellers in England (if any) that understand books better than Mr. Bateman, nor does his diligence and industry come short of his knowledge. He is a man of great reputation and honesty.' Nichols states that Bateman would allow no person to look into books in his shop, and when asked a reason for this extraordinary rule, he answered: 'I suppose you may be a physician or an author, and want some recipe or quotation; and, if you buy it, I will engage it to be perfect before you leave me, but not after, as I have suffered by leaves being torn out, and the books returned, to my very great loss and prejudice.' Bateman's shop was a favourite resort of Swift, who several times speaks of it in his 'Journal to Stella:' 'I went to Bateman's, the bookseller, and laid out eight and forty shillings for books. I bought three little volumes of Lucian, in French, for our Stella, and so, and so' (January 6, 1710-11); and again: 'I was at Bateman's, to see a fine old library he has bought, and my fingers itched as yours would do at a china-shop' (July 9, 1711).

One of the most frequent visitors to Bateman's shop was Thomas Britton, 'the small-coal man,' who died in September, 1714. His knowledge of books, of music and chemistry was certainly extraordinary, having regard to his ostensible occupation. His collection of manuscripts and printed music and musical instruments was very large. Lord Somers gave £500 for his collection of pamphlets, and Sir Hans Sloane was also a purchaser of many curious articles. He was a very well-known character, and 'was so much distinguished that, when passing through the streets in his blue linen frock, and with his sack of small coal on his back, he was frequently accosted with the following expression: "There goes the famous small-coal man, who is a lover of learning, a performer in music, and a companion for gentlemen."' Saturday, when Parliament was not sitting during the winter, was the market day with the booksellers of Little Britain; and in the earlier part of the last century, the frequenters of this locality included such worthies as the Duke of Devonshire, Edward, Earl of Oxford, and the Earls of Pembroke, Sunderland, and Winchelsea. After the 'hunt' they often adjourned to the Mourning Bush in Aldersgate, where they dined and spent the remainder of the day.

Another famous Little Britain bookseller was Robert Scott whose sister was the Hon. and Rev. Dr. John North's 'grandmother's woman.' Scott was a man of 'good parts,' and was in his time, says Roger North, the 'greatest librarian in Europe; for besides his stock in England, he had warehouses at Frankfort, Paris, and other places, and dealt by factors.' When an old man, Scott 'contracted with one Mills, of St. Paul's Churchyard, near £10,000 deep, and articled not to open his shop any more. But Mills, with his auctioneering, atlases, and projects, failed, whereby poor Scott lost above half his means.... He was not only an expert bookseller, but a very conscientious, good man, and when he threw up his trade, Europe had no small loss of him.'

The most celebrated family of booksellers, perhaps, who lived in Little Britain, was that of Ballard, or Bullard, as the original name appears by the auction catalogues. The family were connected with the trade for over a century, and were noted, says Nichols, 'for the soundness of their principles in Church and State.' One Henry Ballard lived at the sign of the Bear without Temple Bar, over against St. Clement's Church, in 1597, but whether he was an ancestor of the family in question is not certain. Thomas Ballard, the founder of the bookselling branch, was described by Dunton, in 1705, as 'a young bookseller in Little Britain, but grown man in body now, but more in mind:

Samuel Ballard, for many years Deputy of the Ward of Aldersgate Within, died August 27, 1761, and his only son, Edward, January 2, 1796, aged eighty-eight, in the same house in which he was born, having outlived his mental faculties. He was the last of the profession in Little Britain.

Among the scores of Little Britain men who combined publishing with second-hand bookselling, one of the more interesting is William Newton, who resided there during the earlier years of the last century. In 1712 he published Quincy's 'Medicina Statica,' at the end of which is this curious 'Advertisement' (minus the superfluity of capitals): 'Those persons who have any Librarys (sic) or small parcels of old books to dispose of, either in town or countrey, may have ready money for them of Will. Newton, Bookseller in Little Britain, London. Also all gentlemen, and schoolmasters, may be furnished with all sorts of classics, in usum Delphi, Variorum, etc. Likewise, he will exchange with any person, for any books they have read and done with.'

It was from the Dolphin, in Little Britain, that Samuel Buckley first issued the Spectator, March 1, 1711, et seq. Tom Rawlinson resided here for some years, as did another and different kind of celebrity, Benjamin Franklin, who worked at Palmer's famous printing-house in Bartholomew Close. 'While I lodged in Little Britain,' says Franklin, in his 'Autobiography,' 'I made an acquaintance with one Wilcox, a bookseller, whose shop was at the next door. He had an immense collection of second-hand books. Circulating libraries were not then in use; but we agreed that, on certain reasonable terms, which I have now forgotten, I might take, read, and return any of the books. This I esteemed a great advantage, and made as much use of as I could.'

But by Franklin's time the book trade of Little Britain had declined beyond any hope of recovery. In 1756 Maitland describes the place as 'very ruinous'; the part from 'the Pump to Duck Lane is well built, and though much inhabited formerly by booksellers, who dealt chiefly in old books, it is now much deserted and decayed.' A few years before Nichols published his 'Literary Anecdotes,' two booksellers used to sport their rubric posts close to each other here in Little Britain, and these rubric posts[176:A] were once as much the type of a bookseller's shop as the pole is of a barber's.

Nearly all the numerous lanes and alleys immediately contiguous to Little Britain were more or less inhabited by second-hand booksellers. The most important in every respect of these was Duck Lane, subsequently rechristened Duke Street, and in 1885 as a part and parcel of Little Britain. It is the street which leads from West Smithfield to one end of Little Britain, and the change was a very foolish one. It was to this street that Swift conjectured that booksellers might send inquiries for his works.

And Garth tells how the learned Dr. Edward Tyson filled his library from the Duck Lane shops:

Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt has noted the fact that a copy of Zach. Ursinus' 'Summe of Christian Religion,' translated by H. Parry (1617), contains on the first leaf this note: 'Mary Rous her Booke, bought in Duck Lane bey Smithfelde, this year, 1644.'

Not very far from Little Britain is the Barbican, which at the earlier part of the century contained several bookshops, but has since degenerated into forbidding warehouses. Charles Lamb, under date March 25, 1829, writes: 'I have just come from town, where I have been to get my bit of quarterly pension, and have brought home from stalls in Barbican the old "Pilgrim's Progress," with the prints—Vanity Fair, etc.—now scarce. Four shillings; cheap. And also one of whom I have oft heard and had dreams, but never saw in the flesh—that is in sheepskin—"The Whole Theologic Works of Thomas Aquinas." My arms ached with lugging it a mile to the stage, but the burden was a pleasure, such as old Anchises was to the shoulders of Æneas, or the lady to the lover in the old romance, who, having to carry her to the top of a high mountain (the price of obtaining her), clambered with her to the top and fell dead with fatigue.'

The district to which the name of Moorfields was once applied has no great historic interest. It remained moorfields until it was first drained in 1527. In the reign of James I. it was first laid out into walks, and during the time of Charles II. some portions of it were built upon. It soon became famous for its musters and pleasant walks, its laundresses and bleachers, its cudgel-players and popular amusements, its bookstalls and ballad-sellers. Writing at the beginning of the last century, that pungent critic of the world in general, Tom Brown, observes: 'Well, this thing called prosperity makes a man strangely insolent and forgetful. How contemptibly a cutler looks at a poor grinder of knives; a physician in his coach at a farrier a-foot; and a well-grown Paul's Churchyard bookseller upon one of the trade that sells second-hand books under the trees in Moorfields!' In Thoresby's 'Diary' we have an entry under the year 1709 of a very rare edition of the New Testament in English, 1536, having been purchased in Moorfields.

By the middle of the last century Moorfields became an assemblage of small shops, particularly booksellers', and remained such until, in 1790, the handsome square of Finsbury arose on its site. That some of these booksellers of Moorfields had considerable stocks is seen by the fact that that of John King, of this place, occupied ten days in the dispersal at Samuel Baker's in 1760. Perhaps one of the most famous of the Moorfields booksellers was Thomas King, who published priced catalogues of books from 1780 to 1796, and who deserted Moorfields at about the latter date, to take premises in King Street, Covent Garden, as a book-auctioneer. Horace Walpole, referring to James West's sale in 1773, says: 'Mr. West's books are selling outrageously. His family will make a fortune by what he collected from stalls and Moorfields.' This sale, which occupied twenty-four days, included, as we have said on a previous page, books by Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, and others, and also works on Old English literature, voyages and travels, not a few of which were undoubtedly picked up in Moorfields. The Rev. John Brand, secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, who died in 1806, visited almost daily the bookstalls between Piccadilly and Mile End, and may be regarded as another Moorfields book-hunter; he generally returned from these excursions with his deep and wide pockets well laden. His books were chiefly collected in this way, and for comparatively small sums. Brand cared little for the condition of his books, many of which were imperfect, the defects being supplied in neatly-written MS. (See p. 190.) John Keats, the poet, was born in Moorfields, and Tom Dibdin was apprenticed to an upholsterer in this district.

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:

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

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

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':

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.

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.'

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:

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.

Joseph Johnson, the Dry Bookseller of Beloe, demands a short notice here. He was born at Liverpool in 1738, and after serving an apprenticeship with George Keith, Gracechurch Street, began business for himself on Fish Street Hill, which, being in the track of the medical students at the hospitals in the Borough, was a promising locality. After some years here, he removed to Paternoster Row, where he had as partners first a Mr. Davenport, and then John Payne; the house and stock were destroyed by fire in 1770, after which he removed to St. Paul's Churchyard, where he continued until his death in 1809, the father of the trade. He was a considerable publisher, and 'two poets of great modern celebrity were by him first introduced to the publick—Cowper and Darwin.' Whilst at Fish Street Hill he took over the stock of John Ward, of which he issued a catalogue.

Ludgate Hill to a certain degree not unnaturally secured a little of the 'bookish' brilliancy which diffused itself round and about the Churchyard. The highway to the cathedral was naturally a good business quarter, and there can be very little doubt that some of the stalls or booths, which formed a sort of middle row in Ludgate, were occupied by stationers and booksellers, who are not usually indifferent to the advantages of a good thoroughfare. It never, however, came up to St. Paul's Churchyard, either as a publishing or as a bookselling locality; but many retailers were here during the latter part of the last century. Queen Charlotte, wife of George III., is reported by Robert Huish to have said to Mrs. Delany: 'You cannot think what nice books I pick up at bookstalls, or how cheap I buy them.' The Rev. Dr. Croby, in his 'Life of George IV.,' tells us that Queen Charlotte was in the habit of paying visits, in company with some lady-in-waiting, to Holywell Street and Ludgate Hill, 'where second-hand books were exposed for sale during the last half of the eighteenth century.' During the earlier part of this period, among the booksellers of note in Ludgate Street were Robert Horsfield, William Johnston, and Richard Ware (who was a considerable adventurer in new publications). The business established at about the same period and in the same locality by Richard Manley, was considerably extended by John Pridden (1728-1807). The libraries of many eminent and distinguished characters passed through his hands, Nichols tells us. His offers in purchasing them were liberal, and, being content with small profits, 'he soon found himself supported by a numerous and respectable set of friends, not one of whom ever quitted him.'

Jonah Bowyer was at the Rose, in Ludgate Street, in and about the year 1706, when he published the Lord Bishop of Oxford's 'Sermons preached before the Queen' at St. Paul's in May of that year; and it was either this Bowyer or William Bowyer—the two were not related—who established a bookselling department on the frozen Thames in 1716. William Johnston, who died at a very advanced age in 1804, was one of the most successful of Ludgate Hill booksellers, and his employÉes included George Robinson and Thomas Evans, each of whom became the founder of a very extensive business. George Conyers was at the Ring, Ludgate Hill, for some years during the last quarter of the seventeenth century, and prior to his removal to Little Britain. Conyers dealt chiefly in Grub Street compilations, which included cheap and handy guides to everything on earth, and it is likely that his shop was a literary or book-collecting resort. The most famous bibliopole who had a shop in Ludgate is perhaps William Hone, to whom the liberty of the press owes so much, and who removed here from his house at the corner of Ship Court, Old Bailey. TrÜbner and Co. left Ludgate Hill soon after they amalgamated with Kegan Paul, Trench and Co.

FLEET STREET.

The Churchyard is, of course, the home of bookselling, but, as we have seen, as time went on, its children, so to speak, repudiated their birthplace. In the middle of the sixteenth century, for example, Fleet Street contained nearly as many bookshops as the parent locality. In addition to this, England's second printer, Wynkyn de Worde, abandoning the Westminster house of his master, William Caxton, took up his residence in Fleet Street in or about the year 1500. The sign of his shop was the Sun, 'agaynste the Condyte,' and as the Conduit stood at the lower end of Fleet Street, a little eastward of Shoe Lane, we get some idea of the exact locality. He was buried in St. Bride's Churchyard in 1534. W. Griffith was busy at the sign of the Falcon, near St. Dunstan's Church, printing booklets about current events with 'flowery' titles, and these books he sold at his second shop, designated the Griffin, 'a little above the Conduit,' in Fleet Street. William Powell, at the George, was publishing religious books of various sorts, and a 'Description of the Countrey of Aphrique,' a translation of a French book on Africa, which was perhaps the very first on a topic now pretty nearly threadbare. Richard Tottell was dwelling at the Hand and Star, between the two temple gates, and just within Temple Bar,[217:A] whence he sent forth books by a score and more distinguished men, and whose name is worthily linked with those of Littleton, More, Tusser, Grafton, Boccaccio, and many others. In 1577 Elizabeth granted the same individual the privilege of printing 'all kinds of "Law bookes," which was common to all printers, who selleth the same bookes at excessive prices, to the hindrance of a greate nomber of pore students.' Other Fleet Street booksellers were William Copland, who issued a number of books, T. and W. Powell, and Henry Wykes.

Two of the earliest Fleet Street booksellers, Robert Redman and Richard Pynson, quickly got at loggerheads, the bone of contention being Pynson's device or mark, which his rival stole. These are the neighbourly terms which Pynson applies to Redman; they occur at the end of a new edition of Littleton's 'Tenures,' 1525: 'Behold I now give to thee, candid reader, a Lyttleton corrected (not deceitfully) of the errors which occurred in him. I have been careful that not my printing only should be amended, but also that with a more elegant type it should go forth to the day: that which hath escaped from the hands of Robert Redman, but truly Rudeman, because he is the rudest out of a thousand men, is not easily understood. Truly I wonder now at last that he hath confessed it his own typography, unless it chanced that even as the Devil made a cobbler a mariner, he hath made him a Printer. Formerly this scoundrel did profess himself a Bookseller, as well skilled as if he had started forth from Utopia. He knows well that he is free who pretendeth to books, although it be nothing more.' This pretty little quarrel continued some time, and broke out with renewed vigour on one or two subsequent occasions; but the rivals ultimately became friends, and when Pynson retired from business, he made over his stock to 'this scoundrel' Redman, who then removed to Pynson's shop, next to St. Dunstan's Church.

The bibliopolic history of Fleet Street is almost synonymous with the literary history of this country. Anything like an exhaustive account, even so far as relates to the bookselling side of the question, would be quite out of place in a work of this description. A few points, therefore, must suffice. Apart from the booksellers already mentioned, the following are also worthy of notice. At the latter part of the sixteenth century Thomas Marsh, of the Prince's Arms, near St. Dunstan's, issued Stow's 'Chronicles,' and was the holder of several licenses for printing; for nearly half a century J. Smethwicke (who died in 1641) had a shop 'under the diall' of St. Dunstan's, whence he issued Shakespeare's 'Hamlet,' 'Love's Labour Lost,' 'Romeo and Juliet,' 'Taming of the Shrew,' as well as works by Henry Burton, Drayton, Greene, Lodge, and others; Richard Marriot was in St. Dunstan's Churchyard early in the seventeenth century, and his ventures included Quarles' 'Emblems,' 1635, Dr. Downes' 'Sermons,' 1640, and Walton's 'Compleat Angler,' 1653, for which 1s. 6d. was asked, and for a good copy of which £310 has been recently paid; Marriot was also the sponsor of the first part of Butler's 'Hudibras,' 1663. Thomas Dring, of the George, near Clifford's Inn; John Starkey, of the Mitre, between the Middle Temple Gate and Temple Bar, the publisher of Shadwell's plays, and for some time an exile at Amsterdam; Abel Roper, of the Black Boy, over against St. Dunstan's Church, and publisher of the Post Boy newspaper; Thomas Bassett, with whom Jacob Tonson was apprenticed; Tonson himself, of the Judge's Head, near the Inner Temple Gate (he started in Chancery Lane), are Fleet Street booksellers of the latter half of the seventeenth century. Early in the following century we get such names as Benjamin Tooke, of the Middle Temple Gate; Edmund Curll, whose chaste publications appeared from the sign of the Dial and Bible, against St. Dunstan's Church; Bernard Lintot, Tonson's great rival and Pope's publisher, of the Cross Keys, between the Temple Gates; Ben Motte, who succeeded Tooke; Andrew Millar, Samuel Highley, John Murray, and many others who might be mentioned, but who were publishers rather than second-hand booksellers.

One of the earliest, and perhaps the very first, of the Fleet Street contingent of booksellers who advertised their stock through the medium of priced catalogues was John Whiston, the younger son of the famous William Whiston. Whiston sold several important libraries, including those of such eighteenth-century celebrities as D'Oyly, Dr. Castell, Wasse, Chishull, Dr. Banks, Prebendary John Wills, Adam Anderson (author of 'The History of Commerce'), and many others; he included a large number of literary men among his acquaintances. From 1756 to 1765 he appears to have been in partnership with Benjamin White, and the libraries which they sold during this period included those of the Rev. Stephen Duck; Thomas Potter, Esq., M.P., son of the Archbishop of Canterbury; Charles Delafaye, Esq., of the Secretary of State's Office; Dr. James Tunstall, Vicar of Rochdale, etc. Of all the second-hand booksellers of the latter half of the last century the most considerable was the Benjamin White above mentioned, whose shop was at the sign of Horace's Head, in Fleet Street, and whose bulky catalogues, often including over 10,000 lots, are now very rare and exceptionally interesting. The contents of these catalogues were classified, first into three divisions, folio, quarto, and octavo and duodecimo, and then again into numerous sections according to the subject-matter of the volumes. 'The sale will begin' on such and such a day, and 'catalogues may be had' at various stated booksellers' shops in London, and at Oxford, and 'the principal towns of England.' From 1716 to 1792 Benjamin White and his son and namesake issued catalogues of various collections of books, including the libraries (or selections from) of Dr. Thomas, Bishop of Salisbury; Sir William Calvert, M.P. for London; Dr. Secker; Rev. Joseph Spence; Dr. Hutchinson, editor of Xenophon; Dr. William Borlase; Dr. Matthew Maty, Secretary of the Royal Society, and Principal Librarian, British Museum; Sir Richard Jebb; Rev. John Bowles, editor of 'Don Quixote'; Rev. John Lightfoot, chaplain to the Countess Dowager of Portland, and author of the 'Flora Scotica.'

One of White's best customers was the eccentric George Steevens, who, however, discontinued his daily visits, after many years' regular attendance, for no real cause. He then transferred his attentions to Stockdale's, whom in turn he abruptly forsook. The elder Benjamin retired from business with 'a plentiful fortune,' and died at his house in South Lambeth in March, 1794, and Benjamin junior retired to Hampstead a few years after his father, leaving the business to a younger brother, John, who continued bookselling until the earlier part of the present century, when he, in his turn, gave up active work for the 'enjoyment of a country life' with 'an easy competence.' In one of the catalogues of this celebrated firm—our copy is minus the title-page, but it was evidently issued about 1790—four of the most interesting entries occur among the folios: Caxton's 'Lyfe of the Faders,' with 'curious old wooden plates, not quite perfect, in Russia,' is priced at £5 5s.; Caxton's 'Lyfe of our Lady,' by John Lydgate, is offered at 10s. 6d.; a fair copy of Caxton's 'Lyfe of St. Katherine of Senis' is figured at £10 10s., the price asked also for a 'fair, not quite perfect' example of the 'Golden Legende.' A Second Folio Shakespeare is priced at £4; a Fourth Folio at £1 7s. The same catalogue includes a copy of the famous 'Book of Hawking and Hunting,' printed at St. Albans in 1486, but unfortunately the price is omitted, as is the case with several other important rarities. The Whites published some fine natural history books, including those of Pennant, Latham, and White of Selborne; the last was a relative of the booksellers. Whiston was succeeded by Nathaniel Conant, who sold, inter alia, the library of Samuel Speed, 1776, and John White was succeeded by his partner, J. G. Cochrane. Sixty years ago Charles Tilt, afterwards Tilt and Bogue, occupied 85, Fleet Street, and a charming view of this shop appears in Cruikshank's 'Almanack' for March, 1835.

Although the bookselling history of Fleet Street did not cease with the general migration of booksellers, from the end of the last to the beginning of the present century much of its glory as such had departed. During the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century its bibliopolic annals are indeed few. One of its most interesting houses was situated at No. 39, upon part of the site of the present banking-house of Messrs. Hoare. Here formerly stood the famous Mitre Tavern; this place was much damaged during the Great Fire, and was partly rebuilt. In the last century it was a favourite resort of Wanley, Vertue, Dr. Stukeley, Hawkesworth, Percy, Johnson, Boswell, and many other celebrities. Johnson and Boswell first dined here in 1763. It was here that the 'Tour to the Hebrides' was planned; it was here also, at a supper given by Boswell to the Doctor, Goldsmith, Davies, the bookseller, Eccles, and the Rev. John Ogilvie, that Johnson delivered himself of the theory that 'the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is in the highroad that leads to England.' From 1728 to 1753 the Society of Antiquaries met here, and for some time also the Royal Society held its meetings in this place. In 1788 the tavern ceased to exist, and the house became the 'Poets' Gallery' of Macklin, whose edition of the Bible is described as an unrivalled monument of his taste and energy. Thomas Macklin died in 1800, and the erstwhile Mitre gave place—possibly not at once, but certainly very soon after—to Saunders' Auction-rooms. The most important sale which occurred here, and of which we have discovered any record, was an anonymous one in February, 1818; the catalogue was entitled 'Bibliotheca Selecta: Library of an eminent Collector, removed from the North of England.' This sale occupied six days, and comprised a very fine series of books of old English poetry, history, topography, and illustrated books. For instance, a very fine copy in a genuine state of the First Folio Shakespeare realized the then high figure of £121 16s. A copy of Yates's 'Castell of Courtesie,' 1582, sold for £23 2s., Steevens' copy eighteen years previously going for £2 10s. A large number of other excessively rare books, several of which were unique, were sold here at the same time; but whose they were, or how they could have drifted into such an unimportant auction centre as Saunders', are questions which we are not able to answer. Fifty years ago there were at least three important firms of literary auctioneers in Fleet Street—Henry Southgate (who eventually turned author, and who died about three years ago), at No. 22; L. A. Lewis, at No. 125; and E. Hodgson, referred to on p. 116. At each of these three centres many extensive collections of books came under the hammer. When the elder Southgate died or retired, in about 1837, two of his assistants, Grimston and Havers, left, and started on their own account at 30, Holborn Hill, making the auction of books a speciality; but their existence appears to have been brief.

The neighbourhood had, however, a book-auction repute long before the present century dawned, and the Rose Tavern, near Temple Bar, was a favourite locality for this method of selling books. Samuel Baker here sold the entire library ('Bibliotheca Elegans') of Alderman Sir Robert Baylis in 1749, and that of Conyers Middleton, Principal Librarian of the University of Cambridge, March 4, 1750-51, and nine following days—by order and for the benefit of the widow, who in the preface 'takes this opportunity to assure the public that this catalogue contains the genuine library of Dr. Middleton, without any alteration, and is sold for my advantage'—there were 1,300 lots.

THE STRAND.

The modernization of the Strand, but more particularly the erection of the New Law Courts from Temple Bar to Clement's Inn, has destroyed very many book-hunting and literary localities. This project involved the obliteration of thirty-three streets, lanes and courts, and the levelling of 400 dwelling, lodging and ware houses, and so forth, sheltering over 4,000 individuals. It has entirely altered the aspect of the place; not perhaps before it was necessary, for the whole neighbourhood had degenerated into rookeries of the vilest description. Among the localities swept away, a brief reference may be made to one which has a twofold interest—Butcher Row—first, because Clifton's Eating-house, one of Dr. Johnson's favourite resorts, was in this Row, and secondly because one of the earliest catalogues of second-hand books was issued from within a yard or two of Clifton's. J. Stephens' shop was at the sign of the Bible in Butcher Row, and towards the latter part of 1742 he published 'a catalogue of several libraries of books lately purchased, in several languages,' etc., the price of each book being, as usual, marked on the first leaf before the sale commenced, which sale was announced to begin 'on Tuesday, the 2nd of November, 1742,' and 'to continue till all are sold.' For a copy of this exceedingly rare and interesting catalogue we are indebted to Mr. Dobell, the bookseller. It comprises twenty-six pages octavo, and enumerates over 1,300 books, the majority of which are priced. There are very few volumes in this list which are now included in anyone's desiderata, but the list itself is a very good indication of the book-buying tastes of our forbears of a century and half ago. Butcher Row, it may be mentioned, was immediately beyond St. Clement's Church (on the northern side of the Strand), and by the end of the last century had degenerated into a number of wretched fabrics and narrow passages, the houses greatly overhanging their foundations; in or about 1802, this street was pulled down and gave place to Pickett Street, so named because the improvement was the scheme of Alderman Pickett.

One of the last bookselling haunts to be pulled down was the quaint old shop occupied by the late Charles Hutt (who, by the way, was born in the vestry of the Clare Market chapel-of-ease) where many famous book-hunters had picked up bargains. Charles Hutt, had he lived, would have become one of the leading booksellers of the day. He was for some years at Hodgson's, and possessed a remarkable taste for, and knowledge of, books. He left Hodgson's and started on his own account in the old ramshackle house already referred to. This shop presented so unfavourable an exterior that even the Income-tax Fiend never 'called in,' although at one time there were several thousands of pounds' worth of books in it. Hutt did a very extensive trade, not only in this country, but in America. He had an especial aptitude at completing sets of particular authors—Landor, Leigh Hunt, Byron, Shelley—and contributed much to the prevailing taste for modern first editions. A younger brother, Mr. F. H. Hutt, has been for some years established at 10, Clement's Inn Passage, within a few yards of the old shop. The associations of the past half-century of this neighbourhood include two other well-known firms of booksellers. Theophilus Noble, who had removed from 114, Chancery Lane, was at 79, Fleet Street for some years until his death in 1851, and a member of the same family is still a second-hand bookseller opposite St. Mary-le-Strand Church. Reeves and Turner removed from Noble's old house in Chancery Lane, to the house on the west side of Temple Bar and adjoining it on the north, erected on the site of the famous old bulk-shop, the last of its race, where at one time Crockford, 'Shell-fishmonger and gambler,' lived. When Temple Bar was removed, this shop came down, and Reeves and Turner (who for the second time had to bow to the necessities of 'improvements') opened their well-known place on the south side of the Strand, facing St. Clement's Church. Their spacious shop here for about a quarter of a century was a famous book-haunt, and one of the very few successful ones which have existed in a crowded thoroughfare. It always contained an immense variety of good and useful books, priced at exceedingly moderate amounts, and the poorer book-lover could always venture, generally successfully, on suggesting a small reduction in the prices marked without being trampled in the dust as a thief and a robber. A year or two ago, when the lease of the shop expired, Messrs. Reeves and Turner bibliopolically ceased to exist—there not being a Reeves or a Turner in the Chancery Lane firm of booksellers of that name—but Mr. David Reeves, a son of Mr. William Reeves, started in Wellington Street, Strand, the latter, the doyen of London booksellers, occupying a portion of the house as a publisher and a dealer in remainders.

The most famous bookselling locality in this district is Holywell Street, or, as it is now generally called, Booksellers' Row. This street has always been afflicted with a questionable repute, not without cause, and much of the ill-odour of its past career still clings to it. Even second-hand bookselling has not purged it entirely. Half a century ago its shops were almost entirely taken up with the vendors of second-hand clothes, and the offals of several other more or less disreputable trades. Above these shops resided the Grub Street gentry of the period. 'It was,' says one who knew it well, 'famous for its houses of call for reporters, editors and literary adventurers generally, all of whom formed a large army of needy, clever disciples of the pen, who lived by their wits, if they had any, and in lieu of those estimable qualifications, by cool assurance, impudence, and the gift of their mother tongue in spontaneous and frothy eloquence.' It was also a famous and convenient place 'for literary gentlemen and others, who were desirous of evading bailiffs and sheriffs' officers who might be anxious of making their acquaintance,' for even if they were traced to the Holywell Street entrance of any particular house, they could easily escape into Wych Street, and so slip the myrmidons of the law. It next became the emporium of indecent literature (from which charge it is not yet quite free), but much of this peculiar trade was suppressed by Lord Campbell's Act. For nearly half a century the place has been growing in popularity as a locus standi of the reputable second-hand book trade. Every book-hunter of note has known, or knows, of its many shops. Macaulay, for example, obtained many of his books from Holywell Street. The late Mr. Thoms related, in the Nineteenth Century, a very curious incident which put the great historian in possession of some French mÉmoires of which he had long been endeavouring to secure a copy. Macaulay was once strolling down this street, when he saw in a bookseller's window a volume of Muggletonian tracts. 'Having gone in, examined the volume, and agreed to buy it, he tendered a sovereign in payment. The bookseller had not change, but said if he (Macaulay) would just keep an eye on the shop, he would step out and get it. His name, I think, was Hearle, and he had some relatives of the same name who had shops in the same street. This shop was at the west end of the street, and backed on to Wych Street; and at the back was a small recess, lighted by a few panes of glass, generally somewhat obscured by the dust of ages. While Macaulay was looking round the shop, a ray of sunshine fell through this little window on four little duodecimo volumes bound in vellum. He pulled out one of these to see what the work was, and great was his surprise and delight at finding these were the very French mÉmoires of which he had been in search for many years.'

More rare and interesting books have been picked up in this street during the past forty years than in any other locality. Rumour, which sometimes tells the truth, says that Shelley's copy, with his autograph on the title-page, of Ossian's 'Poems' was picked up here for a few pence. A book with Shakespeare's autograph on the title-page was also said to have been rescued from among a lot of cheap books in this locality a few years ago. We are not certain, but we believe that the Shakespeare autograph has been proved to be a forgery. If that is so, then perhaps the honour of being the greatest 'find' ever discovered, about four years ago, in Holywell Street, pertains to a perfect copy of 'Le Pastissier FranÇois,' 1655, the most valuable of all the Elzevirs, its value being from about £60 to £100. The copy in question was bound up with a worthless tract, and history has not left on record what the bookseller thought when he discovered his ignorance. A copy of the first edition of Horne's 'Orion,' 1843, was purchased in this street for 2d. in 1886, its market value being about £2. It was originally issued at 1/4d., by way of sarcasm on the low estimation of epic poetry. The Holywell Street bookseller did not appraise it at a much higher figure than the author. Scarcely a week passes without a volume possessing great personal or historic interest being 'bagged' in this narrow but delightful thoroughfare. Many of these finds, it is true, may not be of great commercial value, but they are oftentimes very desirable books in more respects than one. The present writer has been fortunate in this matter. No person would now rank James Boswell, for instance, among great men, but a book in two volumes, with the following inscription, 'James Boswell, From the Translator near Padua, 1765,' would not be reckoned costly at 1s., the book in question being a beautiful copy of Cesarotti's translation into Italian of Ossian's 'Poems.' David Hume's own copy of 'Histoire du Gouvernement de Venise,' par le Sieur Amelot de la Houssaie, 1677, was not dear at 6d., and at a similar price was obtained an excessively rare volume (for which a well-known book-collector had been on the look-out in vain for many years), whose contents are little indicated by the title of 'Roman Tablets,' 1826, but whose nature is at all events suggested by the sub-title of 'Facts, Anecdotes, and Observations on the Manners, Customs, Ceremonies and Government of Rome.' It is a terrific exposure (originally written in French), for which the author was prosecuted at the solicitation of the Pope's Nuncio at Paris. The late John Payne Collier has told of a Holywell Street 'find' as far back as January 20, 1823, when he picked up a very nice clean copy of Hughes' 'Calypso and Telemachus,' 1712, for which he paid 2s. 6d. It was not, however, until he reached home that he discovered the remarkable nature of his purchase, which had belonged to Pope, who had inscribed in his own autograph thirty-eight couplets, addressed 'To Mr. Hughes, On His Opera.' These are only a selection from an extensive series of more or less interesting 'finds,' of which every collector has a store.

Two of the earliest and best-known of the more important Holywell Street booksellers passed away some years ago. 'Tommy' Arthur, who made a respectable fortune out of the trade, and whose shop and connections are now in the possession of W. Ridler, who is a successful trader, and a man of considerable independence as regards the conventionalities of appearances. (Our artist's portrait of this celebrity in his brougham, indulging in the extravagance of a clay pipe, had not arrived at the time of going to press, so it must be held over until the next edition of this book.) Joseph Poole was another Holywell Street bookseller of an original type, with his quaint semi-clerical attire. This bibliopole's relatives still carry on business in this street, school-books being with them a speciality. The doyen of the street is Mr. Henry R. Hill, whose two shops are at the extreme east end of the street. Mr. Hill has been here for about forty years, and has seen many changes, not only in the general character of the street, but also of the tastes in book-fancies. Mr. Hill's shops, with Mrs. Lazarus's three hard by, are full of interesting books, priced at very moderate figures. The latter has been established here for about fifteen years. Messrs. Myers, who also occupy three bookshops in this street, were for some years with Mrs. Lazarus; and Mr. W. R. Hill acquired a great deal of his book-knowledge at Reeves and Turner's. Mr. Charles Hindley has been long established in this street.

The step from fifth-rate book-making to second-hand bookselling is not a great one, and just as Holywell Street sheltered the Grub-writers of half a century ago, so Drury Lane and its immediate vicinity was their recognised locality in the earlier part of the last century. It is impossible to associate respectability, to say nothing of fashion, with this evil-smelling, squalid thoroughfare. And yet there can be no question about its having been at one time an aristocratic quarter. Until within the last few years, the Lane itself, and its numerous tributaries, contained many second-hand bookshops. The most celebrated, and, indeed, almost the only one of any interest, was Andrew Jackson, who made a speciality of old and black-letter books. Nichols tells us that for more than forty years he kept a shop in Clare Market, and here, 'like another Magliabecchi, midst dust and cobwebs, he indulged his appetite for reading; legends and romances, history and poetry, were indiscriminately his favourite pursuits.' In 1740 he published the first book of 'Paradise Lost' in rhyme, and ten years afterwards a number of modernizations from Chaucer. The contents of his catalogues of the years 1756, 1757, 1759, and one without date, were in rhyme. He retired in 1777, and died in July, 1778, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. Charles Marsh, another literary bookseller, was for some time a friend and neighbour of Jackson's. Marsh (who afterwards removed to a shop now swallowed by the improvements in Northumberland Avenue, Charing Cross) was situated at Cicero's Head, in New Round Court, off the Strand, and is described by one who knew him as being afflicted with 'a very unhappy temper, and withal very proud and insolent, with a plentiful share of conceit.' He wrote a poem entitled 'The Library, an Epistle from a Bookseller to a Gentleman, his Customer; desiring him to discharge his bill,' 1766. He was originally a church-clerk. The only catalogue of this celebrity which we have seen is a bulky one, over 100 pages octavo, enumerating 3,000 books, 'among which are included the libraries of the Rev. Mr. Gilbert Burnet, Minister of Clerkenwell, and an eminent apothecary, both lately deceased.' The date is May 7, 1747. Some of the prices in this catalogue can only be described as absurd; for example, Lydgate's 'Bochas; or, The Fall of Princes,' 1517, 5s.; a collection of old plays and poems, two volumes, 1592, 6s.; Tusser's 'Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry,' 1574, 2s. 6d.; and black-letter books by the score are here offered at sums from one to three or four shillings each. The neighbourhood has for many years ceased to be a bookselling locality, for although book-hunters prefer side-streets and quiet thoroughfares for the prosecution of their hobby, the pestiferous vapours of Drury Lane would kill any bibliopolic growth more vigorous than a newsvendor's shop.

When, by slow degrees, the various trades moved in a direction west of Temple Bar, it was only natural that the trade in second-hand books should be similarly attracted. The Strand itself, which, at the end of the last century and beginning of the present, was a much narrower street than it is now, is not, and never has been, a great book-emporium, for a reason which we have more than once pointed out. But the immediate vicinity has been for over a century and a half, as it still continues to be, the favourite locality of some of the chief booksellers. To-day the Strand proper only contains three representatives, in Messrs. H. Sotheran and Co., the finer of whose two shops is in Piccadilly, and Mr. David Nutt (both of whom are, however, vendors of new books, and often act as publishers), and Messrs. Walford. Within a stone's-throw of the main thoroughfare we have John Galwey and Suckling and Galloway, Garrick Street; James Gunn and Nattali, Bedford Street; B. F. Stevens, Trafalgar Square; H. Fawcett, King Street; W. Wesley and Sons, Essex Street; and many others. One of the most interesting incidents in connection with the Strand relates to a house which stood between Arundel and Norfolk Streets, where, at the end of the seventeenth century, lived the father of Bishop Burnet. 'This house,' says Dr. Hughson, writing in 1810, 'continued in the Burnet family till within living memory, being possessed by a bookseller of the same name—a collateral descendant of the Bishop.' Of much more importance, however, is the fact that at 132, Strand a bookseller named Wright started, about 1730, the first circulating library in London. About ten years afterwards he was succeeded by William Bathoe ('a very intelligent bookseller' who died in October, 1768), who carried on the circulating library in addition to bookselling. Bathoe was a book-auctioneer as well as a retail vendor; he sold the books of 'William Hogarth, Esq., sergeant-painter,' under the hammer. In or about the year 1747 he had established himself 'in Church Lane, near St. Martin's Church in the Strand, almost opposite York Buildings,' whence he issued a thirty-eight-paged (octavo) catalogue, comprising the 'valuable library of the learned James Thompson Esq., deceased, with the collection of a gentleman lately gone abroad'; this list enumerates nearly 1,000 items, the prices, ranging from 6d. upwards, being uniformly low. Walton's 'Compleat Angler,' 1661, 'with neat cuts,' would not be long unsold at 3s. 6d.; and the same may be said of Purchas's 'Pilgrimage,' 1617, 2s. 6d.; of Rochester's complete poems at 2s.; and very many others. At 'No. 18 in the Strand' lived J. Mathews, the bookseller, and father of Charles Mathews, the actor; and in this house the latter was born. Jacob Tonson was at 'Shakespeare's Head, over against Catherine Street, in the Strand,' now 141; the house, since rebuilt, was afterwards occupied by Andrew Millar, who deposed Shakespeare, and erected Buchanan's Head instead. Millar was succeeded by his friend and apprentice, Thomas Cadell (who became a partner in 1765), in 1767; he retired in 1793. Cadell's son then became head of the concern, and took William Davies into partnership. The firm of Cadell and Davies existed until the death of the latter in 1820, after which Cadell (the Opulent Bookseller of Beloe) continued it in his own name until his death in 1836. Samuel Bagster; Whitmore and Fenn; J. Walter (an apprentice of Robert Dodsley, and the founder of the Times); William Brown (an apprentice of Sandby), Essex Street, who died in 1797, and who was succeeded by Robert Bickerstaff; Henry Chapman, Chandos Street, 1790-1795; W. Lowndes; and Walter Wilson, of the Mews Gate, were Strand booksellers of more or less note during the latter part of the last, and the earlier part of the present, century.

CHARING CROSS AND NEIGHBOURHOOD.

John Millan was one of the most famous of Charing Cross or Whitehall booksellers, for he was located here for over half a century, dying in 1784, aged over eighty-one years. Richard Gough drew the following picture of Millan's shop in March, 1772: 'On my return from Westminster last night, I penetrated the utmost recesses of Millan's shop, which, if I may borrow an idea from natural history, is incrusted with literature and curiosities like so many stalactitical exudations. Through a narrow alley, between piles of books, I reached a cell, or adytum, whose sides were so completely cased with the same supellex that the fireplace was literally enchÂsse dans la muraille. In this cell sat the deity of the place, at the head of a whist party, which was interrupted by my inquiry after Dillenius in sheets. The answer was, he "had none in sheets or blankets."... I emerged from this shop, which I consider as a future Herculaneum, where we shall hereafter root out many scarce things now rotting on the floor, considerably sunk below the level of the new pavement.' Millan was succeeded by Thomas and John Egerton, the latter being 'a bookseller of great eminence'—the Black-letter Bookseller of Beloe—whose death occurred in 1795. 'It was in his time,' says Beloe, 'that Old English books, of a particular description both in prose and verse, were, for some cause or other—principally, perhaps, as they were of use in the illustration of Shakespeare—beginning to assume a new dignity and importance, and to increase in value at the rate of 500 per cent.' Another Charing Cross bookseller, Samuel Leacroft (who succeeded Charles Marsh), died in 1795, and it is rather curious that John Egerton was a son-in-law of Lockyer Davis, whilst his neighbour was an apprentice.

Of Samuel Baker, whose shop was in Russell Street, Covent Garden, we have already spoken in our account of book-auctioneers. One of his early—May, 1747—catalogues (not auction) comprises the libraries of Dr. Robert Uvedale, and of this divine's son and namesake, also a D.D., of Enfield; it enumerates over 3,000 items. Thomas Becket (an apprentice of Millar, and Sterne's first publisher) and P. De Hondt were successful Strand booksellers; the former finally settled himself in Pall Mall, and was one of the first to make a speciality of foreign books, of which he imported large quantities between 1761 and 1766. C. Heydinger, of the Strand, was a German bookseller who issued catalogues from 1771 to 1773, and who died in distressed circumstances about 1778. Henry Lasher Gardner, who died at a very advanced age in 1808, was a venerable bookseller, whose shop was opposite St. Clement's Church, Strand; he published catalogues between 1786 and 1793. William Otridge, at first alone, and afterwards in partnership with his son, issued catalogues from the Strand during the last quarter of the last century. In 1796 Joseph Pote was selling books at the Golden Door, over against Suffolk Street, Charing Cross. John Nourse (died 1780), bookseller to his Majesty, was another celebrated bibliopole of the Strand, and is described by John Nichols as 'a man of science, particularly in the mathematical line.' Francis Wingrave succeeded Nourse.

One of the most celebrated booksellers of this neighbourhood during the last half of the eighteenth century was Tom Davies, who sported his rubric posts[237:A] in Russell Street, Covent Garden, and who was driven from his position as actor in Garrick's company by Churchill's killing satire:

In spite of satirists, the verdict of his contemporaries is ratified, so to speak, in voting Tom Davies a good fellow. Dr. John Campbell described him as 'not a bookseller, but a gentleman dealing in books'; and the Rev. P. Stockdale described him as 'the most gentleman-like person of that trade whom I ever knew.' Dr. Johnson said he was 'learned enough for a clergyman,' which was an equivocal compliment, for the clergymen of the period were not, as a rule, learned. Davies was generally talkative, but at times quite the reverse, and sometimes uttered pious ejaculations. Between 1764 and 1776 Davies sold a number of interesting and valuable libraries—those, for example, of William Shenstone and William Oldys. Davies, like many other contemporary booksellers, was fond of scribbling, and was the author of 'Memoirs of Garrick,' and other books.

Probably the most famous bookseller of the Strand is Thomas Payne, who for over half a century (1740-1794) was selling books in this locality. 'Honest Tom Payne' started business in or about 1740, for in February of that year he issued a catalogue of 'curious books in divinity, history, classics, medicine, voyages, natural history,' etc., from the 'Round Court,[237:B] in the Strand, opposite York Buildings.' About ten years later (January, 1750) he had removed to the Mews Gate to a shop shaped like the letter L, which became one of the most famous literary resorts of the period. Just before leaving Round Court, Tom Payne issued a sort of clearance catalogue, comprising 10,000 volumes, 'which will be sold very cheap.' The Mews Gate was near St. Martin's Church, and probably close to the bottom of the new thoroughfare, Charing Cross Road. It was at this shop that all the book-collectors of the day most congregated, for it was to Tom Payne's that the majority of libraries were consigned—e.g., those of Ralph Thoresby, Sir John Barnard, Francis Grose, Rev. S. Whisson, and many others whose names are now nothing but names, but who were at the time well-known collectors. Tom Payne's customers included all the bibliophiles of the period. 'Must I,' asks Mathias in the 'Pursuits of Literature'—

Mathias describes Tom Payne as 'that Trypho emeritus,' and as 'one of the honestest men living, to whom, as a bookseller, learning is under considerable obligations.' Beloe, in his 'Sexagenarian,' states that at Tom Payne's and at Peter Elmsley's, in the Strand, 'a wandering scholar in search of pabulum might be almost certain of meeting Cracherode, George Steevens, Malone, Wyndham, Lord Stormont, Sir John Hawkins, Lord Spencer, Porson, Burney, Thomas Grenville, Wakefield, Dean Dampier, King of Mansfield Street, Towneley, Colonel Stanley,' and others. Savage professed to have picked up his 'Author to Let' at 'the Mews Gate on my way from Charing Cross to Hedge Lane.' Tom Payne (who was a native of Brackley) came into possession of his famous shop at the Mews' Gate through his marriage with Elizabeth Taylor, whose brother built and for some time occupied it. About 1776 Tom Payne ('Bookseller Extraordinary to the Prince Regent, and Bookseller to the University of Oxford') took his son into partnership, to whom fourteen years later he relinquished the business, and died in February, 1799, in his eighty-second year. Thomas Payne the younger (to whom Dibdin dedicated his 'Library Companion,' 1825) remained here until 1806, when he removed to Pall Mall; in 1813 he took Henry Foss, who had been his apprentice, into partnership. The former died in 1831, and was succeeded by his nephew, John Payne, and Henry Foss, who retired from the trade in 1850, when their stock came under the hammer at Sotheby's. In the preface to his 'Library Companion,' 1825, Dibdin speaks very highly of the catalogue of Payne and Foss: 'Since the commencement of this work, Messrs. Payne and Foss have published a catalogue of 10,051 articles. I have smiled, in common with many friends, to observe rare and curious volumes selling for large sums at auctions, when sometimes better copies of them may be obtained in that incomparable repository in Pall Mall at two-thirds of the price. Whoever wants a classical fitting out must betake themselves to this repository.'

The bibliopolic history of the Mews Gate did not terminate with the younger Tom Payne. When he removed to a more aristocratic quarter, the shop passed into the occupation of William Sancho, the negro bookseller, whose father, Ignatius, was born in 1729 on board a ship in the slave trade soon after it had quitted the coast of Guinea. William Sancho died before 1817, and was succeeded at the Mews Gate by James Bain, who afterwards removed to No. 1, Haymarket, where the business is still carried on, 'in accordance with the best bookselling traditions, by his younger son, the second James Bain having died early in 1894.' The Mews was taken down in 1830, and was used in its latter days to shelter Cross's Menagerie from Exeter 'Change.

One of the oldest firms of Strand booksellers was that started in 1686 by Paul Vaillant, who, at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, escaped to England. His shop was opposite Southampton Street, and his chief dealings were in foreign books. He was succeeded by his sons Paul and Isaac, and then by his grandson, Paul III., the son of Paul II. The second Paul purchased a quantity of books at Freebairn's sale for the Earl of Sunderland, and his joy at securing the copy of Virgil's 'Opera,' printed 'per Zarothum,' 1472, is duly chronicled by Nichols; he was one of the booksellers employed by the Society for the Encouragement of Learning. He died in 1802, aged eighty-seven, and as both of his two sons had elected to follow other occupations, the business passed into the hands of Peter Elmsley, the great friend and companion of Gibbon, whose 'Decline and Fall,' however, he did not see his way to publish; he was a great linguist, and possessed 'an amount of general knowledge that fitted him for conversation and correspondence upon a familiar and equal footing with the most illustrious and accomplished of his day.' At the end of the last century he resigned the business to his shopman, David Bremner, 'whose anxiety for acquiring wealth rendered him wholly careless of indulging himself in the ordinary comforts of life, and hurried him prematurely to the grave.' He was succeeded by James Payne (the youngest son of the famous Tom) and J. Mackinlay, both of whom also came to premature ends, the former through being long confined as a prisoner in France.

Among the most famous of the Strand booksellers of the earlier part of the present century were Rivington and Cochran, of No. 148 (near Somerset House), and Thomas Thorpe, of 38, Bedford Street. With these two firms it really seemed a question as to which could issue the most bulky catalogues. The earliest example which we have seen of the former is dated 1825; it extends to over 800 pages, and comprises nearly 18,000 items in various languages and in every department of literature. Thomas Thorpe was undoubtedly the giant bibliopole of the period. If anything striking or original occurred in the bookselling world, it was generally Thorpe who did it. Dibdin describes him as 'indeed a man of might.' His catalogues, continues the same writer, 'are of never-ceasing production, thronged with the treasures which he has gallantly borne off, at the point of his lance, in many a hard day's fight, in the Pall Mall and Waterloo Place arenas. But these conquests are no sooner obtained than the public receives an account of them, and during the last year only his catalogues, in three parts, now before me, comprise no fewer than 179,059 articles. What a scale of buying and selling does this fact alone evince! But in this present year two parts have already appeared, containing upwards of 12,000 articles. Nor is this all. On September 24, 1823, there appeared the most marvellous phenomenon ever witnessed in the annals of bibliopolism.[241:A] The Times had four of the five columns of its last page occupied by an advertisement of Mr. Thorpe, containing the third part of his catalogue for that year. On a moderate computation, this advertisement comprised 1,120 lines. The effect was most extraordinary. Many wondered, and some remonstrated; but Mr. Thorpe was master of his own mint, and he never mentions the circumstance but with perfect confidence, and even gaiety of heart, at its success.' Thorpe issued catalogues from 1829 to 1851, and during one year alone, 1843, his lists comprised over 16,000 lots. In 1836 he removed from Bedford Street to 178, Piccadilly. Thorpe was the first merchant in autographs, and Sir Thomas Phillipps was one of the first collectors who flourished in the iniquity of the pursuit, and it was the latter who on one occasion purchased the entire contents of one of Thorpe's autograph catalogues.

Another distinguished bibliopole of this locality, or, more correctly, of Great Newport Street, was Thomas Rodd, who died in April, 1849, in his fifty-third year. The business was really started by his father and namesake, who was a man of considerable literary ability, and who abandoned his intention of entering the Church when he became possessed of a secret for making imitation diamonds, rubies, garnets, etc. In 1809 he added bookselling to that of manufacturing sham stones. After getting into trouble with the Excise on account of the latter accomplishment, he devoted himself entirely to the book-trade. The elder Rodd died in 1822, and his son, the more famous bibliopole, succeeded to the business, which he developed in an extraordinary manner within a few years. His memory and knowledge of books were almost limitless, and, like Thomas Thorpe, most of his schemes were on a scale to create a sensation. Rodd's catalogues are of great bibliographical value. In spite of his extensive connections, his stock at the time of his death was enormous. It was sold, in ten different instalments, at Sotheby's, between November, 1849, and November, 1850.

Henry G. Bohn may be regarded as the connecting link between the old and the new school of booksellers. He was born in London on January 4, 1796, and died in August, 1884. His father was a bookbinder of Frith Street, Soho, but when he removed to Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, he added (in 1814) a business in second-hand books. Between this year and 1830, H. G. Bohn paid repeated visits to the Continent as his father's buyer. In 1831 he married a daughter of Mr. Simpkin, of Simpkin, Marshall and Co. He started in business for himself, and rapidly built up an extensive trade, far exceeding any of his rivals. At about the same time his brother James also started on his own account, at 12, King William Street, Charing Cross, whilst the third brother, John Hutter Bohn, who has been for nearly forty years the cataloguer at Sotheby's and is still living, attended to the original business. Bohn's famous 'Guinea Catalogue' was deservedly regarded as a great triumph in its way, although it has been far surpassed by the splendid catalogues of his whilom apprentice, B. Quaritch. Bohn's fame now rests almost exclusively in his publishing ventures, which proved a veritable gold-mine to the originator, and are still highly lucrative investments in the hands of Messrs. George Bell and Sons. He 'edited' an edition of Lowndes' 'Bibliographer's Manual,' and his name occurs on the title-pages of a great many books dealing with an extensive variety of subjects. It is scarcely necessary to say that Bohn has very little claim to be regarded either as an editor or as an author, unless the cash purchase of the product of other men's brain and study conferred either of these titles upon him. He was, however, a remarkable person, with a very wide knowledge of books. While quite a young man he catalogued the books of Dr. Parr. The growing extent of his publishing business killed the second-hand trade, so far as he was concerned, and his stock was disposed of at Sotheby's in the years 1868, 1870, and 1872, occupying fifty days in selling, and realizing a total of over £13,300. Both Henry G. Bohn and his brother James dealt largely in remainders, and of this class of merchandise each issued catalogues early in the year 1840 (and at other times), and the difference in the extent of the trade done by the two brothers may be indicated by the fact that the catalogue of the former extends to 132 pages, whilst that of the latter is only 16 pages. In this, as in everything else which he undertook, H. G. Bohn was first and his rivals nowhere. One of Bohn's rivals in the 'forties' was Joseph Lilly, who once undertook to purchase everything important in the book line which was offered, but he soon gave up the idea. His shop was for some time at 19, King Street, Covent Garden, and his catalogues always contained a large number of select books. He had served a short time at Lackington's, and was distinguished for the zeal with which he purchased First Folio Shakespeares. Lilly died in 1870, and his vast stock came under the hammer at Sotheby's in six batches, 1871-73.

King William Street, Strand, until the last three or four years, had been for nearly a century a famous emporium of second-hand bookshops. Its most famous inhabitant in this respect was Charles John Stewart (whom Henry Stevens, of Vermont, described as the last of the learned old booksellers), who was born in Scotland at the beginning of the present century, and died on September 17, 1883. He was one of Lackington's pupils, and started as a second-hand bookseller with Howell, subsequently carrying on the business alone. His chief commodity was theological books, and when his stock—perhaps the largest of its kind known—came to be sold, it realized close on £5,000. Joel Rowsell was another famous bibliopole who resided in this street, and he, like Stewart, retired in 1882. G. Bumstead (whose speciality was curious or eccentric books; he was distinctly an 'old' bookseller, for he rarely bought anything printed after 1800), Molini and Green, J. M. Stark, and J. W. Jarvis and Sons, were also, at one time or another, in this bookselling thoroughfare, which is now entirely deserted by the fraternity. Doubtless one of the most successful of modern bibliopoles who lived in the vicinity of the Strand is Mr. F. S. Ellis, who was an apprentice of James Toovey, and who in a comparatively few years built up a business second only to that of Quaritch. Mr. Ellis (who purchased the valuable freewill of T. and W. Boone's connection) compiled the greater portion of the catalogue of the celebrated Huth Library, and since he has retired to Torquay has taken up book-editing with all the zeal which characterized his earlier career as a bookseller. Mr. Ellis's shop was at 33, King Street, Covent Garden, and afterwards at 29, New Bond Street, and the prestige of his name is worthily maintained by his nephew, Mr. G. I. Ellis (with whom is Mr. Elvey), at the latter address. The whole neighbourhood of which Covent Garden may be taken as the centre, is full of a bibliopolic history, which dates back to the beginning of the last century. The time when Aldines were to be picked up at 1s. 6d. each, and when Shakespeare Folios were to be had for 30s. each round about the Piazza, has, it is true, long gone by; but a very large library, in almost any branch of literature, may be easily formed, at a very moderate cost, any day within a stone's-throw of London's great vegetable market. It may be mentioned, en passant, that George Willis, the editor-publisher of Willis's Current Notes, was for many years at the Great Piazza, Covent Garden. The firm subsequently became known as Willis and Sotheran, and is now Sotheran and Co.: this highly respectable house was established in Tower Street, E.C., as far back as 1816.

WESTMINSTER HALL.

There is not, perhaps, in the whole world, a more interesting bookselling locality than Westminster Hall. This place is redolent with historical associations, with parliaments, coronations, revelries, and impeachments. Stalls for books, as well as other small merchandise, were permitted in the hall of the palace of Westminster early in the sixteenth century. The poor scholars of Westminster also were employed in hawking books between school-hours. In the procession of sanctuary men who accompanied the Abbot of Westminster and his convent, December 6, 1556, was 'a boy that killed a big boy that sold papers and printed books, with hurling of a stone, and hit him under the ear in Westminster Hall.' In the churchwardens' accounts of the parish of St. Margaret, Westminster, there is, under date 1498-1500, an entry: 'Item, Received for another legende solde in Westmynster halle, vs. viijd.,' the 'legende' being one of the thirteen copies of 'The Golden Legend' bequeathed by Caxton to the 'behove' of the parish of St. Margaret's. Towards the end of the sixteenth century Tom Nash wrote: 'Looke to it, you booksellers and stationers, and let not your shop be infested with any such goose gyblets, or stinking garbadge as the jygs of newsmongers; and especially such of you as frequent Westminster Hall, let them be circumspect what dunghill papers they bring thether: for one bad pamphlet is inough to raise a dampe that may poyson a whole towne,' etc. At first the shops or stalls were ranged along the blank wall on the southern side of the hall. Subsequently they occupied not only the whole of the side, but such portion of the other as was not occupied by the Court of Common Pleas, which then sat within the hall itself, as did the Chancery and King's Bench at its farther end. Gravelot's print of the hall during term-time shows this arrangement. The stationers and other tradespeople in the hall were a privileged class, inasmuch as they were exempt from the pains and penalties relative to the license and regulation of the press. Here as elsewhere there were plenty of inferior books obtainable; Pepys, writing October 26, 1660, and referring to some purchases made in the hall, remarks: 'Among other books, one of the life of our Queen, which I read at home to my wife, but it was so sillily writ that we did nothing but laugh over it.' The stalls were distinguished by signs. One of the early issues of 'Paradise Lost,' 1668, contains the name, among others, of Henry Mortlock, of the White Hart, Westminster Hall, but whose shop was at the Phoenix, St. Paul's Churchyard; Raleigh's 'Remains,' 1675, was printed for Mortlock. The majority of the hall booksellers had regular shops in St. Paul's Churchyard or elsewhere, for it is scarcely likely that they would open these stalls during vacation. Matthew Gilliflower, of the Spread Eagle and Crown, was one of the most enterprising of his class during the last quarter of the seventeenth century. James Collins, of the King's Head, was here contemporaneously with Gilliflower. C. King and Stagg were also extensive partners in 'adventures' in new books, and were among the 'unprejudiced booksellers' who acted as agents for the Gentleman's Magazine during the first year of its existence. At about the same time also, B. Toovey and J. Renn, were selling books here. Early in the reign of George III. the traders were ousted from Westminster Hall; and in 1834 the dirty and mutilated vast parallelogram was thoroughly cleaned and repaired. Westminster Hall as a bookselling centre bears the same affinity to the trade proper as the sweetmeat stalls at a fair bear to confectionery. The books exposed for sale would only by a rare chance be choice or notable, and it was certainly not a likely place for folios or quartos.

BOND STREET AND PICCADILLY.

At the latter part of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, several booksellers had established themselves in Bond Street and Pall Mall. One of the best known is John Parker, 'an honest, good-natured man,' with whom was apprenticed, in 1713, Henry Baker, the antiquary, a friend of John Nichols. Parker's shop was in Pall Mall. At No. 29, New Bond Street, in 1730, we find J. Brindley, a reputable bookseller of his time, and who was one of a society formed in 1736 'for the encouragement of learning,' which had a chequered and an undignified career. His shop was at the sign of the Feathers, and in 1747 he describes himself as 'Bookseller to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales.' The only example of his catalogue which we have seen is dated 1747, and it includes 4,289 lots, among which were long selections of books at 1s. each, or 10s. per dozen, and of others at 6d. each or 5s. per dozen. Brindley was succeeded in 1759 by his apprentice, a much more celebrated bibliopole, James Robson, who built up a very extensive connection and died in 1806. In company with James Edwards and Peter Molini (the Exotic Bookseller of Beloe), Robson, in 1788, undertook a journey to Venice for the purpose of examining the famous Pinelli Library, which was purchased for about £7,000; it was safely transferred to London and sold by auction in Conduit Street, the total result being £9,356. A large number of more or less famous collections of books passed through Robson's hands, notably those of Sir John Evelyn; Edward Spelman, the translator of Xenophon; the Duke of Newcastle (1770); W. Mackworth Praed (1772); Joseph Smith, Consul at Venice; Dr. Samuel Musgrave; J. Murray, Ambassador at Constantinople. Messrs. Robson and Clark were succeeded early in this century by Nornaville and Fell, who in 1830 made way for T. and W. Boone, who were, as we have said, succeeded by Mr. F. S. Ellis; it is interesting to note that this house had been in the occupation of booksellers for over a century and a half.

The bookselling fraternity had, however, obtained no definite footing until shortly after the middle of the eighteenth century, when James Almon began to acquire notoriety, his political fearlessness more than once bringing him at loggerheads with the authorities. When he first came to London, he worked as a printer at Watts', in Wild's Court, Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he had the frame which had been occupied by Benjamin Franklin. His shop was opposite Burlington House, and for many years this was the meeting-place of the leading Whig politicians. He died in 1805, and was succeeded by J. Debrett, a name still associated with publishing.

During the last few years of the last century, and probably in consequence of the greatly improved condition of the place, Piccadilly and neighbourhood became favourite spots with booksellers, the more notable being James Ridgway, whose 'repository of loyalty' was in York Street, St. James's Square, who died in 1838, aged eighty-three years; T. Hookham, Old Bond Street; and Stockdale, whose name will be for ever associated with that of Erskine in connection with the liberty of the press. Stockdale's shop, No. 178, Piccadilly, was for a long time in the possession of Thomas Thorpe; the place has since been rebuilt. R. Faulder, of New Bond Street, also deserves mention as being one of forty booksellers against whom actions were brought for selling the 'Baviad and MÆviad.' He is the Cunning Bookseller of Beloe, and appears to have been one of the most assiduous frequenters of 'forced' sales of household furniture, etc., where he often happened on books of rarity and value. He 'accumulated a very large property and retired,' but the auri sacra fames pursued him to the end. William Clarke, of New Bond Street, best remembered as the compiler of that very valuable work, 'Repertorium Bibliographicum,' 1819, was established as a bookseller in 1793. During the second half of the last century Samuel Parker and Walter Shropshire were selling second-hand books in New Bond Street. Thomas Beet, who retired from business ten years ago, was a well-known bookseller of Bond Street and Conduit Street, and was a considerable purchaser at the leading auction sales. He frequently had the honour of submitting various special old books for the inspection of the Queen, the Prince of Wales, and other members of the Royal Family, whilst his shop in Conduit Street was a very popular resort of bookish men.

Robert Dodsley, of Tully's Head, is one of the most famous of the Pall Mall booksellers. His shop was next to the passage leading into King Street, and now known as Pall Mall Place. He is perhaps better remembered as an author and compiler than as a bookseller, and best of all as a friend of Dr. Johnson, Pope, Spence, and other literary celebrities; he it was who first urged Johnson to start the famous 'Dictionary.' Dodsley died in 1764, and his business was taken over by his brother James, who survived the founder thirty-three years. The celebrated firm of G. and W. Nicol, booksellers to his Majesty, for many years carried on in Pall Mall in Dodsley's shop, originated with David Wilson and his nephew George Nicol, who started in the Strand about 1773, and who sold, inter alia, the library of Dr. Henry Sacheverell. George Nicol married the niece of the first Alderman Boydell, and was one of the executors of James Dodsley, who left him a legacy of £1,000. He is described as 'a most agreeable companion,' as a member of many of the literary clubs of his day, and enjoyed the friendly confidence of the Duke of Roxburghe, Duke of Grafton, and other eminent book-lovers. He died in Pall Mall, 1829, aged eighty-eight years. Nicol's stock was sold by auction at Evans's in 1825.

The most ancient book-business in Piccadilly is that of Hatchard's, which dates back to 1797. It was started by John Hatchard, who had been an assistant at Tom Payne's. Hatchard was patronized by Queen Charlotte, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Canning, and Dr. Keate. Hatchard is the Godly Bookseller of Beloe; he was a Conservative, dressed like a bishop, and published for Hannah More and the Evangelicals. Zachary Macaulay, Wilberforce, and the other opponents of slavery, once involved Hatchard in a libel action, in which he was found guilty. Hatchard published for Crabbe and for Tupper, and, according to Mr. Humphreys' interesting 'Piccadilly Bookmen,' Liston, Charles Kemble, and other actors, frequented the shop. So did the Duke of Wellington, who, 'when the library of the Duke's brother was sold at Evans's Auction Rooms in Pall Mall, where now stands the Carlton Club ... sent several open commissions for books which he wished secured. Among these was a shilling pamphlet by A. G. Stapleton, with the late owner's notes in pencil. This was put up at 2s. 6d., and ultimately knocked down for £93 to Hatchard, the under-bidder being Sir A. Alison. The Duke, though very much astonished at the price such a mere fragment had fetched, yet admired the obedience to his orders.' The Horticultural Society took its rise in a meeting at Hatchard's, and he also seems to have lent his premises to the 'Outinian Society,' a species of matrimonial agency, which did not last long; but the wonder is how so respectable and cautious a personage ever harboured it. Among his assistants were Fraser, afterwards noted for his magazine, and Tilt.

The two great second-hand booksellers of the Piccadilly of the latter half of the present century are James Toovey and Bernard Quaritch. Toovey's shop at 177, Piccadilly (once occupied by William Pickering, the famous publisher), was for about forty years a favourite haunt of booksellers, for Toovey was a bibliophile as well as a bibliopole. His whole life was spent among books. He was apprenticed at fourteen to a bookseller, and for some time had a shop of his own in St. James's Street. He published Newman's 'Lives of the English Saints,' and other works by the leaders of the Tractarian movement, in addition to a very fine reprint of the 'Aberdeen Breviary,' of the original of which only four imperfect copies exist. An obituary notice describes him as 'very particularly the great authority on bindings. He made a strong speciality in old French red morocco bindings, and during his frequent visits to France brought back large buyings of them. Toovey bought notable books, but unless they had the second qualification of being in a good state, and the bindings valuable, he was less anxious about them. Given a notable book in a notable binding, he would buy it at almost any cost. When the present Mr. James Toovey—James Toovey fils—came into the business, he made a feature of those quaint sport and pastime books which every stroller along the south side of Piccadilly has been wont to stay and look at in Toovey's window. Ten years before his death the old man retired from the business in favour of his son, but his devotion to rare books and rare bindings was his ruling passion to the last. Toovey's, during its career, has known all the prominent book-hunters and a legion of eminent people who have been more than book-collectors. In the leisured times, Toovey's, like Hatchard's further along the street, was something of a resort for literary folk generally, and many people we who are younger are familiar with have been accustomed to find their way across Toovey's doorstep. Mr. Gladstone has visited the shop, and so has Cardinal Manning, and Prince Lucien Bonaparte, and Henry Huth often.' Having acquired a considerable fortune in business, he was able to indulge in the luxury, rare amongst booksellers, of collecting a private library for his own entertainment. He retired from active business several years ago, and passed his remaining days in the ever-delightful society of his bibliographical treasures. He died in September, 1893, in his eightieth year, and his stock of books came under the hammer at Sotheby's in March, 1894, when 3,200 lots realized just over £7,090. His very choice private library is still in the possession of his son, and among its chief cornerstones is the finest First Folio Shakespeare known. Toovey, like the elder Boone, secured many excessively rare books during his personal visits to the Continent. Pickering's son, Basil Montagu Pickering, remained with Toovey for a few years after his father retired, but eventually opened a shop on his own account at 196, Piccadilly, next to St. James's Church, and possessed at one time and another many exceedingly rare books. The name is still continued under the title of Pickering and Chatto, of 66, Haymarket, who continue to use the Aldine device employed both by William Pickering and his son. There is no Pickering in the present firm.

Of all second-hand booksellers, living or dead, Bernard Quaritch is generally conceded to be the king. Mr. Quaritch was born in 1819 at Worbis, Prussia, and after serving an apprenticeship to a bookseller came over to England in 1842, and obtained employment at H. G. Bohn's, with whom he remained (exclusive of two years in Paris) until 1847. He left Bohn's in April of that year, with the observation: 'Mr. Bohn, you are the first bookseller in England, but I mean to be the first bookseller in Europe.' Quaritch started with only his savings as capital, and his first catalogue was nothing more than a broadside, with the titles of about 400 books, the average price of which ranged from 1s. 6d. to 2s. His first big move was made in 1858, when the Bishop of Cashel's library was sold, when he purchased a copy of the Mazarin Bible for £595. In the same year appeared his first large catalogue of books, which comprised nearly 5,000 articles; two years later his catalogue had increased from 182 to 408 pages, and included close on 7,000 articles; in 1868 his complete catalogue consisted of 1,080 pages, and 15,000 articles; in 1880 it had extended to 2,395 pages, describing 28,000 books; but seven years later his General Catalogue consisted of 4,500 pages, containing 40,000 articles. As a purchaser, Mr. Quaritch puts the whilom considered gigantic purchases of Thomas Thorpe entirely into the shade. In July, 1873, he purchased the non-scientific part of the Royal Society's Norfolk Library; a few weeks later at the Perkins sale he bought books and manuscripts to the extent of £11,000; at the sale of Sir W. Tite's books in 1874 the Quaritch purchases amounted to £9,500; at the two Didot sales in 1878 and 1879 his purchases exceeded £11,000 in value; at the Beckford sale in 1882 a little more than half of the total (£86,000) was secured by Mr. Quaritch; at the Sunderland sale, 1881-83, Mr. Quaritch's bill came to over £33,000; at all the other great sales of the past twenty years the largest buyer has invariably been 'B. Q.' In an announcement 'To Book Lovers in all Parts of the World,' the Napoleon of bibliophiles makes the following statement: 'I am desirous of becoming recognised as their London agent by all men outside of England who want books. The need of such an agent is frequently felt abroad by the heads of literary institutions, librarians, and book-lovers generally. They shrink from giving trouble to a bookseller in matters which require more attention and effort than the mere furnishing of some specific article in his stock, and they must often wish that it were possible to have the services of a man of ability and experience at their constant command. Such services I freely offer to anyone who chooses to employ them; no fee is required to obtain them, and not a fraction will be added to the cost of the supplies. The friendly confidence which is necessarily extended to one's agent at a distance will undoubtedly in time bring an ample return for my labours, but so far as the present is concerned, I ask for nothing but the pleasure of attending to the wants of those who are as yet without an agent in London. Whether the books to be procured through my intervention be rare or common, single items or groups, the gems of literature and art or the popular books of the day, I shall be happy to work in every way for book-lovers of every degree. Commissions of any kind may be entrusted to me; I will venture to guarantee satisfaction in every case, even in the delicate matter of getting books appropriately bound. It may likewise be well to state that my offer of agency extends to the selling of foreign books here, as well as to the supply of English books hence.' There is not much that is architecturally beautiful about Mr. Quaritch's shop at 15, Piccadilly, but its interest to the book-lover needs but little emphasis after what has been said. Like all great men, Bernard Quaritch has his little eccentricities, into which we need not now enter. We apologize to him for publishing the following extract, which is, however, not our own, but comes (of course) from an American source: 'Bernard Quaritch's antiquated hat is a favourite theme with London and other bookmen. A committee of the Grolier Club once made a marvellous collection of newspaper clippings about it, and a member of the SociÉtÉ des Bibliophiles Contemporains wrote a tragedy which was a parody of Æschylus. In this tragedy Power and Force and the god Hephaistos nail the hat on Mr. Quaritch's head, like the Titan on the summit of overhanging rocks. Divinities of the Strand and Piccadilly, in the guise of OceanidÆ, try to console the hat; but less fortunate than Prometheus, the hat knows it is for ever nailed, and not to be rescued by Herakles. However, tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse, as Dumas said, for Mr. Quaritch has bought a new hat, and a journal of London announces that the epic hat is enshrined in glass in the bibliopole's drawing-room.'

One of the most modern of book-thoroughfares deserves a brief reference here. Charing Cross Road has for some years been a popular and successful resort of booksellers and book-hunters. It is within convenient reach of both the Strand and Holborn, and is only two or three minutes' walk from Piccadilly Circus. The books offered for sale here are, for the most part, priced at exceedingly moderate rates. Mr. Bertram Dobell may be regarded as the chief of the trade here, possessing, as he does, two large shops well filled with books of all descriptions. Mr. Dobell's catalogues are very carefully compiled, and possess a literary flavour by no means common; his lists of privately-printed books form a most valuable contribution to the bibliography of the subject. Mr. John Lawler, for many years chief cataloguer at Puttick's, and more recently at Sotheby's, had a shop in Charing Cross Road, which he has just given up; and Mr. A. E. Cooper, who makes a speciality of first editions of modern authors and curious and out-of-the-way books, both French and English.

[176:A] Sewell, Cornhill, and Becket and De Hondt, Strand, were among the last to use these curious trade signs.