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the custom of supping. During the er the bookseller's calling from its endin
war there was a rapid transport of de in his your per days. Then he says
spatches, when gentlemen took the Little Britain was a pestife and perpeILL
service, which they were wing enough to emport of learned authors, Lod m
do," between London and York. Letters Went ther as to a marie Were LPT
went out at twelve on Saturday night and seldom faled to meet with a greater mode
the answer returned at ten on Monday versat And the booERS : T
morning. Clarendon, too, gives us the frs were knowing and covers de Dez 1
notice of newspapers:-
whom, for the sake of bookish kovet
the greatest wits were poised to collers
Thomas Guy, with whose par M..
Knight's book opens, was not one of these.
His life, however, was well worth telling
The son of a Thames lighterman who died
when he was eight years old, he was ap-

After he [the King had read his several ler ters of intelligence, he took out the prints of diurnals, and speeches, and the like, which were every day printed at London

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side. In 1668, just after the Great Fire, he began business on his own account as master of a little shop near Stocks Market at the corner of Cornhill and Lombard street. The office of King's printer, carrying with it a monoply in the printing of Bibles, having continued in one careless He thinks it necessary to explain the word family for more than a century, the volumes "million" as often as he uses it, by adding, had come to be so very bad, both in letin a parenthesis, "Ten hundred thousand ter and in paper," that they were hardly In concluding a notice of Clarendon's legible. Guy was the most enterprising of History of the Rebellion, some time ago, we several booksellers who started a profitable gave a specimen of his occasional elo- trade in Bibles, printed in Holland - But quence. We will conclude this notice of this trade," says Maitland, proving not his Life, which is far from being an eloquent only very detrimental to the public revenue, book, with a specimen of the wonderful but likewise to the King's printer, all ways clumsiness into which he habitually allowed and means were devised to quash the same; himself to slide when he wrote under no which, being vigorously put in execution, the special excitement. As a clue to the laby- booksellers, by frequent seizures and prosrinth, we may observe that Clarendon ecutions, became so great sufferers that Deant that Lord Falmouth despised Pen, they judged a further pursuit thereof inconthat Mr. Coventry supported him:- sistent with their interest. Guy found it his interest to abandon the trade very early. Earl of Falmouth and Mr. Coventry He made a compromise with the monopolvals who should have most interest in ists and obtained leave to print Bibles in ke, who loved the Earl best, but thought London, with types imported from Holland. er the wiser man, who supported Pen Thereby he soon grew rich. Mr. Knight sobliged all the courtiers), even against mistrusts the common stories of his sting ,who contemned Pen. iness, and finds him guilty of nothing but e five "whos" in one sentence, and ly denies the other stories to the effect that the most scrupulous frugality." He boldfers to a different antecedent-be made a great part of his wealth by 1, Falmouth and Coventry; 2, buying as cheaply as he could the paper oventry; 4, Pen; with which it was the custom to pay sailors, and then converting them into money at something like their real value. That, says Mr. Knight, was a practice of Charles the Second's day, but not of Queen Anne's Guy doubtless enriched himself partly by the sale of Bibles, and yet more by investing the profits of that sale in the buying of Government stock and other lawful ways of making money on 'Change In 1720 he spent 45,5004 in buying South Sea stock at 1204 for the 100L share. He

began to sell out when the shares were decayed door was unfastened, and he entered a worth 3007, and disposed of the last of them once elegant hall, whose ceiling had partially for 600l. apiece. fallen. He ascended a dilapidated staircase, "But, In that year, however, he was seventy-six not without danger. he continues, years old, and he had long before become "I was well repaid for my pains. Here I found the Kit-Cat-Club-room, nearly as it exfamous for his wealth. It is clear that, isted in the days of its glory. It is eighteen apart from penuriousness in his personal af- feet high, and forty feet long by twenty feet fairs, he was willing to use freely his wealth, wide. The mouldings and ornaments were in however gotten. "As he was a man of un- the most superb fashion of its age; but the bounded charity and universal benevo- whole was falling to pieces, from the effects of lence," says Maitland, "so was he likewise a the dry rot. My attention was chiefly atgreat patron of liberty and the rights of his tracted by the faded cloth-hanging of the room, fellow subjects; which, to his great honour, whose red colour once set off the famous porhe strenuously asserted in divers Parlia- traits of the Club that hung around it. Their ments, whereof he was a member." He sat marks and sizes were still visible, and the in the House of Commons, as member for chalk, for the guidance of the hangers. Thus numbers and names remained as written in Tamworth, from 1695 to 1707. In 1705 he was I, as it were, by these still legible names, built some almshouses at Tamworth. In brought into personal contract with Addison, 1707 he added three new wards to St. Steele, and Congreve, and Garth, and Dryden, Thomas's Hospital, and in 1720 his South and with many hereditary nobles, remembered Sea gains encouraged him to buy ground only because they were patrons of those natural for a new building. Guy's Hospital, completed very soon after his death in 1724, cost 19,000l. in erection, and was endowed by him with 220,000l. Even if there were some irregularities in the acquiring of his money, the good uses to which it was applied helped to excuse them.

But Thomas Guy, at best, had little besides prosperity in common with most of the booksellers of his time. The King of these was Jacob Tonson, whose house at Barn Elms, near Barnes, was the summer meeting place of the Kit-Cat-Club.

Tonson's villa has gone into ruin, with the famous room which he built for the meet

ings of the Club, whose walls were hung with the portraits of the members. Nearly half a century ago, their condition was described with

some graphic power, by Sir Richard Phillips.

He says: "A lane, in the north-west corner of the common, brought me to Barnes' Elms, where now resides a Mr. Hoare, a barker of London. The family were not at home; but, on asking the servants if that was the house of Mr. Tonson, they assured me, with great simplicity, that no such gentleman lived there. I named the Kit-Cat-Club, as accustomed to assemble here; but the oddity of the name excited their ridicule, and was told that no such Club was held there; but perhaps, said one to the other, the gentleman means the Club that assembles at the public house on the Common. Knowing, however, that I was at the right place, I could not avoid expressing my vexation that the periodical assemblage of the first men of their age should be so entirely forgotton by those who now reside on the spot; when one of them exclaimed, 'I should not wonder if the gentleman means the philosophers' room!"" He was conducted across a detached garden, and brought to a handsome structure, evidently the building, which he sought. The

nobles."

Of the Kit-Cat Club and its leading members Mr. Knight gives some interesting notices. His book is specially rich in details about the "old booksellers" of that time, the time of Dryden, Steele, and Swift. Thence he passes to the generation in which Richardson was the most famous bookseller, and one of the most famous authors as well, so famous that Edward Young is reported to have said to him, 'Suppose in the title-page of the Night Thoughts' "you should say, 'Published by the Author of Clarissa.""

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About William Hutton, the self-taught and self-made printer of Birmingham, the world knows less. This is part of Mr. Knight's excellent account of his up-hill

work:

He took a shop at Southwell, fourteen miles from Nottingham, paying for its use twenty shillings a year. Here he deposited his stock of tattered volumes, and "in one day became the most eminent bookseller in Southwell." He was not, however, a resident in this little town, now better known than it was a century ago by being the scene of the first sensible experiment in the administration of the Poor Laws. The resolute and prudent man thus describes his course of life during a rainy winter: "I set out from Nottingham at five every Saturday morning, carried a burthen of from three to thirty pounds weight to Southwell, opened shop at ten, starved in it all day upon bread, cheese, and half a pint of ale; took from 1s. to 6s., shut up at four, and by trudging through the solitary night and the deep roads five hours more, I arrived at Nottingham by nine, where I always found a mess of milk porridge by the fire, prepared by my valuable

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sister." But as might be expected, the labour
of such a life was great and the profit small.
In 1750, therefore, he made a journey to Bir-
mingham, where he found that three book-
sellers were thriving. One of these, Mr. War-
ren, I have mentioned as having been associ-
ated with the early literary efforts of Samuel
Johnson. He was one of three mentioned by
Hutton as the "
great men
of that active,
prosperous, and intelligent community. He
thought, however, that there might be room
for a fourth in a small way. His way was,
indeed, a small one. He agreed to pay a shil-
ling a week for the rent of half a very little
shop. His stock was not an expensive one.
Upon the invitation of a dissenting minister,
with whom his sister had once lived as a ser
vant, he walked to Gainsborough, and there
purchased of his sister's old master a lot of
books at his own price. He estimates their
weight at two hundred pounds, and he pays
for them by the following note: I promise to
pay to Ambrose Rudsall one pound seven
shillings when I am able.'

ple exhibited a short sight, a narrow principle, and the exultation of power over the defenceless." The adroit purchase of two suits of clothes from the draper in office was an unquestionable assurance of William Hutton's "respectability." The next year he took a better shop and a dwelling house. He had now a prosperous trade, and read the signs of the times aright when he set up the first Circulating Library established in Birmingham.

Contemporary with Hutton was Edward Cave, the starter of the Gentleman's Magazine, and Dodsley and Newberry were only a few years younger. Of them and others Mr. Knight speaks in his later chapters. The last chapter is upon James Lackington, son of a journeyman shoemaker, born in 1746. He began life as a baker's boy:

His first steps in the paths of bookselling are thus described: "During the time that I lived It is difficult to imagine a more forlorn con- with the baker, my name became so celebrated for dition of life than that of William Hutton as selling a large number of pies, puddings, &., he sat amongst his old books, looking in vain that for several years following, application was for customers. There was not a face that he made to my father for him to permit me to sell knew in this populous town. He was sepa-Almanacks a few market days before and after rated from his sister. He saw little hope of Christmas. In this employ I took great demaking his way in the world without money light, the country people being highly pleased and without friends. But gradually two or with me, and purchasing a great number of my three young men came to know the intelligent almanacks, which excited envy in the itinebookseller, and to talk with him upon subjects rant vendors of Moore, Wing, Poor Robin, &c., something higher than those belonging to an ordinary retail trade. A popular demand for his anxiety lest they should some way or other to such a degree, that my father often expressed literature was growing up. The dealer in sec-do me a mischief. But I had not the least conond-hand books had odd volumes of poets and cern; for possessing a light pair of heels, I alessayists to tempt the youth who had a six-ways kept at a proper distance. O, my friend, pence or a shilling to lay out; and if Hutton could purchase any books of greater value, he could smarten them up by his skill in binding By the most rigid economy he found himself at the end of the first year twenty pounds better than when he began business. He felt that he At fourteen he left the baker to become was at the beginning of a prosperous career. But a shoemaker's apprentice at Taunton. In suddenly there arose a dark cloud which due time he set up a shop of his own at threatened to shut out all the sunshine of his Bristol, and soon began to sell old books as hopes. There were official tyrants a hundred well as new boots. Before 1780 he reand fifteen years ago, who have continued to ex-moved to London, to open a shop for the ist up to this very time, although their power sale of books alone, the boots being altoof injury has been gradually diminishing. He

little did I imagine at that time, that I should of the booksellers of London and other places.' ever excite the same poor mean spirit in many

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has described this crisis, in which the fortunes gether abandoned. This shop, often enof one of the greatest benefactors of Birming-larged, was burnt down some years ago: ham were very nearly wrecked: "The overseers, but Mr. Knight describes it as he knew it fearful I should become chargeable to the par- in his youth: ish, examined me with regard to my settlement, and, with a voice of authority, ordered me to At one of the corners of Finsbury square, procure a certificate, or they would remove me which was built in 1789, there was a block of from the town. Terrified, I wrote to my father, houses which had been adapted to the purposes who returned for answer, that All Saints, in of a great shop or warehouse, and preDerby never granted certificates,' I was hunt- sented an imposing frontage. A dome rises ed by ill-nature two years. I repeatedly of from the centre, on the top of which a fered to pay the levies (rates), which was re-flag is flying. This royal manifestation fused. A succeeding overseer, a draper, of whom I had purchased two suits of clothes, value 10., consented to take them. The scru

(now become common to suburban publichouses), proclaims that this is no ordinary commercial establishment. Over the prin

cipal entrance is inscribed, "Cheapest Book- hear what was once said about the young sellers 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 dimen

bride who became afterwards so "snuffy and plain," such a homely little German "frau." "Pretty and witty" carried the day then; for, above the thunder of the sions are to be measured by the assertion that a welcome which England gave to the royal coach and six might be driven round it. In bride, Horace Walpole heard "nothing but the centre is an enormous circular counter, within which stand the dispensers of knowledge, proclamations of her beauty;" an opinion ready to wait upon the country clergyman, in which he confirms after his introduction on his wig and shovel-hat; upon the fine ladies, in the same day at St. James's, adding to the feathers and trains; or upon the bookseller's remark, "She looks very sensible, cheerful, collector, with his dirty bag. If there is any and is remarkably genteel." This last word chaffering about the cost of a work, the shop- sounds strangely in our ears, when issuing man points to the following inscription: "The from a patrician pen. Even the Times, lowest price is marked on every Book, and no which (ignoring the wrath of the Saturday abatement made on any article." We ascend a broad staircase, which leads to "The Loun- Reviewer) still insists upon the birth of ging Rooms," and to the first of a series of cir-"a prince," never sank so deep in the cular galleries, lighted from the lantern of the "Jeames" phraseology as to describe our 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. This is larger than that of any other booksellers, and it comes out yearly.

We must make no more extracts from this entertaining book. Let those we have made commend it to all who care to understand the history of bookselling. Its interest also is doubled when we recognize in it the work of one who will himself hereafter take the first place among booksellers who have earned for themselves the truest honour and have done the most essential service to their country.

princess, in all her graceful loveliness, as "remarkably genteel.' But it has been the abuse of the word, not the use of it, which has made it revolting to our ideas of refinement. It has been made to stand for some of the great shams which have been held up to everlasting ridicule in Thackeray's "Snob Papers," and as the outward sign of superficial refinement only we have rejected it from our vocabulary with contempt. The description of the arrival of the Princess Charlotte is not uninteresting .now, with the welcome of our own fair bride to our shores still fresh in our recollections. We seem to hear again "the noise of the coaches, chaises, horsemen, and mob," that assembled to see her pass through the town with clamour "so prodigious' that, like the bachelor of Strawberry-hill on the occasion of the arrival of "Madame Charlotte," we could "hardly distinguish the guns." It was too dark for the weary spectators to notice whether the Princess Alexandria turned pale, when the royal towers of Windsor loomed grandly on her expectant gaze; but as it was also too dark THERE are two words, somewhat irrever- for her to distinguish them, the probabiliently made use of when describing a royal ties are that she did not. But then her and illustrious lady, which will perhaps bridegroom was at her side, the prince of suggest themselves to the reader's imagina- her romance, as in a fairy tale. In the tion when the shade of the good old Queen other case, the unknown wooer was a stranCharlotte floats before his mind's eye. ger, and a king; and we read that, as the Snuffy and plain,"-" plain and snuffy;" bride elect caught the first glimpse of his sometimes the sentence runs this way, some- palace, that she "trembled and turned times that; but in any case it is an irrev- pale." The Duchess of Hamilton smiled erent, and, as we hope to prove, an unjust sentence upon the little princess, who came chirping so blithely from her dingy German home, to take her place amongst us as the first lady in the land. Ladies who have been younger, and now are-what shall we say?older, not old, of course; ladies are never old in "London Society"

PRETTY WOMEN AND WITTY WOMEN.

66

at her distress; upon which the princess naïvely remarked," My dear duchess, you may laugh - you have been married twice; but it is no joke to me." When the king bad grown old, and roamed about his palace-feeble, blind, mad - did the good wife, the homely German frau, ever call to mind the halcyon days of her youth, or

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think that it might have been the forecast | what he has witnessed of its effects in health shadow of time which made her tremble for training, in convalescence for enabling and turn pale then? She was nervous the valetudinarian to commence exercise, when her bridesmaids and future court and in disease as a remedy or palliation, were presented to her, and exclaimed aloud, "I am not afraid," he says, "to stake my "Mon Dieu! il y en a tant! il y en a professional character by declaring my betant!" The bridesmaids, who were par- lief in its efficacy." Accordingly, he has ticularly distinguished for their beauty of collected, from the writings and speeches of figure and face, were Lady Caroline Rus- Mr. Urquhart, an account of the principles sell, Lady Sarah Lenox, and Lady Eliza- of its action, a description of the best mode beth Keppel. Of Lady Sarah, Walpole of its construction, and practical instrucsays, that she was by far the chief angel; "tions as to its employment, and has edited and as she was once supposed to have en- the whole as a "Manual of the Turkish tertained hopes of engaging the royal af- Bath." Its beneficial effects appear to be fections herself, it was particularly amiable most remarkable in diseases of the liver in her to look angelic on that occasion. and the kidney; the dropsy attending the The Duchess of Hamilton was radiant that latter certainly sometimes disappearing as day, and "almost in possession of her for- if by magic under its regular use. In all mer beauty." The absence of three of the diseases of a rheumatic nature, however, the celebrated beauties, Lady Waldegrave, bath is likely to produce improvement; in Lady Kildare, and Mrs. Fitzroy was calcu- most cutaneous diseases it is an effectual lated, according to Mr. Walpole, to reassure remedy or an important auxiliary of treatthe new Queen upon the subject of her own ment; and Sir John Fife has found it to be charms, which, without being particularly most valuable in bronchial and laryngeal striking, could, in his opinion, hold their affections. The book contains also the own with most of the women whom she testimony of other physicians to the benefit saw assembled round her on that eventful which they have witnessed from the theraoccasion. Surely this praise is not to be peutical use of heat by means of the bath. despised when coming from the cynical Mr. Urquhart, with that enthusiastic faith Horace, who was not apt to exaggerate, which is so needful in a reformer, appears excepting where his prejudices or passions to believe that no disease, not hydrophobia, had been keenly excited, which could not nor cholera, nor consumption, nor cancer, have been the case, either for or against, in could long withstand the proper use of the the case of the German princess. — London Turkish Bath at a sufficiently high temperaSociety. ture; and certainly this strong faith is nowise surprising in one who believes himself to have been more than once rescued from the very jaws of death by its means. Though it cannot quite be admitted that the use of heat, however carefully graduated in its application, and however high the temperature may be raised, will do all that Mr. Urquhart claims for it, and is in WHEN we consider the immense energy every case as harmless as he seems disposed and perseverance which must be applied in to think; and, though assent must be withorder to obtain due attention to, much held from some of the startling physiologimore to obtain acceptance of, a new thera- cal principles which he boldly enunciates, peutical means, we cannot but congratulate | yet every one must heartily sympathize with Mr. Urquhart on the encouraging success which he has already had, both with the medical profession and with the public. It is now some years since Sir John Fife, having satisfied his own mind of the efficacy of the Turkish Bath in the treatment of disease, induced the committee of the Newcastle Infirmary to construct such a bath for the hospital. A continued experience since that time has strengthened his convictions of the value of the bath; from

MR. URQUHART AND THE TURKISH
BATH.

that unparalleled energy and unfaltering perseverance which has succeeded in forcing the acceptance of a great boon in spite of strong prejudice and general opposition. What is most needed now, however, is that the medical profession, having accepted the bath as a valuable remedial agent, should no longer vaguely extol it, but determine, by exact investigation of its effects, those diseases in which it may be properly used. - Westmister Review.

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