Part 20

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:

'He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.'

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'--

'Must I, as a wit with learned air, Like Doctor Dewlap, to Tom Payne's repair, Meet Cyril Jackson and mild Cracherode, 'Mid literary gods myself a god? There make folks wonder at th' extent of genius In the Greek Aldus or the Dutch Frobenius, And then, to edify their learned souls, Quote pleasant sayings from _The Shippe of Foles_.'

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.