[Illustration: JAMES LACKINGTON]
JAMES LACKINGTON
SHOEMAKER AND BOOKSELLER.
Sutor Ultra Crepidam Feliciter Ausus.
--_Latin Motto, Quoted on Frontispiece to
"Lackington's Memoirs."_
I. LACKINGTON,
Who a few years since began Business with five Pounds,
Now sells one Hundred Thousand Volumes Annually.
--_From Frontispiece to First Edition of "Memoirs
and Confessions," 1791-92._
"I will therefore conclude with a wish, that my readers may
enjoy the feast with the same good humor with which I have
prepared it.... Those with keen appetites will partake of each
dish, while others, more delicate, may select such dishes as
are more light and better adapted to their palates; they are
all genuine British fare; but lest they should be at a loss to
know what the entertainment consists of, I beg leave to inform
them that it contains forty-seven dishes of various sizes,
which (if they calculate the expense of their _admission
tickets_) they will find does not amount to twopence per dish;
and what I hope they will consider as _immensely_ valuable (in
compliance with the precedent set by Mr. Farley, a gentleman
eminent in the culinary science), a striking likeness of their
_Cook_ into the Bargain.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, pray be seated; you are heartily
welcome, and much good may it do you."--_From Preface to
Lackington's "Memoirs and Confessions," published 1826._
JAMES LACKINGTON.
One of the most successful booksellers of the last century was James
Lackington, whose enormous place of business at the corner of Finsbury
Square, London, was styled somewhat grandiloquently "The Temple of the
Muses." A flag floated proudly over the top of the building, and above
the principal doorway stood the announcement, no less true than
sensational, "The Cheapest Bookshop in the World." Lackington was an
innovator in the trade, and had introduced methods and principles of
doing business which at first awaked the ire of the bookselling
fraternity, but were at length generally adopted, thus inaugurating a
new era in the history of this important business. His name cannot be
omitted from any complete history of booksellers, and it is none the
less deserving of a place in the category of illustrious shoemakers; for
Lackington commenced life as a shoemaker, and for some time after he had
entered on bookselling speculations continued to work at the humble
trade to which he had served an apprenticeship.
When Lackington was about forty-five years of age, and had made a
considerable fortune in the bookselling trade, he wrote and published a
singular book, in which he narrated the principal events in his life,
under the form of "Letters to a Friend." This book bears the title
"Memoirs and Confessions," and is certainly one of the most remarkable
autobiographies ever presented to the world. What portion of its
contents may be referred to by the term "memoirs" as distinguished from
"confessions" it is impossible to say, but certain it is that there are
many things in the book which its author would have done well to blot as
soon as they were written, and of which he was no doubt heartily sorry
and ashamed in after-life. Among the worst of these were his strictures
and reflections on the Wesleyan Methodists, to whom he had belonged in
early life, and from whom he had received no small benefit, temporal as
well as spiritual. When the second edition of his memoirs came to be
printed in 1803, his character had undergone a happy change. He then
saw things in a different light, and made full and complete
acknowledgment of the faults which marked the first edition; expressed
in very decided albeit very conventional terms his faith in Christian
truth, and his debt of obligation to the religious people whom he had so
sadly maligned. But words were not enough to satisfy his ardent,
thorough-going nature. His benefactions to the Wesleyan Society were
very considerable, and he seemed toward the close of his life to have
found great satisfaction in making the best use of the ample means at
his disposal. With all his faults he was an estimable man, honest,
truthful, and generous. He was never ashamed of his lowly birth and
humble apprenticeship, nor turned his back on his poor relations, but
ever sought them out and helped them when he had the power to do so. His
success in business was owing to his shrewd common-sense, his rare
insight into character, his good judgment as to the public taste and
requirements, his capital method of assorting and classifying his stock
and strict keeping of accounts, his courageous yet prudent purchases,
and his strict adherence to a few sound maxims of economy and thrift.
None but a man of original and uncommon powers of mind could have
launched out on new speculations and adventures as Lackington did with
the same uniform and certain success, and none but a man of good sense
and lofty feeling would have been proof against the ill effects which so
often attend on success. There is a touch of vanity in his memoirs, it
is true, but it is not the vanity of a man who is vain and does not know
it; he is quite conscious of his egotism, and indulges in it with
thorough good-humor as a hearty joke. He was rather fond of display,
kept a town-house and a country-house when he could afford it, and set
up a "chariot," as the phrase went in those days, and liveried servants.
Yet it was not many men in his position who would have taken for a motto
to be painted on the doors of his carriage the plain English words which
express the principle on which his business had been made to bear such
wonderful results. "But," he remarks, "as the first king of Bohemia kept
his country shoes by him to remind him from whence he was taken, I have
put a motto on the doors of my carriage constantly to remind me to what
I am indebted for my prosperity, viz.,
"SMALL PROFITS DO GREAT THINGS."
The Lackington family had been farmers in the parish of Langford, near
Wellington, in Somersetshire. They were members of the Society of
Friends, and held a respectable position in the locality. For some
cause, not fully explained in the memoirs, James Lackington's father was
apprenticed to a shoemaker at Wellington. He made an imprudent marriage,
and for a time forfeited his father's approval and favor; but when the
good-wife proved herself to be a very worthy and industrious woman, the
old man relented and set his son up in business. This, however, was of
no advantage to him; in fact, it proved his ruin. He might have remained
a steady and hard-working man, bringing up his children honorably, if he
had remained a journeyman. The position of a master presented
temptations that were too much for his weak disposition. Lackington's
own words will best describe his unhappy circumstances in youth and the
character of his father. "I was born at Wellington, in Somersetshire, on
the 31st of August (old style), 1746. My father, George Lackington, was
a journeyman shoemaker, who had incurred the displeasure of my
grandfather for marrying my mother, whose maiden name was Joan Trott....
About the year 1750, my father having several children, and my mother
proving an excellent wife, my grandfather's resentment had nearly
subsided, so that he supplied him with money to open shop for himself.
But that which was intended to be of very great service to him and his
family eventually proved extremely unfortunate to himself and them; for
as soon as he found he was more at ease in his circumstances he
contracted a fatal habit of drinking, and of course his business was
neglected; that after several fruitless attempts of my grandfather to
keep him in trade, he was, partly by a very large family, but more by
his habitual drunkenness, reduced to his old state of a journeyman
shoemaker. Yet so infatuated was he with the love of liquor, that the
endearing ties of husband and father could not restrain him: by which
baneful habit himself and family were involved in the extremest poverty;
so that neither myself, my brothers, nor sisters, are indebted to a
father scarcely for anything that can endear his memory, or cause us to
reflect on him with pleasure."
James, as the oldest child in the family, fared for a time rather better
than the rest. He was sent to a dame-school and began to learn to read;
but before he could learn anything worth knowing, his mother, who was
obliged to maintain her children as best she could, found it impossible
to pay the twopence per week for his schooling. For several years his
time was divided between nursing his younger brothers and sisters and
running about the streets and getting into mischief. At the age of ten
he began to feel a desire to do something to earn a living. His first
venture in this way showed his ability and gave some promise of his
success as a man of business. Having noticed an old pieman in the
streets whose method of selling pies struck the boy as very defective,
the boy was convinced that he could do the work much better. He made
known his thoughts to a baker in the town, who was so pleased with the
lad's spirit that he at once agreed to take the little fellow into the
house and employ him in vending pies in the streets, if his father would
grant permission. This was soon obtained. In this queer enterprise young
Lackington met with remarkable success. He says: "My manner of crying
pies, and my activity in selling them, soon made me the favorite of all
such as purchased halfpenny apple-pies and halfpenny plum-puddings, so
that in a few weeks the old pie merchant shut up his shop. I lived with
this baker about twelve or fifteen months, in which time I sold such
large quantities of pies, puddings, cakes, etc., that he often declared
to his friends in my hearing that I had been the means of extricating
him from the embarrassing circumstances in which he was known to be
involved prior to my entering his service."
Such a story is a sufficient indication of character. It exhibits the
two qualities which distinguished him as a man--good sense and courage.
Another story of his boyhood is worth telling for the same reason. He
was about twelve years of age when he went one day to a village about
two miles off, and returning late at night with his father, who had been
drinking hard as usual, they met a group of women who had turned back
from a place called Rogue Green because they had seen a dreadful
apparition in a hollow part of the road where some person had been
murdered years before. Of course the place had been _haunted_ ever
since! The women dared not go by the spot after what they had seen, and
were returning to the village to spend the night. Lackington and his
father laughed at the tale, and the dauntless boy engaged to walk on in
front and go up to the object when they came near it in order to
discover what it was. He did so, keeping about fifty yards ahead of the
company and calling to them to come on. Having walked about a quarter of
a mile, the object came in sight. "Here it is!" said he. "Lord have
mercy on us!" cried they, and were preparing to run, "but shame
prevented them." Making a long file behind him, the order of procedure
of course being according to the degree of each person's courage, they
moved on with trembling steps toward the _ghost_. Although the boy's
"hat was lifted off his head by his hair standing on end," and his teeth
chattered in his mouth, he was pledged in honor and must go on. Coming
close to the dreaded spectre, he saw its true character--"a very short
tree, whose limbs had been newly cut off, the doing of which had made it
much resemble a giant." The boy's pluck was the talk of the town, and he
"was mentioned as a hero."
His merits as a pie vender had made him a reputation, and now an
application was made to his father to allow James to sell almanacs about
the time of Christmas and the New Year. He rejoiced immensely in this
occupation and drove a splendid trade, exciting the envy and ire of the
itinerant venders of Moore, Wing, and Poor Robin to such a degree that
he speaks of his father's fear lest these poor hawkers, who found their
occupation almost gone, should do the daring young interloper some
grievous bodily harm. "But," he says, "I had not the least concern; and
as I had a light pair of heels, I always kept at a proper distance."
At the age of fourteen he was bound for seven years to Mr. Bowden of
Taunton, a shoemaker. The indentures made Lackington the servant of both
Mr. and Mrs. Bowden, so that, in case of the death of the former, the
latter might claim the service of the apprentice. The Bowdens were
steady, religious people who attended what Lackington calls "an
Anabaptist meeting," _i.e._, we presume, a _Baptist_ chapel, for the
Baptists long bore the opprobrious epithet which was first given to them
in Germany and Holland at the time of the Reformation. The Baptists of
Taunton in 1760 seem to have been a dull, lifeless class of people, if
we may judge from the type presented in the family of the quiet
shoemaker with whom James Lackington went to live. Yet they were on a
par with the vast majority of churches, established or non-established,
in that age of religious apathy in England. The boy accompanied the
family twice on the Sabbath to the "meeting," and heard, yet not heard,
sermons full of sound morality, but devoid of anything like vigorous,
soul-searching, and soul-converting gospel truth, and delivered, withal,
in the flattest and most spiritless manner. The ideas of the family were
as circumscribed as their library, and that was small and meagre enough,
in all conscience. It may be worth while to give an inventory of its
contents. It will cover only a line or two of our space, and will be of
some use to those, perhaps, who are apt to mourn their own poverty as
regards books, and their small advantages, though, perchance, they may
have access to free libraries or cheap subscription libraries, or may be
able to buy or borrow all they could find time to peruse if only they
had the wish to read. Imagine a youth with any taste for literature
living in a sleepy town like Taunton in 1760, and looking over his
master's bookshelves and finding there a school-size Bible, "Watts'
Psalms and Hymns," Foot's "Tract on Baptism," Culpepper's "Herbal," the
"History of the Gentle Craft," an old imperfect volume of receipts on
Physic, Surgery, etc., and the "Ready Reckoner." Bowden was an odd
character, evidently. One of his strange customs is thus described:
"Every morning, at all seasons of the year and in all weathers, he rose
about three o'clock, took a walk by the river's side round Trenchware
fields, stopped at some place or other to drink half a pint of ale, came
back before six o'clock and called up his people to work, and went to
bed again about seven."
"Thus," says Lackington, "was the good man's family jogging easily and
quietly on, no one doubting but he should go to heaven when he died, and
every one hoping it would be a good while first."
The visit of "one of Mr. Wesley's preachers" led to the conversion of
the two sons of Lackington's employer, and set the young apprentice on a
train of thought and inquiry which eventually led him also to cast in
his lot with the Methodists. He was then about sixteen years of age, and
had so little knowledge of reading that he gladly paid the three
halfpence per week which his mother allowed him as pocket-money to one
of the young Bowdens for instruction. Yet he had at this time no
literary taste, and no thought beyond the limited round of devotional
reading, which consisted chiefly of the Bible, and the tracts, sermons,
and hymns of the Wesleys. His desire to hear the Methodist preachers was
so great at this time, that one Sunday morning, when his mistress had
locked the door to prevent his going out for this purpose, he jumped out
of the bedroom window, fondly imagining that the words of the
ninety-first Psalm, the eleventh and twelfth verses, which he had just
been reading, would be sufficient guarantee of his safety in
perpetrating such an act of rashness and folly. The last three years of
his apprenticeship were spent in the service of his master's widow, Mr.
Bowden having died when Lackington had served about four years. When he
was just twenty-one, and about six months before the expiration of his
time, a severe contest for the representation of Taunton in Parliament
took place, and the friends of two of the candidates purchased his
freedom from Mrs. Bowden's service in order to secure both his vote and
his services. The scenes of excitement and dissipation into which he was
thrown at this time unsettled his mind, and for a time entirely ruined
his religious character. The election over, he went to live at Bristol,
and lodged in a street called Castle Ditch, with a young man named John
Jones, a maker of stuff shoes, who led him into dissipation. Jones,
however, had been pretty well educated, and managed to awaken in
Lackington's mind a desire for more knowledge than he then possessed. He
was, indeed, wofully ignorant, had no idea of writing, and when he began
to feel a thirst for general reading, confesses that he dared not enter
a bookseller's shop because he did not know the name of any book to ask
for. His friend Jones picked up at a bookstall a copy of Walker's
"Paraphrase of Epictetus," which seems to have charmed the young
shoemaker immensely, and to have turned him for a time into a regular
stoic.
The taste for reading once awakened, he soon grew weary of a life of sin
and folly. One evening he turned into a chapel in Broadmead to hear Mr.
Wesley, who was preaching there. The old fire of religious enthusiasm
was once more enkindled, and burned as fiercely as ever. His companions
were soon brought to join the Wesleyan Society, and for a time the
little knot of shoemakers working together lived a life of intense
religious devotion, working hard and singing hymns or holding religious
conversation all day, reading the works of leading evangelical divines
during the greater part of the night, and seldom allowing themselves
more than three hours' sleep.
The religious was combined with the philosophic mind. He bought copies
of such books as Plato on the "Immortality of the Soul," Plutarch's
"Lives," the "Morals of Confucius," etc.; and, speaking of this time, he
says: "The pleasures of eating and drinking I entirely despised, and for
some time carried the disposition to an extreme. The account of Epicurus
living in his garden, at the expense of about a halfpenny per day, and
that when he added a little cheese to his bread on particular occasions
he considered it as a luxury, filled me with raptures. From that moment
I began to live on bread and tea, and for a considerable time did not
partake of any other viand, but in that I indulged myself three or four
times a day. My reasons for living in this abstemious manner were in
order to save money to purchase books, to wean myself from the gross
pleasures of eating, drinking, etc., and to purge my mind and make it
more susceptible of intellectual pleasures."
Leaving Bristol in 1769, he lived for a year at Kingsbridge, Devonshire,
where he worked as a maker of stuff and silk shoes. In 1770 he went back
to Bristol, and lodged once more with his old friends, the Joneses. At
the end of that year he married Nancy Smith, an old sweetheart, whom he
had fallen in love with _seven_ years previously, "being at Farmer
Gamlin's at Charlton, four miles from Taunton, to hear a Methodist
sermon." Nancy was dairymaid then, and was accounted handsome; she was a
devout Methodist, and an amiable, industrious, thrifty woman. But they
were wretchedly poor at the time of their marriage, and had to go and
live in lodgings at half a crown a week. "Our finances," he remarks,
"were but just sufficient to pay the expenses of the (wedding) day, for
in searching our pockets (which we did not do in a careless manner), we
discovered that we had but one halfpenny to begin the world with. 'Tis
true we had laid in eatables sufficient for a day or two, in which time
we knew we could by our work procure more, which we very cheerfully set
about, singing together the following strains of Dr. Cotton:
'Our portion is not large indeed,
But then how little do we need!
For Nature's calls are few.
In this the art of living lies,
To want no more than may suffice,
And make that little do.'
"The above, and the following ode by Mr. Samuel Wesley, we did scores of
times repeat, even with raptures:
'No glory I covet, no riches I want,
Ambition is nothing to me:
The one thing I beg of kind Heaven to grant
Is a mind independent and free.
'By passion unruffled, untainted by pride,
By reason my life let me square;
The wants of my nature are cheaply supplied,
And the rest are but folly and care.
'Those blessings which Providence kindly has lent
I'll justly and gratefully prize;
While sweet meditation and cheerful content
Shall make me both healthy and wise.
'How vainly through infinite trouble and strife
The many their labors employ;
When all that is truly delightful in life
Is what all, if they will, may enjoy.'"
Sound sense and true philosophy this; and sorely did the young shoemaker
and his much-enduring wife feel the need of such philosophy to hearten
and console them when four and sixpence a week was all they had to spend
on eating and drinking, and when, as he states, "strong beer we had
none, nor any other liquor (the pure element excepted); and instead of
tea, or rather coffee, we toasted a piece of bread, at other times we
fried some wheat, which, when boiled in water, made a tolerable
substitute for coffee; and as to animal food, we made use of but little,
and that little we boiled and made broth of." That the cheerful
sentiments with which they set out in life did not fail them under the
stress of such hardships as these is sufficiently shown by the statement
with which he closes the chapter which deals with this part of his
history: "During the whole of this time we never once wished for
anything that we had not got, but were quite contented, and with a good
grace in reality made a virtue of necessity."
After three years Lackington resolved to go to London in the hope of
meeting with better work and pay. It was indeed dire necessity that
drove him to take this step. Incessant suffering and semi-starvation
seemed inevitable if he remained in Bristol. His wife had been extremely
ill almost from the beginning of their residence in the city, probably
owing to the change from country air and active employment to the close
atmosphere and sedentary occupation to which she was now accustomed. Her
continued illness and his own hopeless state of poverty drove him to
make the venture. Accordingly, having given her all the money he could
spare, he set off for the metropolis, and arrived there in August, 1774,
with half a crown in his pocket.
Once in London, the tide of his fortune turned. He soon found plenty of
work and got good wages. In a month his wife was sent for, and the two
worked so industriously and lived so economically, that before long
Nancy changed her cloth cloak for one of silk, and her worthy husband
indulged in the luxury of a _greatcoat_, the first he had ever worn.
When he had been in London about four months he received tidings of the
death of his grandfather, who had left ten pounds apiece to each of his
grandchildren. He was so ignorant of money matters that he had no
notion of obtaining the money except by going down to Somersetshire to
fetch it, and the sum was accounted so prodigious, that he at once set
off to claim his property; "so that," he says, "it cost me about half
the money in going down for it and in returning to town again." "With
the remainder of the money," he adds, "we purchased household goods; but
as we then had not sufficient to furnish a room, we worked hard and
lived hard, so that in a short time we had a room furnished with our own
goods; and I believe that Alexander the Great never reflected on his
immense acquisitions with half the heart-felt enjoyment which we
experienced on this capital attainment." Now and then he visited the old
bookshops and added a few books to his small library. One Christmas Eve
he went out with half a crown in his pocket to purchase the Christmas
dinner. Passing by an old bookshop, he could not resist the inducement
to turn in and look over the stock. He intended to spend only a few
pence on some book; but a copy of Young's "Night Thoughts," which he
very much coveted, was so tempting a prize, that, without hesitation, he
laid down his half-crown for the purchase of it. On returning home, he
had no slight difficulty to persuade his wife of "the superiority of
intellectual pleasures over sensual gratifications." "I think," said he
to his patient spouse, "that I have acted wisely; for had I bought _a
dinner_, we should have eaten it to-morrow, and the pleasure would have
been soon over; but should we live fifty years longer, we shall have the
'Night Thoughts' to feast upon."
In June, 1775, one of his Wesleyan friends looked in on Lackington and
his wife as they sat at work making boots and shoes, and told them of a
"shop and parlor" which were then to let in Featherstone Street, where
it was suggested Lackington might obtain work as a master-shoemaker. He
at once fell in with the proposal, and added that "he would sell books
also." He does not seem to have formed any intention of bookselling
previous to this interview, but the prospect of having a shop of his own
led him to think how easy and pleasant it would be to combine the two
kinds of business. He says in his own _naïve_ manner: "When he proposed
my taking the shop, it instantly occurred to my mind that for several
months past I had observed a great increase in a certain old bookshop,
and that I was persuaded I knew as much of old books as the person who
kept it. I further observed that I loved books, and that if I could but
be a bookseller, I should then have plenty of books to read, which was
the greatest motive I could conceive to induce me to make the attempt."
His friend engaged to procure the shop, and Lackington bought "a bag
full of old books, chiefly divinity, for a guinea," which, together with
his own little library and some scraps of old leather, were worth five
pounds. With this stock he "opened shop on Midsummer Day, 1775, in
Featherstone Street, in the parish of St. Luke."
He borrowed five pounds from a fund which Wesley's people had raised for
the purpose of lending out on a short term to men of good character who
were in need of help in business or domestic difficulties. No interest
appears to have been required, and he states that the money was of great
service to him. At this time they lived in the most economical and
sparing manner, "often dining on potatoes, and quenching their thirst
with water," for they could not forget the trials through which they had
passed, and, haunted by the dread of their recurrence, were determined,
if possible, to provide against them.
After six months his stock had increased to £25. "This stock I deemed
too great to be buried in Featherstone Street; and a shop and parlor
being to let in Chiswell Street, No. 46, I took them." His business in
the sale of books proved so prosperous, that, in a few weeks after
removing to Chiswell Street, he disposed of his little stock of leather
and altogether abandoned the _gentle craft_. At this time his stock
consisted almost entirely of divinity, and for a year or two he
"conscientiously destroyed such books as fell into his hands as were
written by free-thinkers: he would neither read them himself, nor sell
them to others." He makes some curious and sagacious remarks on
bargain-hunters who frequented his shop at this time, while his stock
was low and poor, and who in their craze after "bargains" often paid him
double the price for dirty old books that he afterward charged when he
had a larger stock, and had adopted the principle of selling every book
at its lowest paying price. These people, he observed, forsook his shop
as soon as he began to introduce better order and to appear
"respectable!"[3] He had not been long in Chiswell Street, before both
his wife and himself were seized with fever. She died and was buried
without his having once seen her after her illness. The shop was left in
the care of a boy, his house was put in charge of nurses, who robbed him
of his linen and other articles, kept themselves drunk with gin, and
would have left him to perish. The timely presence of his sister saved
his life, and several Wesleyan friends saved him from ruin by locking up
his shop, which the nurses and boy together would soon have emptied.
Although he wrote the whole story in after-years in a vein of flippant
sarcasm and irreverence for religion, he was constrained to acknowledge
his great obligation to the friends whose religion prompted them thus to
act the good Samaritan to him in his dire extremity. "The above
gentlemen," he says, "not only took care of my shop, but also advanced
money to pay such expenses as occurred; and as my wife was dead, they
assisted in making my will in favor of my mother." "These worthy
gentlemen," he adds, "belong to Mr. Wesley's Society (and
notwithstanding they have imbibed many enthusiastic whims), yet would
they be an honor to any society, and are a credit to human nature."
[3] "Bibliomaniacs" will be interested to learn the
price of certain books at this date, 1775. Lackington says:
"Martyn's 'Dictionary of Natural History' sold for £15 15s.,
which then stood in my catalogue at £4 15s.; Pilkington's
'Dictionary of Painters,' £7 7s., usually sold at three;
Francis's 'Horace,' £2 11s. At Sir George Colebrook's sale the
8vo edition of the 'Tatler' sold for _two guineas and a half_.
At a sale a few weeks since, Rapin's History in folio, the two
first vols. only, sold for upward of £5."
In 1776 he married Miss Dorcas Turton, a friend of his first wife. It
seems to have been her influence, to a large extent, that drew him away
from Wesleyanism and religion. She was a woman of considerable
education, and a great reader, kindly and affectionate in her
disposition, a dutiful daughter to her aged and dependent father, whom
she had supported after his failure in business by keeping a school. But
she seems to have had no thought of religious truth as a basis for
character and an impulse to right conduct, and her absolute indifference
to religion soon told on the mind of a sensitive and impulsive man like
Lackington. "I did not long remain in Mr. Wesley's Society," he writes,
referring to this same year 1776, "and, what is remarkable, I well
remember that, some years before, Mr. Wesley told his society in
Broadmead, Bristol, in my hearing, that he could never keep a bookseller
six months in his flock."
Two years afterward Lackington entered into partnership for three years
with Mr. Denis, an _honest man_, as he is emphatically styled, who
brought a considerable sum of money into the business, by means of which
the stock was at once doubled, and the sales vastly increased.
Lackington now proposed the issue of a sale catalogue, to which his
partner reluctantly consented. Both partners were employed in writing
it, but the larger share fell to Lackington, whose name alone appeared
on the title-page. It was issued in 1779, and the first week after its
publication the partners took, what they regarded as the "large sum" of
twenty pounds. Denis, finding his money pay better in business than in
the Funds, invested a larger sum in stock, but when Lackington, who
according to the terms of the agreement was sole purchaser, began to
buy, as his partner thought, too largely, they had a dispute over the
matter and dissolved partnership on friendly terms a year before the
term of partnership had expired. Denis, to the end of his life, remained
friendly with Lackington, and used to call in every day on passing his
shop to inquire what purchases and sales he had effected, and now and
then the _honest man_ lent his old partner money to help in paying
bills.
In 1780 he resolved to give _no credit_ to any one, and to sell all his
books at the lowest price bearing a working profit. The effect of this
new method of doing business was remarkable in many ways. Long credit
seems to have been common in the trade in those days, most bills were
not paid within six months, many not within a twelvemonth, and some not
within two years. "Indeed," he adds, "many tradesmen have accounts of
seven years' standing; and some bills are never paid"(!) After
recounting the disadvantages of the credit system, he says: "When I
communicated my ideas on this subject to some of my acquaintances, I was
much laughed at and ridiculed; and it was thought that I might as well
attempt to rebuild the Tower of Babel as to establish a large business
without giving credit." The offence given to some old customers was very
great, and for a time he lost them, but they soon returned on learning
how much lower his books were now marked than those of other
booksellers. As to others who would only deal on credit, he cared little
when he observed their anger, very wisely remarking that "some of them
would have been as much enraged when their bills were sent in had credit
been given them." The booksellers themselves were not a little annoyed
by the innovations of the dauntless trader, and appear to have said some
bitter things about him and his stock. Some of them were "mean enough to
assert that all my books were bound in _sheep_," and he adds, in
language that does him credit, "As every envious transaction was to me
an additional spur to exertion, I am therefore not a little indebted to
Messrs. Envy, Detraction & Co. for my present prosperity, though, I
assure you, this is the only debt I am determined not to pay."
This adoption of the "no credit" system was the first decided step
toward Lackington's wonderful success in business. In five years his
catalogues contained the names of thirty thousand books, and these were
generally of a much better description.
The most startling innovation he made in the trade of bookselling, and
the one which led to the largest amount of opposition on the part of his
fellow-tradesmen, was in regard to the way of dealing with what are
called "_remainders_." When a bookseller found a book did not sell well,
it was his custom to put what remained into a private sale, "where only
booksellers were admitted, and of them only such as were invited by
having a catalogue sent them." "When first invited to these
trade-sales," he says, "I was very much surprised to learn that it was
common for such as purchased remainders to destroy one half or three
fourths of such books, and to charge the full publication price, or
nearly that, for such as they kept on hand. For a short time I
cautiously complied with this custom." But he soon became convinced of
the folly of this practice, and resolved to keep the whole stock of
books and sell them off at low prices. By this means he disposed of
hundreds of thousands of volumes at a small profit, which amounted to a
larger sum in the end than if he had destroyed three out of four and
sold the rest at the original retail price. This course made him many
enemies in the trade, who tried to injure him, and even did their best
to keep him out of the sale-rooms. It was, however, of no avail: his
business increased enormously, his customers appreciating his method,
whether the booksellers did or not. He often bought enormously; "West
says he sat next to Lackington at a sale when he spent upward of £12,000
in an afternoon."[4] It was no uncommon thing for him to buy several
thousand copies of one book, and at one time he had _ten thousand_
copies of Watts' Psalms and the same number of his Hymns in stock. Of
course he found it necessary to sell out rapidly, or business would soon
have come to a dead-lock; for, as he justly observes, "no one that has
not a quick sale can possibly succeed with large numbers." "So that I
often look back," he remarks, "with astonishment at my courage (or
temerity, if you please) in purchasing, and my wonderful success in
taking money sufficient to pay the extensive demands that were
perpetually made upon me, as there is not another instance of success
so rapid and constant under such circumstances." It is interesting to
notice how trifling a circumstance it was which led him to adopt the
plan of selling every article at the lowest remunerative price. "Mrs.
Lackington had bought a piece of linen; when the linen-draper's man
brought it into my shop three ladies were present, and on seeing the
cloth opened asked Mrs. L. what it cost per yard. On being told the
price, they all said it was very cheap, and each lady went and purchased
the same quantity; those pieces were again displayed to their
acquaintance, so that the linen-draper got a deal of custom from that
circumstance; and I resolved to do likewise." He admits that he often
sold a "great number of articles much lower than he ought, even on his
own plan of selling cheap, yet that gave him no concern," "but if he
found out that he had sold any articles too dear," he declares that "it
gave him much uneasiness." He reflects in his own simple fashion: "If I
sell a book too dear, I perhaps lose that customer and his friends
forever, but if I sell articles considerably under their real value the
purchaser will come again and recommend my shop to his acquaintances, so
that from the principles of self-interest I would sell cheap."
[4] "History of Booksellers," by H. Curwen, p. 73.
Chatto & Windus.
The following observations of a shrewd observer are worth quoting as a
testimony to the change which had begun to come over the minds of the
people of this country in regard to reading, about a hundred years ago:
"I cannot help observing that the sale of books in general has increased
prodigiously within the last twenty years [1791]. According to the best
estimation I have been able to make, I suppose that more than four times
the number of books are sold now than were sold twenty years since. The
poorer sort of farmers, and even the poor country people in general, who
before that period spent their winter evenings in relating stories of
witches, ghosts, hobgoblins, etc., now shorten the nights by hearing
their sons and daughters read tales, romances, etc.; and on entering
their houses, you may see 'Tom Jones,' 'Roderick Random,' and other
entertaining books stuck up on their bacon-racks, etc.; and if John goes
to town with a load of hay, he is charged to be sure not to forget to
bring home 'Peregrine Pickle's Adventures;' and when Dolly is sent to
the market to sell her eggs she is commissioned to purchase 'The History
of Pamela Andrews.' In short, all ranks and degrees now READ. But the
most rapid increase of the sale of books has been since the termination
of the late war."[5]
[5] Articles of Peace with the United States were
signed Nov. 30th, 1782; and the Peace of Versailles, between
France, Spain, and England, was made Jan. 20th, 1783. It is to
this, no doubt, that Lackington refers.
He tells the story of his going to reside in the country and set up a
carriage, horses, and liveried servants in his own quaint and
self-complacent style. "My country _lodging_ by regular gradation was
transformed into a country _house_, and the inconveniences attending a
_stage-coach_ were remedied by a _chariot_." This house was taken at
Merton in Surrey. Referring to the captious remarks of his neighbors, he
says: "When by the advice of that eminent physician, Dr. Lettsom, I
purchased a horse and saved my life by the exercise it afforded me, the
old adage, '_Set a beggar on horseback, and he'll ride to the devil_,'
was deemed fully verified; they were very sorry to see people so young
in business run on at so great a rate!" The occasional relaxation
enjoyed in the country was censured as an abominable piece of pride; but
when the carriage and servants in livery appeared, "they would not be
the first to hurt a foolish tradesman's character, but if (as was but
too probable) the _docket_ was not already struck, the Gazette would
soon settle that point." It appears that some of these wiseacres
speculated as to the means by which the fortunate bookseller had made
his large fortune. Some spoke of a _lottery_ ticket, and others were
sure that he must have found a number of "banknotes in an old book to
the amount of many thousand pounds, and if they please can even tell you
the title of the old book that contained the treasure." "But," he
jocosely remarks, "you shall receive it from me, which you will deem
authority to the full as unexceptionable. I found the whole of what I am
possessed of, in--SMALL PROFITS, _bound_ by INDUSTRY, and _clasped_ by
ECONOMY."
It is curious to notice the frank and simple manner in which he speaks
of his profits, and of the way in which he did his business. "The
profits of my business the present year [1791] will amount to four
thousand pounds," he writes, and goes on to say that "the cost and
selling price of every book was marked in it, whether the price is
sixpence or sixty pounds, is entered in a day-book as they are sold,
with the price it cost and the money it sold for; and each night the
profits of the day are cast up by one of my shopmen, as every one of
them understands my private marks. Every Saturday night the profits of
the week are declared before all my shopmen, etc., the week's profits,
and also the expenses of the week, then entered one opposite another;
the whole sum taken in the week is also set down, and the sum that has
been paid for books bought. These accounts are kept publicly in my shop,
and ever have been so, as I never saw any reason for concealing them."
He speaks in the same letter of selling more than one hundred thousand
volumes annually, and adds, in his own complacent manner, "I believe it
is universally allowed that no man ever promoted the sale of books in an
equal degree!"
Lackington at length quitted Chiswell Street, and took the enormous
building at the corner of Finsbury Square, which was styled "The Temple
of the Muses," and to which the public were invited as the cheapest
bookshop in the world. He declared in his catalogue that he had half a
million of books constantly on sale, "and these were arranged in
galleries and rooms rising in tiers--the more expensive books at the
bottom, and the prices diminishing with every floor, but all numbered
according to a catalogue which Lackington compiled by himself."[6] His
profits on the first year's trade at "The Temple of the Muses" amounted
to £5000. He retired from business in 1798, having made a large fortune.
[6] "History of Booksellers," see above, p. 74.
His capacity for business was remarkable. Until he was nearly thirty
years of age he had no opportunity of exercising it. But once having
given up the gentle craft, in which he was no great proficient, he
proved himself one of the smartest and cleverest business men in London.
We can readily pardon the simple vanity of the self-made and self-taught
merchant prince who writes about his recently acquired _chariot_ in the
following strain: "And I assure you, sir, that reflecting on the means
by which the carriage was procured adds not a little to the pleasure of
riding in it. I believe I may, without being deemed censorious, assert
that there are some who ride in their carriages who cannot reflect on
the means by which they were acquired with an equal degree of
satisfaction." For several years, both before and after he retired from
business, he made a journey through different parts of England and
Scotland, calling at the chief towns, such as York, Leeds, Edinburgh,
Glasgow, Carlisle, Lancaster, Manchester, Bristol, and inspecting the
bookshops. His observations are of the most quaint and out-of-the-way
character. At Newcastle he found nothing more remarkable to record than
"the celebrated _crow's nest_ affixed above the weather-cock on the
upper extremity of the steeple in the market-place," and the famous
_brank_, an iron instrument, shown in the town-hall, and used in olden
time to punish notorious scolds. At Glasgow the most notable spectacle,
and one that calls forth a considerable amount of remark, is that of the
washerwomen, whose practice of getting into their tubs, placed by the
river-side, and dollying the linen with their bare feet, awoke his
profound astonishment. Of his visits to Bristol and the west of England,
the scene of his early life, he gives the following curious and
interesting account: "In Bristol, Exbridge, Bridgewater, Taunton,
Wellington, and other places, I amused myself in calling on some of my
masters, with whom I had, about twenty years before, worked as a
journeyman shoemaker. I addressed each with, '_Pray, sir, have you got
any occasion?_' which is the term made use of by journeymen in that
useful occupation when seeking employment. Most of those honest men had
quite forgot my person, as many of them had not seen me since I worked
for them, so that it is not easy for you to conceive with what surprise
and astonishment they gazed on me. For you must know that I had the
vanity (I call it _humor_) to do this in my chariot, attended by my
servants; and on telling them who I was, all appeared to be very happy
to see me. And I assure you, my friend, it afforded me much real
pleasure to see my old acquaintances alive and well." Coming to
Wellington, his birthplace and home during boyhood, he says: "The bells
rang merrily all the day of my arrival. I was also honored with the
attention of many of the most respectable people in and near Wellington
and other parts, some of whom were pleased to inform me that the reason
of their paying a particular attention to me was their having heard, and
now having themselves an opportunity of observing, that I did not so far
forget myself as many proud upstarts had done; and that the notice I
took of my poor relations and old acquaintance merited the respect and
approbation of every real gentleman."
Lackington's kindness to his own relatives, and to the poor, was one of
his best qualities. In fact, he declares in 1791 that he would have
retired from business five years previously if it had not been for the
thought of his poor relations, many of whom were helpless, and whom he
felt bound to relieve and protect. Besides supporting his "good old
mother" for many years, he says, "I have two aged men and one aged
woman whom I support: and I have also four children to maintain and
educate; ... many others of my relations are in similar circumstances
and stand in need of my assistance." He also made provision for the
support of the very aged parents of his first wife, Nancy.
On abandoning business he left his third cousin George Lackington at the
head of the firm, while he and his wife went to live at Thornbury in
Gloucestershire, in order to be in the neighborhood of the Turtons, his
wife's relations. He bought two estates in Alvestone, on one of which
was a genteel house, where he lived in good style for several years.
Here he employed his time in visiting the sick and poor, and sometimes
in _preaching_. For he had now returned to the faith of a Christian, and
threw himself with his accustomed ardor into all kinds of religious
work. His contrition for the severe and ungracious things he had said of
the Wesleyans in the first editions of his "Memoirs" was evidently very
deep. He acknowledges in plain terms that he owed to them all his early
advantages, and the moral and mental awakening which opened before him a
new path in life. He says, in the introduction to his last edition of
his book, "If I had never heard the Methodists preach, in all
probability I should have been at this time a poor, ragged, dirty
cobbler.... It was also through them that I got the shop in which I
first set up for a bookseller."
He built a small chapel at Thornbury on his own estate, where the
Wesleyan ministers regularly officiated. In 1806 he removed to Taunton,
where he resided for about six years, built a chapel at a cost of £3000,
adding £150 a year for the minister.
On the decline of his health in 1812, he went to live by the seaside at
Budleigh Sulterton, in Devonshire. Here also he erected a chapel which
cost £2000, and endowed it with a minister's stipend of £150 per annum.
James Lackington died of paralysis in the seventieth year of his age, on
the 22d of November, 1815, and was buried in the Budleigh Churchyard.
None will deny the successful bookseller the right to the Latin motto
with which he has adorned the frontispiece to the first edition of
"Memoirs and Confessions," viz., _Sutor ultra crepidam feliciter
ausus_.[7]
[7] "The shoemaker happily abandoned his last." It may
be interesting to note that the writer's copy of this curious
book once belonged to Henry Thomas Buckle, author of "The
History of Civilization." On the fly-leaf are memoranda of
Wesleyan and Jonsonian anecdotes which Buckle had evidently
made for his own use.