Caxton's immediate successors met with a fate similar to his own. The most remarkable feature of Richard Rawlinson's[136:A] library (sold by Samuel Leigh in 1756), which contained nearly 25,000 volumes, consisted in the large quantity of Old English black-letter books, and these, of course, realized absurdly low figures, as the following list testifies:

L s. d. 'The Newe Testament in English,' 1500 0 2 9 'The Ymage of both Churches, after the Revelation of St. John,' by Bale, 1550 0 1 6 'The Boke called the Pype or Toune of Perfection,' by Richard Whytforde, 1532 0 1 9 'The Visions of Pierce Plowman,' 1561 0 2 0 'The Creede of Pierce Plowman,' 1553 0 1 6 'The Booke of Moses in English,' 1530 0 3 9 'Bale's Actes of English Votaryes,' 1550 0 1 3 'The Boke of Chivalrie,' by Caxton 0 11 0 'The Boke of St. Albans,' by W. de Worde 1 1 0



The very high price paid for the 'Boke of St. Albans' is noteworthy, for nearly all the other items are equally rare. In 1844, a copy of this 'boke' was sold as waste-paper for 9d., and almost immediately passed into the possession of Mr. Grenville for L70 or guineas. Dr. Mead's copy—one of the only two known—of 'Rhetorica Nova Fratris Laurentii Gulielmi de Sacra,' printed at St. Albans, 1480, sold for 2s. At the Willett sale, in 1813, it brought L79 16s.



The rarity of the English translations of the Bible and New Testament arises from just the opposite cause which has operated in making the early productions of the English press so scarce. The latter were for the most part neglected out of existence, whilst the former were literally read out of it. A complete copy of the editio princeps Coverdale, 1535, is, we believe, unknown. One illustration will sufficiently indicate the enhanced value of this book, and the illustration may be taken as a general one in respect to this class of book: The Perkins copy, which realized L400 in 1873, was purchased at the Dent sale in 1827 for L89 5s. The more perfect of the only two copies known of Tyndale's New Testament, first edition, 1526, in the Baptists' Library at Bristol, is of great interest, and well deserving of a mention in this place. It has no title-page. Underneath a portrait, pasted to the first leaf, is this inscription:

'Hoh Maister John Murray of Sacomb, The works of old Time to collect was his pride, Till oblivion dreaded his care; Regardless of friends intestate he dy'd, So the Rooks and the Crows were his heir.'



On the opposite leaf is a printed statement to this effect: 'On Tuesday evening (13 May, 1760) at Mr. Langford's sale of Mr. Ames's books, a copy of the translation of the New Testament by Tindall, and supposed to be the only one remaining which escaped the flames, was sold for fourteen guineas and a half. This very book was picked up by one of the late Lord Oxford's collectors ['John Murray' written in the margin], and was esteemed so valuable a purchase by his lordship, that he settled L20 a year for life upon the person who procured it. His Lordship's library being afterwards purchased by Mr. Osborne, of Gray's Inn, he marked it at fifteen shillings, for which price Mr. Ames bought it.' (John Murray died in 1748.) On the other side of the leaf is another note, in manuscript: 'N.B. This choice book was purchased at Mr. Langford's sale, 13th May, 1760, by me John White [for L15 14s. 6d.], and on the 13th day of May, 1776, I sold it to the Rev. Dr. Gifford for 20 guineas.' Dr. Gifford was an assistant librarian at the British Museum, and left his library to the use of the Baptist Society at Bristol.

Before leaving the subject of Bibles, we may refer to one of the most interesting events of the book-sale season of 1836, when, at Evans's on April 27, the superb copy of St. Jerome's Bible, executed by Alcuin for Charlemagne, came up for sale. Commenced about the year 778, it was not completed till 800. When it was finished it was sent to Rome by his friend and disciple, Nathaniel, who presented it to Charlemagne on the day of his coronation; it was preserved by that monarch until his death. Its subsequent history is full of interest, and would form an entertaining chapter in the Adventures of Books. After its first owner's death, it is supposed to have been given to the monastery of Prum in Lorraine by Lothaire, the grandson of Charlemagne, who became a monk of that monastery. In 1576, this religious house was dissolved, but the monks preserved the manuscript, and carried it to Switzerland to the abbey of Grandis Vallis, near Basle, where it reposed till the year 1793, when, on the occupation of the episcopal territory of Basle by the French, all the property of the abbey was confiscated and sold, and the manuscript in question came into the possession of M. Bennot, from whom, in 1822, it was purchased by M. Speyr Passavant, who brought it into general notice, and offered it for sale to the French Government at the price of 60,000 francs; this was declined, when the proprietor knocked off nearly 20,000 francs from the original demand, but still without effecting a sale. M. Passavant subsequently brought it to England, and offered it to the Duke of Sussex, who, however, declined it. It was then offered to the British Museum for L12,000, then for L8,000, and at last for L6,500, which he declared an 'immense sacrifice.' Unsuccessful at every turn, he resolved to submit it to auction, and the precious volume was entrusted to Evans. It was knocked down for L1,500, but to the proprietor himself. After a further lapse of time, Passavant sold the volume to the British Museum for L750. This splendid manuscript is a large folio in delicate and beautifully formed minuscule characters, with the beginnings of chapters in fine uncials, written in two columns on the purest vellum. If this magnificent manuscript were now offered for sale, it would probably realize at least L3,000.

The rise in the value of the First Folio Shakespeare only dates back for about a century. Beloe, writing in 1806, states that he remembers the time when a very fine copy could be purchased for five guineas. He further observes, 'I could once have purchased a superb one for 9 guineas'; and (apparently) this 'superb' example realized 13 guineas at Dr. Monro's sale in 1792. At the end of the last century it was thought to have realized the 'top' price with 36 guineas. Dr. Askew had a fine copy of the Second Folio, which realized at his sale, in 1775, L5 10s.—it had cost 2-1/2 guineas at Dr. Mead's sale—the purchaser being George Steevens. In this book Charles I. had written these words: 'DUM SPIRO, SPERO, C. R.,' and Sir Thomas Herbert, to whom the King presented it the night before his execution, had also written: 'Ex dono serenissimi Regis Car. servo suo Humiliss. T. Herbert.' Steevens regarded the amount which he paid for it as 'enormous,' but at his sale it realized 18 guineas, and was purchased for the King's library, and is now, with some other books bought by George III., at Windsor. Steevens supposes that the original edition could not have exceeded 250 copies, and that L1 was the selling price. Its rarity ten or a dozen years after its first appearance may be gauged by the fact that Charles I. was obliged to content himself with a copy of the Second Folio; its rarity at the present moment will be readily comprehended when it is stated that during the past ninety years only five or six irreproachable examples have occurred for sale. The copy for which the Duke of Roxburghe gave 34 guineas, realized at his sale L100, and passed into the library of the Duke of Devonshire. The example in the possession of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts is a very fine one; it was formerly George Daniel's copy, and realized 682 guineas at his sale in 1864. Height makes a great difference in the price of a book of this sort. For example, a good sound example measuring 12-1/4 inches by 8 inches is worth about L136; another one measuring 13-1/8 by 8-3/8 inches would be worth L300, and perhaps more. Dibdin, with his usual prophetic inaccuracy, described the amount (L121 6s.) at which Mr. Grenville obtained his copy as 'the highest price ever given, or likely to be given, for the volume.' As a matter of fact, the time must come when it will be no longer possible to obtain a perfect copy of this volume, which to English people is a thousand times more important than the Gutenberg Bible or the Psalmorum Codex.

The following list is believed to contain all the finest examples known at present:

FIRST FOLIO EDITIONS OF SHAKESPEARE, 1623.

Inches Inches High. Wide. Present Possessor. Loscombe 12 x 8 Sotheby's 12-1/4 x 8 Gardner 12-3/8 x 8 Mr. Huth. Stowe 12-3/8 x 8-1/8 Poynder 12-1/2 x 8-1/8 Ellis 12-5/8 x 8-1/8 Earl of Crawford. Quaritch's Catalogue 12-11/12 x 8 Thomas Grenville 12-7/8 x 8-3/8 British Museum. Holland 12-3/8 x 8-1/2 Duke of Devonshire 13-1/8 x 8-1/8 Chatsworth. George Daniel 13-1/8 x 8-1/4 Baroness Burdett-Coutts. Beaufoy Library 13 x 8-3/8 Locker-Lampson 13 x 8-3/8 Rowfant Library. Gosford (Earl of) 12-7/8 x 8-3/8 Lord Vernon 13-1/16 x 8-3/8 America. Hartley 13-1/8 x 8-1/2 John Murray 13 x 8-1/2 Albemarle Street. Thorold 13-3/8 x 8-1/2 America. Sir Robert Sydney, } Earl of Leicester, } with his arms on } sides; original old } 13-3/8 x 8-3/4 Mr. C. J. Toovey. calf, with lettering,} full of rough } leaves }

The Second, 1632, Third, 1664, and Fourth, 1685, Folios have considerably advanced in value—the Second has risen from L15, at which the Roxburghe copy was sold in 1812, to nearly L200; George Daniel's copy, of the purest quality from beginning to end, and one of the largest known, sold for L148, but fairly good copies may be had for half that amount. The Third Folio, which is really the rarest, as most of the impression was destroyed in the Great Fire of London, has gone up from L20 or L30 to L200, or even more when the seven doubtful plays have the separate title-page; and the Fourth Folio from L5 to about ten times that amount. But the most remarkable feature in connection with Shakespeare, so far as we are just now concerned, is the change which has taken place in the value of the quartos. We give below a tabulated list of first editions, in which this change will be seen at a glance:

Former Recent Price. Price. L s. d. L s. d. 'The Merry Wives of Windsor,' 1818 18 0 0 385 0 0 'Much Ado About Nothing,' {1797 7 10 0 {1818 17 17 0 267 10 0 'Love's Labour Lost,' 1818 40 10 0 316 10 0 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' {1805 2 2 0 {1818 12 10 0 116 0 0 'The Merchant of Venice' {1815 9 9 0 {1818 22 1 0 270 0 0 'King Richard II.,' 1598,[143:A] 1800 4 14 6 108 3 0 '2 Henry IV.,' 1797 (one leaf MS.) 8 8 0 225 0 0 'Henry V.,' 1818 5 7 6 211 0 0 '1 Henry VI.,' 1801 38 7 0 50 0 0 'Richard III.,' 1818 33 0 0 351 15 0 'Troilus and Cressida,' 1800 5 10 0 110 0 0 'Romeo and Juliet,' 1800 6 0 0 160 0 0 'Hamlet,' 1812 4 13 0 36 0 0 'King Lear,' 1800 28 0 0 70 0 0 'Othello' (1622), 1818 56 14 0 155 0 0 'Pericles,' 1812 1 15 0 40 0 0 'Lucrece' 21 0 0 250 0 0 'Venus and Adonis'[143:B] (Malone's copy) 25 0 0 315 0 0 'Poems' 70 0 0 'Sonnets' {1800 3 10 0 {1812 21 0 0 230 15 0



What is true of the Shakespeare quartos and folios is also true in a slightly less accentuated degree of the first editions of the sixteenth and seventeenth century poets and dramatists. Dibdin describes a Mr. Byng as having purchased the only known copy of Clement Robinson's 'Handefull of Pleasant Delites,' 1584, at a bookstall for 4d.; at his sale this 'Handefull' was sold for 25 guineas to the Duke of Marlborough, at whose sale, in 1819, it fetched L26 15s.



Puttenham's 'Art of English Poesie,' 1589, and Gascoigne's 'Works,' are two other striking illustrations of the increase in the value of old English poetry, although the books themselves are of comparatively minor importance from a literary point of view. Isaac Reed well remembered when a good copy of either might have been had for 5s. In the first and second decades of this century the prices had gone up to about L5, but the present values would be nearer L20. Spenser's 'Faerie Queene,' 1590-96, early in the century could have been had for L3 12s.; it now realizes ten times that amount if in fine condition. Milton's 'Paradise Lost' has increased in the same ratio. Lovelace's 'Lucasta' has risen from 11 guineas to nearly L50. The market value of a first edition of Walton's 'Compleat Angler,' 1653, in 1816 was 4 guineas; in 1879 this book fetched L52; it has since realized L310. Rarer even than the first Walton is the first edition of Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress,' 1678; Southey, writing in 1830, declared that the date of the first publication of this work was at that time unknown, since no copy could be traced. Not long after this an example—still in possession of Capt. Holford, of Park Lane—turned up, and was valued at L50; during the last few years four more have been unearthed: three of these are in England, and the other is among the treasures of the Lenox Library, New York. The commercial value of a copy is probably not much less than of a first Walton. Although the first edition of the first part of the 'Pilgrim's Progress' has always been considered so rare, the second part is even rarer; indeed, only three copies are known to exist: one (very imperfect) in the Astor Library in New York, one in the Rylands Library, and the other in the hands of a collector in London. Till some ten years since the two English copies were not known to exist; they were both bought in one bundle for a few shillings in Sotheby's sale-room. The imperfect American one was supposed to be unique till these came to light.

Goldsmith's 'Vicar of Wakefield' sixty years ago was 'uncollected'; a quarter of a century ago it sold for L5; ten years ago it was worth L10; in 1891 a remarkably tall and clean copy, in the original calf as issued, sold at Sotheby's for L94. Gray's 'Elegy,' 1751, sold for L1 16s. in 1888, and for L70 since then. Apropos of this 'Elegy,' there are only three uncut copies known, and one of these was obtained by Mr. Augustine Birrell, Q.C., a few years ago by a stroke of great good luck. He happened to be passing through Chancery Lane one day, and, having a little time at his disposal, dropped into Messrs. Hodgson's rooms, where a sale of books was in progress. At the moment of his entry some volumes of quarto tracts were being offered, and taking one of them in his hand, he opened it at random, and saw—a fine uncut copy of the famous 'Elegy'! He bought the lot for a few shillings. It may be mentioned that the original manuscript of Gray's 'Elegy' sold for L130 in 1854.

Such are a few of the excessively rare books, whose appearance in the market is at all times an event in the book-collecting world. Partly as an illustration of our forbears' wit, and partly as a list of curious and highly imaginary titles, the following article from the London Magazine of September, 1759, is well worth quoting here:

'BOOKS selling by Auction, at the Britannia, near the Royal Exchange.

By L. FUNNIBUS, Auctioneer.

'"Gratitude," a Poem, in twenty-four cantos, from the original German of Lady Mary Hapsburgh, published at Vienna in the year 1756.—"Machiavel the Second, or Murder no Sin," from the French of Monsieur le Diable, printed at Paris for le Sieur Daemon, in la Rue d'Enfer, near the Louvre.—"Cruelty a Virtue," a Political Tract, in two volumes, fine imperial paper, by Count Soltikoff.—"The Joys of Sodom," a Sermon, preached in the Royal Chapel at Warsaw, by W. Hellsatanatius, Chaplain to his Excellency Count Bruhl.—"The Art of Trimming," a Political Treatise, by the learned Van-Self, of Amsterdam.—"Self-Preservation," a Soliloquy, wrote extempore on an Aspen Leaf on the Plains of Minden; found in the pocket of an Officer who fell on the First of August.—"The Art of Flying," by Monsieur Contades; with a curious Frontispiece, representing Dismay with Eagle's Wings, and Glory with a pair of Crutches, following the French Army.—"The Reveries of a Superannuated Genius, on the Banks of Lake Liman, near Geneva," by M. Voltaire.—"The Spirit of Lying," from "L'Esprit Menteur" of Monsieur Maubert.—"Political Arithmetic," by the same Author; in which is proved to Demonstration that Two is more than Five, and that Three is less than One.—"The Knotty Question Discussed," wherein is proved that under certain circumstances, Wrong is Right, and Right is Wrong, by a Casuist of the Sorbonne.—"A New Plan of the English Possessions in America," with the Limits properly settled, by Jeffery Amherst, Geographer to his Britannick Majesty.—"The Theory of Sea-fighting reduced to Practice," by E. Boscawen, Mariner.—"A Treatise on the Construction of Bridges," by I. Will, and I. Willnot, Architects, near the Black-Friars, at Louvain.—"The Spirit of Treaties," a very Curious Tract, in which is fairly proved, that absolute Monarchs have a right to explain them in their own sense, and that limited Princes are tied down to a strict observance of the letter.—"The Conquest of Hanover by the French, in the year 1759," a tragi-comic Farce, by a French officer.—"A Letter of Consolation from the Jesuits in the Shades, to their afflicted brethren at Lisbon," the second edition.—"The Fall of Fisher," an excellent new Ballad, by —— Harvey, Esq.—"The Travels of a Marshal of France, from the Weser to the Mayne"; shewing how he and 10,000 of his companions miraculously escaped from the hands of the savage Germans and English; and how, after inexpressible difficulties, several hundreds of them got safe to their own country. Interspersed with several Curious Anecdotes of Rapes, Murders, and other French Gallantries; by P. L. C., a Benedictine Monk, of the Order of Saint Bartholomew.'



FOOTNOTES:

[100:A] Cooper's hammer was of boxwood. Millington applies to his own the Homeric line, deine de klange genet' argnreoio bioio, which anyone is quite at liberty to believe. James Christie's original hammer is still in the possession of the firm; Samuel Baker's belongs to Mr. H. B. Wheatley.

[101:A] In 1686 Millington was selling the library of the deceased Lord Anglesey. Putting up a copy of 'Eikon Basilike,' there were but few bidders, and those very low in their biddings. Casually turning over the pages before bringing the hammer on the rostrum, he read, with evident surprise, the following note in Lord Anglesey's own handwriting: 'King Charles the Second and the Duke of York did both (in the last session of parliament, 1675, when I showed them, in the Lords' House, the written copy of this book, wherein are some corrections, written with the late King Charles the First's own hand) assure me that this was none of the said king's compiling, but made by Dr. Gauden, Bishop of Exeter; which I here insert for the understanding of others on this point, by attesting so much under my own hand.—ANGLESEY.'

[121:A] There were 4,313 lots in this sale, the total of which was L4,001. The catalogue has a very curious engraved frontispiece of an oak-tree felled, and persons bearing away branches, with a Greek motto signifying that, the oak being felled, every man gets wood.

[129:A] This particular copy is regarded as the finest ever sold at auction; it is bound in blue morocco by Derome, and cost Mr. Wodhull 15 guineas in August, 1770.

[132:A] John Ratcliffe, who died in 1776, lived in East Lane, Bermondsey, and followed the prosaic calling of a chandler. He collected Caxtons and the works of other early English printers with great diligence and judgment for nearly thirty years. Many of these appear to have been brought to him as wastepaper, to be purchased at so much per pound. An interesting account of this very remarkable man is given in Nichols' 'Literary Anecdotes,' iii., 621, 622.

[133:A] The original or Caxton's price for this book was about 5s. or 6s. per copy.

[136:A] The title-page of the catalogue contained the following whimsical motto from Ebulus:

Kai gar o taos dia to spanion thaumazetai.

(The peacock is admired on account of its rarity.)

Hearne speaks of Richard Rawlinson as 'vir antiquis moribus ornatus, perque eam viam euns, quae ad immortalem gloriam ducit.'

[143:A] The first edition of this play, 1597, sold in 1864 for L341 5s.; it is the only copy known.

[143:B] Thomas Jolley picked up a volume which contained a first edition of both 'Venus and Adonis' and the 'Sonnets,' for less than 3s. 6d. in Lancashire! The former alone realised L116 in 1844, and is now in the Grenville collection, British Museum. The copy of the former in the above list was purchased at Baron Bolland's sale in 1840 for L91; at Bright's sale for L91 10s., when it became Daniel's. The 'Sonnets,' also Daniel's copy, had belonged to Narcissus Luttrell, who gave 1s. for it.



BOOKSTALLS AND BOOKSTALLING.

OF the numerous ways and means of acquiring books open to the book-hunter in London, there is none more pleasant or popular than that of BOOKSTALLING. To the man with small means, and to the man with no means at all, the pastime is a very fascinating one. East, west, north, and south, there is, at all times and in all seasons, plenty of good hunting-ground for the sportsman, although the inveterate hunter will encounter a surfeit of Barmecides' feasts. Nearly every book-hunter has been more or less of a bookstaller, and the custom is more than tinctured with the odour of respectability by the fact that Roxburghe's famous Duke, Lord Macaulay the historian, and Mr. Gladstone the omnivorous, have been inveterate grubbers among the bookstalls. Macaulay was not very communicative to booksellers, and when any of them would hold up a book, although at the other end of the shop, he could tell by the cover, or by intuition, what it was all about, and would say 'No,' or 'I have it already.' Leigh Hunt was a bookstaller, for he says: 'Nothing delights us more than to overhaul some dingy tome and read a chapter gratuitously. Occasionally, when we have opened some very attractive old book, we have stood reading for hours at the stall, lost in a brown study and worldly forgetfulness, and should probably have read on to the end of the last chapter, had not the vendor of published wisdom offered, in a satirically polite way, to bring us out a chair. "Take a chair, sir; you must be tired."' The first Lord Lytton had a fancy for these plebeian book-marts; whilst Southey had a mania for them almost: he could not pass one without 'just running his eye over for one minute, even if the coach which was to take him to see Coleridge at Hampstead was within the time of starting.'

The extreme variety of the bookstall is its great attraction, and the chances of netting a rare or interesting book lie, perhaps, not so much in the variety of books displayed as in their general shabbiness. Ten years ago an English journalist picked up a copy of the first edition of Mrs. Glasse's 'Art of Cookery,' in the New Kent Road, for a few pence. It is no longer a shabby folio, but, superbly bound, it was sold with Mr. Sala's books, July 23, 1895, for L10. A not too respectable copy of Charles Lamb's privately-printed volume, 'The Beauty and the Beast,' was secured for a few pence, its market-value being something like L20. A copy of Sir Walter Scott's 'Vision of Don Roderick,' 1816, first edition, in the original boards, was purchased, by Mr. J. H. Slater, in Farringdon Road, in January, 1895, for 2d.—not a great catch, perhaps, but it is one of the rarest of Scott's works; and as the originals of this prolific author are rapidly rising in the market, there is no knowing what it may be worth in the immediate future.

Here is a curious illustration of the manner in which a 'find' is literally picked up. A man who sells books from a barrow in the streets was wheeling it on the way to open for the day, and passed close to a bookseller's assistant who was on his way to work. As the man passed, a small volume fell off into the road, which the assistant kindly picked up, with the intention of replacing it on the barrow. Before doing so, however, he looked at the volume. One glance was enough. 'Here, what do you want for this?' he asked. The dealer, taking a casual glance at the volume, said: 'Oh, thruppence, I suppose, will do.' The money was paid, and the assistant departed with the prize, which was a rare volume by Increase Mather, printed in 1698 at Boston, U.S.A., and worth from L8 to L12. A copy of Fuller's first work, and the only volume of poetry published by that quaint writer, the excessively rare 'David's Hainous Sinne,' 1631, was bought a few years ago for eighteenpence, probably worth half as many pounds.

The coincidences of the bookstall are sometimes very remarkable. Mr. G. L. Gomme relates one which is well worth recording, and we give it in his own words: 'My friend, Mr. James Britten, the well-known plant-lore scholar, has been collecting for some years the set of twenty-four volumes of that curious annual, Time's Telescope. He had two duplicates for 1825 and 1826, and these he gave to me. One day last January I was engaged to dine with him, and in the middle of the same day I passed a second-hand bookshop, and picked out from the sixpenny box a volume of Time's Telescope for 1816. In the evening I showed my treasure with great contentment to my friend, expecting congratulations. But, to my surprise and discomfiture, a mysterious look passed over his face, then followed a quick migration to his bookshelves, then a loud hurrah, and an explanation that this very "find" of mine was the one volume he wanted to complete his set, the one volume he had been in search of for some time.' Another book-collector picked out of a rubbish-heap on a country bookseller's floor a little old book of poetry with the signature of 'A. Pope.' Subsequently he found a manuscript note in a book on the shelves of a public library referring to this very copy, which, the writer of the note stated, had been given him by the poet Pope.

The late Cornelius Walford related an interesting incident, the 'only one of any special significance which has occurred to me during thirty-five years of industrious book-hunting': 'When living at Enfield, I used generally to walk to the Temple by way of Finsbury, Moorgate, Cheapside, and Fleet Street. Every bookshop on the way I was familiar with. On one occasion I thought I would vary the route by way of Long Lane and Smithfield (as, indeed, I had occasionally done before). I was at the time sadly in want of a copy of "Weskett on Insurances," 1781, a folio work of some 600 pages. I had searched and inquired for it for years; no bookseller had ever seen it. I had visited every bookshop in Dublin, in the hope of finding a copy of the pirated (octavo) edition printed there; and but for having seen a copy in a public library, should have come to the conclusion that the book never existed. Some temporary sheds had been erected over the Metropolitan Railway in Long Lane. One, devoted to a meagre stock of old books, was opened that morning. The first book I saw on the rough shelves was Weskett, original edition, price a few shillings. I need hardly say I carried it away. . . . I have never seen or heard of another of the original edition exposed or reported for sale.'



Mr. Shandy pere was a bookstaller also, and if Bruscambille's 'Prologue upon Long Noses,' even when obtainable 'almost for nothing,' would fail to excite in every collector the enthusiasm experienced by Mr. Shandy, we can at all events sympathize with him. '"There are not three Bruscambilles in Christendom," said the stall-man, who, like many stall-men of to-day, did not hesitate to make a leap in the dark, "except what are chained up in the libraries of the curious." My father flung down the money as quick as lightning, took Bruscambille into his bosom, hied home from Piccadilly to Coleman Street with it, as he would have hied home with a treasure, without taking his hand once off from Bruscambille all the way.'



We have already seen that there were bookstalls as well as bookshops in and about the neighbourhood of Little Britain during the latter part of the seventeenth century. There were bookstalls or booths also in St. Paul's Churchyard long before this period; but books had scarcely become old in the time of Shakespeare, so that doubtless the volumes which were to be had within the shadow of the cathedral were new ones. Booksellers gradually migrated from the heart of London to a more westerly direction. The bookstall followed, not so much as a matter of course as because there was no room for it; land became extremely valuable, and narrow streets, which are also crowded, are not a congenial soil for the book-barrow. The Strand and Holborn and Fleet Street districts, both highways and byways, became a favourite spot for the book-barrow during the last century, and remained such up to quite modern times—until, indeed, the iconoclastic wave of improvements swept everything before it. Holywell Street still remains intact.



One of the most famous bookstalling localities during the last century was Exeter 'Change, in the Strand, which occupied a large area of the roadway between the present Lyceum Theatre and Exeter Street, and has long since given place to Burleigh Street. The place was built towards the end of the seventeenth century, and the shops were at first occupied by sempsters, milliners, hosiers, and so forth. The place appears to have greatly degenerated, and soon included bookstalls among the standings of miscellaneous dealers. Writing on January 31, 1802, Robert Bloomfield observes: 'Last night, in passing through Exeter 'Change, I stopt at a bookstall, and observed "The Farmer's Boy" laying there for sale, and the new book too, marked with very large writing, Bloomfield's "Rural Tales": a young man took it up, and I observed he read the whole through, and perhaps little thought that the author stood at his elbow.' This locality was also a famous one for 'pamphlet shops.' 'Sold at the Pamphlet Shops of London and Westminster' is an imprint commonly seen on title-pages up to the middle of the last century. In addition to shops and stalls, book-auctions were also held here. The curious and valuable library of Dr. Thomas Pellet, Fellow of the College of Physicians, and of the Royal Society, was sold 'in the Great Room over Exeter 'Change,' during January, 1744, beginning at 5 p.m. (see p. 105).



Early in the eighteenth century, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, in his 'Miscellaneous Reflections,' 1714, refers to notable philosophers and divines 'who can be contented to make sport, and write in learned Billingsgate, to divert the Coffeehouse, and entertain the assemblys at Booksellers' shops, or the more airy Stalls of inferior book-retailers.'

Bookstalls or barrows have been for nearly a century a feature of the East End of London, more particularly of Whitechapel Road and Shoreditch. The numbers of barrows have increased, but the locality is practically the same. Many useful libraries have been formed from off these stalls, and many very good bargains secured. Excellent collections may still be formed from them, but the chances of a noteworthy 'find' are indeed small. The book-hunter who goes to either of these places with the idea of bagging a whole bundle of rarities is likely to come away disappointed; but if he is in a buying humour the chances are ten to one in favour of his getting a good many useful books at very moderate figures. We have heard of a man who picked up a complete set of first editions of Mrs. Browning in Shoreditch, but no one ever seems to have met that lucky individual; and as the story is retailed chiefly by the owner of the barrow from which they were said to have been rescued—the said owner apparently not in the least minding the inevitable conclusion at which the listener will arrive—the story is not repeated as authentic. One of the last things which has come out of Shoreditch lately is a copy of the first edition of Gwillim's 'Display of Heraldry' (1610), in excellent condition, and which was purchased for a few pence. An East End book-hunter tells us that, among other rarities which he has rescued from stalls and cellars in that district, are a first folio Ben Jonson; a copy of the Froben Seneca (1515), with its fine bordered title-page, by Urs Graf; an early edition of Montaigne, with a curious frontispiece; the copy of the editio princeps Statius (1483), which was purchased by Mr. Quaritch at the Sunderland sale; one or two Plantins, in spotless splendour; Henry Stephens' Herodotus, a book as beautiful as it is now valueless, but of which a copy is kept in a showcase at South Kensington, and others, all at merely nominal prices.

Many first-class libraries were formed by these frequentationes orientales. It is a great pity that Macaulay, for example, has not left on record a few of the very remarkable incidents which came under his observation during these pilgrimages. The late Mr. W. J. Thoms contributed a few of his to the Nineteenth Century thirteen years ago. One of Mr. Thoms' most striking 'East End' book-hunting anecdotes relates to a Defoe tract. When a collected edition of Defoe's works was contemplated some forty years ago, it was determined that the various pieces inserted in it should be reprinted from the editions of them superintended by Defoe himself. 'There was one tract which the editor had failed to find at the British Museum or any other public library, and which he had sought in vain for in "The Row" or any bookseller's within reach of ordinary West End mortals. Somebody suggested that he should make a pilgrimage to Old Street, St. Luke's, and perhaps Brown might have a copy. Old Brown, as he was familiarly called, had a great knowledge of books and book-rarities, although perhaps he was more widely known for the extensive stock of manuscript sermons which he kept indexed according to texts, and which he was ready to lend or sell as his customers desired. . . . The editor inquired of Brown whether he had a copy of Defoe's tract. "No," said Brown; "I have not, and I don't know where you are likely to find one. But if you do meet with one, you will have to pay pretty handsomely for it." "I am prepared to pay a fair price for it," said the would-be customer, and left the shop. Now, Old Brown had a "sixpenny box" outside the door, and he had such a keen eye to business that I believe, if there was a box in London which would bear out Leigh Hunt's statement [that no one had ever found anything worth having in the sixpenny box at a bookstall], it was that box in Old Street. But as the customer left the shop his eye fell on the box, he turned over the rubbish in it, and at last selected a volume. "I'll pay you for this out of the box." "Thank you, sir," said Brown, taking the proffered sixpence. "But, by-the-by, what is it?" "It is a tract by Defoe," was the answer, to Old Brown's chagrin. For it was the very work of which the purchaser was in search.'

In the way of antiquity doubtless the New Cut—as what was once Lambeth Marsh is now termed—comes next to the two East End localities above mentioned as a bookstall locality. The place has certainly been a book-emporium for at least half a century. Mr. G. A. Sala declares that he has purchased for an old song many of his rarest books in this congested and unsavoury locality where Robert Buchanan and his ill-fated friend, David Gray, shared a bankrupt garret on their first coming up to London from Scotland. The present writer has picked up some rare and curious books in that locality during the past ten years, and others have doubtless done the same. Not so very long ago a volume with the autograph of Drayton was secured for one penny, certainly not an extravagant price.



For some years Farringdon Road has enjoyed the distinction of being the best locality in London for bookstalling. Its stalls are far more numerous, and the quality of the books here exposed for sale is of a much higher class, than those which are to be met with in other places. There are between thirty and forty bookstalls or barrows here, and the place has what we may describe as a bibliopolic history, which goes back for a period of twenty years. The first person to start in the bookselling line was a coster of the name of Roberts, who died somewhat suddenly either in December of 1894 or early in January of the present year. Roberts appears to have been a fairly successful man at the trade, and had a fairly good knowledge of cheap books. The doyen of the Farringdon Road bibliopoles is named Dabbs—a very intelligent man, who started first in the hot-chestnut line. Mr. Dabbs has generally a fairly good stock of books, which varies between one and two thousand volumes, a selection of which are daily displayed on four or five barrows, and varying from two a penny ('You must take two') up to higher-priced volumes. Curiously enough, he finds that theological books pay the best, and it is of this class that his stock chiefly consists. Just as book-hunters have many 'finds' to gloat over, so perhaps booksellers have to bewail the many rarities which they have let slip through their fingers. It would be more than could be expected of human nature, as it is at present constituted, to expect booksellers to make a clean or even qualified confession in this respect. Our friend Dabbs, however, is not of this hypersensitive type, and he relates, with a certain amount of grim humour, that his greatest lost opportunity was the selling of a book for 1s. 6d. which a few days afterwards was sold in Paris for L50. He consoles himself with the reflection that at all events he made a fair profit out of this book. If we could all be as philosophical as this intelligent book-barrow-keeper, doubtless the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune would impress fewer wrinkles on our brows, and help us to think kindly of the friends who put us 'up' to good things in the way of gold-mines and generously left us to pay the piper.



However picturesque may be the calling of the bookstall-keeper to the person who experiences a fiendish delight in getting a 6d. book out of him for 5-1/2d., the calling is on the whole a very hard one. Exposed to all weathers, these men have a veritable struggle for existence. Their actual profits rarely exceed 30s. or L2 weekly. They vary greatly, of course, according to weather, and a wet Saturday makes a very material difference to their takings. Many weeks throughout the year these takings do not average more than 8s. or 10s. We have made inquiries among most of the bookstall-keepers in the Metropolis, and the above facts can be depended upon. When these men happen upon a rare book, they nearly invariably sell it to one of the better-class booksellers. By this means they make an immediate profit and effect a ready sale. There is beyond this a numerous class of what may be described as 'book-ghouls,' or men who make it a business to haunt the cheap bookstalls and bag the better-class or more saleable books and hawk them around to the shops, and so make a few shillings on which to support a precarious existence, in which beer and tobacco are the sole delights. We once met a man who did a roaring trade of this description, chiefly with the British Museum. He took notes of every book that struck him as being curious or out of the way, and those which he discovered to be absent from the Museum he would at once purchase. He was great in the matter of editions, such as Pope, Junius, Coleridge, and so forth. The Museum is naturally lacking in hundreds of editions of English authors; but as these editions, almost without exception, possess no literary value, their presence (or absence) was not a matter of importance. For some months the 'collector' referred to inundated the Museum with these unimportant editions. Our friend discovered that the Museum authorities, ignoring the prices which he placed on his wares, would only have them at their own figures—which showed a curious similarity to those at which the vendor had obtained them—and this, coupled with the fact that they refused to purchase many of the items offered at any price, led him to the conclusion that he was serving his country at too cheap a rate. It is scarcely necessary to add that he is now following a vocation which, if less agreeable, is certainly more profitable to himself. Occasionally one of these professional bookstallers blossoms into a shopkeeper in some court or alley off Holborn; but more generally they are too far gone in drink and dilapidation to get out of the rut.

One of the most curious characters who ever owned a bookstall was Henry Lemoine, the son of a French Huguenot. He was born in 1756, and for many years kept a stall in Bishopsgate Churchyard. He wrote many books, and did much hack-work for various publishers, chiefly in the way of translations from the French. He gave up shopkeeping in 1795, and became a pedestrian bookseller or colporteur of pamphlets. In 1807 he again set up a small stand of books in Parliament Street, and died in April, 1812. He might have achieved success, and become a respectable member of society, but his great failing was an all-consuming thirst.



Writing over forty years ago in 'London Labour and the London Poor,' 1851, Henry Mayhew remarked: 'There has been a change, and in some respects a considerable change, in the character or class of books sold at the street stalls, within the last forty or fifty years, as I have ascertained from the most experienced men in the trade. Now sermons, or rather the works of the old divines, are rarely seen at these stalls, or if seen, rarely purchased. Black-letter editions are very unfrequent at street bookstalls, and it is twenty times more difficult, I am assured, for street-sellers to pick up anything really rare and curious, than it was in the early part of the century. One reason assigned for this change by an intelligent street-seller was, that black-letter or any ancient works were almost all purchased by the second-hand booksellers, who have shops and issue catalogues, as they have a prompt sale for them whenever they pick them up at book-auctions or elsewhere.' As we have already pointed out, the same rule which obtained forty years ago applies with equal force to-day, and in the chief instances in which we have met with books well known to be rare, on bookstalls, their condition has been so bad as to render them valueless, except, perhaps, for the purpose of helping to complete imperfect copies.

At one time the bookstall-keepers had fairly good opportunities of making a haul of a few rare books—that was when they were called in to clear out offices and old houses. As the world has grown wiser in respect to books as well as other things, executors, legatees, and so forth, have acquired unreasonable views as to the value of old books, and everything in the shape of a volume is sent to the regular book-auctioneers. When it is remembered that practically all the books which now occur on the various bookstalls of the Metropolis are purchased under the hammer at Hodgson's, the chances of obtaining anything rare are reduced to a minimum. These books are the refuse of the various bookshops, after, perhaps, having passed from one shop to another for several years without finding a purchaser outside the trade. At Hodgson's, of course, these books find their level, after repeated appearances; they are here sold, not quite by the cartload, but certainly in lots sufficiently large to fill a moderate sized wheelbarrow. The tastes of the bookbuying public are so infinite that there would seem to be a sale, at some time or another, for every species of printed matter; but the habitual haunter of the bookstalls meets with the same water-soaked dog-eared volumes month after month, and year after year, so that he is forced to the conclusion that the right purchaser has not yet come along. These volumes appeal to the bookbuyer with a piteousness which is scarcely less than positively human. In the words of George Peele, written over three centuries ago, these books seem to say,

'Buy, read and judge, The price do not grudge; It will give thee more pleasure Than twice as much treasure;'

but no one seems to take the hint. Samuel Foote, in 'The Author,' makes Vamp say: 'Books are like women, Master Cape; to strike they must be well dressed; fine feathers make fine birds: a good paper, an elegant type, a handsome motto, and a catching title, has drove many a dull treatise through three editions.' These adventitious aids may still possess a potent influence in selling a new book even to-day, but they have little effect on the sale of the books which gravitate towards the book-barrow.

The bookstall-keeper, it is true, has no rent to pay, except for the hire of his barrow, which amounts to one shilling per week each. Even this small charge is a considerable item where a man hires two or three barrows and does scarcely any trade. Then he has to pay someone to look after his goods during his absence. Further than this, the barrow-man has to pay cash down before he removes his purchase from the sale-room. On the other hand he gives no credit. The bookseller who enjoys the luxury of a shop, gets credit from the auctioneer, and gives credit to his customers. He has to put as large a margin of profit as possible on his books, and an average of sixpence each has to be added to the original cost of every item catalogued. The bookstall-man is, naturally, handicapped in many ways, and if he finds the sweepings of his more aristocratic confreres' shops a long time on his hands, he, at all events, makes as large a profit with much fewer liabilities.

We have referred to Hodgson's as the centre from which nearly all the bookstalls are supplied. Occasionally, however, the barrow-man buys at Sotheby's, and frequently so at Puttick and Simpson's. Sometimes the more adventurous spirits attend auctions in private houses in the suburbs, and occasionally those held a few miles out of town. These expeditions are more often than not 'arranged,' and usually resolve themselves into 'knock-outs.' It is a by no means unknown contingency for two or three men to purchase, against all comers, the entire lot of books at figures which invariably put the auctioneer into an exceedingly good humour; neither is it an unknown event for these men to decamp without the books, and also without leaving their addresses or deposit! Such tricks, however, are not the work of the tradesmen who have a locus standi, but of the better class of book-jackals, who, failing to get the books for next to nothing, outbid everyone else, and leave the auctioneer to get out of the dilemma as he best can.



For many years the weekly cattle-market at Islington has been a happy hunting-ground of the bookstall-keeper. Books are among the hundred and one articles which are brought from every conceivable source, and many very good things have doubtless been picked up here. But it is always the early prowler who gets the rarities—the man who gets there at eight or nine o'clock in the morning. There is very little but absolute rubbish left for the post-prandial visitor. A few inveterate book-hunters have journeyed thither at various times and in a spasmodic manner, but the hope of anything worth having has usually turned out to be a vain one: they have always been anticipated.

Between the more ambitious shop and the nondescript bookstall, there is a class or species of bookseller who deserves a niche in this place. We refer to men like Purcell, in Red Lion Passage, Red Lion Square, Holborn, who are almost as much printsellers as booksellers. They make one book by destroying many others. Grangerizing is the proper name of this practice; but as the Rev. Mr. Granger has been productive of more curses than a dozen John Bagfords—an evil genius of the same type—the process is now termed extra-illustrating. However much one may denounce the whole system, it is impossible, whatever a particular book-hunter's idiosyncrasy may be, not to feel interested in some of the collections which these enterprising and ruthless biblioclasts manage to get together. Mr. Purcell is an adept at this game, of which, doubtless, Mr. F. Harvey, of St. James's Street, is one of the most clever, as he is certainly the most eminent of professors. Mr. Purcell's collection of prints, engravings, press-cuttings, and so forth, cover an extraordinarily wide field. In fifty cases out of a hundred, booksellers who make grangerizing a speciality find it pays far better to break up an illustrated book than to sell it intact. When they purchase a book, it is obviously their own property, to preserve or destroy, as they find most agreeable. Personally, we regard the system as in many ways a pernicious one, but it is one upon which a vast amount of cant has been wasted.

But bookshops and stalls are obviously not the only places at which bargains in books are likely to be secured, as the following anecdote would seem to prove: 'A writer and reader well versed in the works of the minor English writers recently entered a newspaper-shop at the East End and purchased a pennyworth of snuff. When he got home he found that the titillating substance was wrapped in a leaf of Sir Thomas Elyot's black-letter book, "The Castell of Helth." The next day the purchaser went in hot haste to the shop and made a bid for the remainder of the volume. "You are too late, sir," spoke the shopkeeper. "After you had gone last night, a literairy gent as lives round the corner gave me two bob for the book. There was only one leaf torn out, which you got. The book was picked up at a stall for a penny by my son." The purchaser of the pennyworth at once produced the leaf, with instructions for it to be handed to his forestaller in the purchase of the volume, together with his name and address; and next day he received a courteous note of thanks from the "literairy gent" aforesaid.' Nothing is so uncertain as one's luck in book-hunting, but, without entirely discrediting the foregoing story, we can only say that it is an old friend with a new face. We have heard the same thing before. Not so very long ago, a certain bookseller thought he had at last got a prize; it was one of the rarest Shakespeare quartos, and worth close on L100. He had purchased it among a lot of other dirty pamphlets. He looked the matter up, and everything seemed to point to the fact that his copy was genuine in every respect—a most uncommon stroke of luck indeed. The precious quarto was in due course sent to Puttick's, and the modest reserve of L70 was placed upon it. The quarto was genuine in every respect, but it was a facsimile!

It may be taken for granted that genuine Shakespeare quartos do not occur on bookstalls, and even a rare Americana tract only occurs in the wildest dreams of the book-hunter. Nevertheless, 'finds' of more or less interest continue to be made by keen book-hunters. Dr. Garnett tells how a tradesman at Oswestry had in his possession books to which he attached no importance, but which, a lady informed him, must be very rare. They were submitted to the authorities of the British Museum, who gave a high price for them. One was Sir Anthony Sherley's 'Wits New Dyall,' published in 1604, of which only one other copy is known to be in existence. As a rule, offers of rare books come from booksellers, who do not always say how they become possessed of them. Among the private people who offer books to the Museum for sale are a large proportion who think that a book must necessarily be rare because it is a hundred years old or more. Before the great catalogue was made, finds were occasionally made in the Museum itself, and even now a volume will occasionally be found which has special interest and value on account of its binding. In other cases a book will be found to be in a binding made up of leaves of some rare work far more valuable than the book itself.



SOME BOOK-HUNTING LOCALITIES.

LITTLE BRITAIN AND MOORFIELDS.

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—Sorbiere, 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 L500 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 L10,000 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:

'His looks are in his mother's beauty drest, And all the Father has inform'd the rest.'

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.

'Some county squire to Lintot goes, Inquires for Swift in verse and prose. Says Lintot, "I have heard the name, He died a year ago." "The same." He searches all the shops in vain: "Sir, you may find them in Duck Lane."'

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

'Abandoned authors here a refuge meet, And from the world to dust and worms retreat Here dregs and sediments and authors reign, Refuse of fairs and gleanings of Duck Lane.'

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 AEneas, 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.

FINSBURY.



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



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



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

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

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

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

CENTRAL AND EAST LONDON.



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



The district more or less immediately contiguous to the Bank of England was for a long period a favourite bookselling locality, but heavy rents and crowded thoroughfares have completely killed the trade in the heart of commercial London. Early in the seventeenth century, Pope's Head Alley, a turning out of Cornhill, contained a number of booksellers' and publishers' shops. In the latter part of the seventeenth century, Thomas Guy, with a capital of about L200, 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 L15 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.