CHAPTER VIII.

The Chapel—The Companions—Increase of Readers—Books make Readers—

Caxton's Types—Wynkyn's Dream—The first Paper-mill.

It was evensong time when, after a day of listlessness, the printers in

the Almonry at Westminster prepared to close the doors of their

workshop. This was a tolerably spacious room, with a carved oaken roof.

The setting sun shone brightly into the chamber, and lighted up such

furniture as no other room in London could then exhibit. Between the

columns which supported the roof stood two presses —ponderous machines.

A _form_ of types lay unread upon the _table_ of one of these presses;

the other was empty. There were _cases_ ranged between the opposite

columns; but there was no _copy_ suspended ready for the compositors to

proceed with in the morning. No heap of wet paper was piled upon the

floor. The _balls_, removed from the presses, were rotting in a corner.

The _ink-blocks_ were dusty, and a thin film had formed over the oily

pigment. He who had set these machines in motion, and filled the whole

space with the activity of mind, was dead. His daily work was ended.

Three grave-looking men, decently clothed in black, were girding on

their swords. Their caps were in their hands. The door opened, and the

chief of the workmen came in. It was Wynkyn de Worde. With short speech,

but with looks of deep significance, he called a _chapel_—the printer's

parliament—a conclave as solemn and as omnipotent as the Saxons'

Witenagemot. Wynkyn was the Father of the Chapel.

The four drew their high stools round the _imposing-stone_—those stools

on which they had sat through many a day of quiet labour, steadily

working to the distant end of some ponderous folio, without hurry or

anxiety. Upon the stone lay two uncorrected folio pages—a portion of the

'Lives of the Fathers.' The _proof_ was not returned. He that they had

followed a few days before to his grave in Saint Margaret's church had

lifted it once back to his failing eyes,—and then they closed in night.

"Companions," said Wynkyn—(surely that word "_companions_" tells of the

antiquity of printing, and of the old love and fellowship that subsisted

amongst its craft)—"companions, the good work will not stop."

"Wynkyn," said Richard Pynson, "who is to carry on the work?"

"I am ready," answered Wynkyn.

A faint expression of joy rose to the lips of these honest men, but it

was damped by the remembrance of him they had lost.

"He died," said Wynkyn, "as he lived. The Lives of the Holy Fathers is

finished, as far as the translator's labour. There is the rest of the

copy. Read the words of the last page, which _I_ have written:—

"Thus endeth the most virtuous history of the devout and right-renowned

lives of holy fathers living in desert, worthy of remembrance to all

well-disposed persons, which hath been translated out of French into

English by William Caxton, of Westminster, late dead, and finished at

the last day of his life."[14]

The tears were in all their eyes; and "God rest his soul!" was whispered

around.

"Companion," said William Machlinia, "is not this a hazardous

enterprise?"

"I have encouragement," replied Wynkyn;—"the Lady Margaret, his

Highness' mother, gives me aid. So droop not, fear not. We will carry on

the work briskly in our good master's house.—So fill the case."[15]

A shout almost mounted to the roof.

"But why should we fear? You, Machlinia, you, Lettou, and you, dear

Richard Pynson, if you choose not to abide with your old companion here,

there is work for you all in these good towns of Westminster, London,

and Southwark. You have money; you know where to buy types. Printing

_must_ go forward."

"Always full of heart," said Pynson. "But you forget the statute of King

Richard; we cannot say 'God rest his soul,' for our old master scarcely

ever forgave him putting Lord Rivers to death. You forget the statute.

We ought to know it, for we printed it. I can turn to the file in a

moment. It is the Act touching the merchants of Italy, which forbids

them selling their wares in this realm. Here it is: 'Provided always

that this Act, or any part thereof, in no wise extend or be prejudicial

of any let, hurt, or impediment to any artificer or merchant stranger,

of what nation or country he be or shall be of, for bringing into this

realm, or selling by retail or otherwise, of any manner of books written

or imprinted.' Can we stand up against that, if we have more presses

than the old press of the Abbey of Westminster?"

"Ay, truly, we can, good friend," briskly answered Wynkyn. "Have we any

books in our stores? Could we ever print books fast enough? Are there

not readers rising up on all sides? Do we depend upon the court? The

mercers and the drapers, the grocers and the spicers of the city, crowd

here for our books. The rude uplandish men even take our books; they

that our good master rather vilipended. The tapsters and taverners have

our books. The whole country-side cries out for our ballads and our

Robin Hood stories; and, to say the truth, the citizen's wife is as much

taken with our King Arthurs and King Blanchardines as the most noble

knight that Master Caxton ever desired to look upon in his green days of

jousts in Burgundy. So fill the case."[16]

"But if foreigners bring books into England," said cautious William

Machlinia, "there will be more books than readers."

"Books make readers," rejoined Wynkyn. "Do you remember how timidly even

our bold master went on before he was safe in his sell? Do you forget

how he asked this lord to take a copy, and that knight to give him

something in fee; and how he bargained for his summer venison and his

winter venison, as an encouragement in his ventures? But he found a

larger market than he ever counted upon, and so shall we all. Go ye

forth, my brave fellows. Stay not to work for me, if you can work better

for yourselves. I fear no rivals."

"Why, Wynkyn," interposed Pynson, "you talk as if printing were as

necessary as air; books as food, or clothing, or fire."

"And so they will be some day. What is to stop the want of books? Will

one man have the command of books, and another desire them not? The time

may come when every man shall require books."

"Perhaps," said Lettou, who had an eye to printing the Statutes, "the

time may come when every man shall want to read an Act of Parliament,

instead of the few lawyers who buy our Acts now."

"Hardly so," grunted Wynkyn.

"Or perchance you think that, when our sovereign liege meets his Peers

and Commons in Parliament, it were well to print a book some month or

two after, to tell what the said Parliament said, as well as ordained?"

"Nay, nay, you run me hard," said Wynkyn.

"And if within a month, why not within a day? Why shouldn't we print the

words as fast as they are spoken? We only want fairy fingers to pick up

our types, and presses that Doctor Faustus and his devils may some day

make, to tell all London to-morrow morning what is done this morning in

the palace at Westminster."

"Prithee, be serious," ejaculated Wynkyn. "Why do you talk such

gallymaufry? I was speaking of possible things; and I really think the

day may come when one person in a thousand may read books and buy books,

and we shall have a trade almost as good as that of armourers and

fletchers."

"The Bible!" exclaimed Pynson; "O that we might print the Bible! I know

of a copy of Wickliffe's Bible. That were indeed a book to print!"

"I have no doubt, Richard," replied Wynkyn, "that the happy time may

come when a Bible shall be chained in every church, for every Christian

man to look upon. You remember when our brother Hunte showed us the

chained books in the Library at Oxford. So a century or two hence a

Bible may be found in every parish. Twelve thousand parishes in England!

We should want more paper in that good day, Master Richard."

"You had better fancy at once," said Lettou, "that every housekeeper

will want a Bible! Heaven save the mark, how some men's imaginations run

away with them!"

"I cannot see," interposed Machlinia, "how we can venture upon more

presses in London. Here are two. They have been worked well, since the

day when they were shipped at Cologne. Here are five good founts of

type, as much as a thousand weight—_Great Primer_, _Double Pica_,

_Pica_—a large and a small face, and _Long Primer_. They have well

worked; they are pretty nigh worn out. What man would risk such an

adventure, after our good old master? He was a favourite at court and in

cloister. He was well patronized. Who is to patronize us?"

[Illustration: Caxton's Type.]

"The people, I tell you," exclaimed Wynkyn. "The babe in the cradle

wants an Absey-book; the maid at her distaff wants a ballad; the priest

wants his Pie; the young lover wants a romance of chivalry to read to

his mistress; the lawyer wants his Statutes; the scholar wants his

Virgil and Cicero. They will all want more the more they are supplied.

How many in England have a book at all, think you? Let us make books

cheaper by printing more of them at once. The churchwardens of St.

Margaret's asked me six-and-eightpence yesterday for the volume that our

master left the parish;[17] for not a copy can I get, if we should want

to print again. Six-and-eightpence! That was exactly what he charged his

customers for the volume. Print five hundred instead of two hundred, and

we could sell it for three-and-four-pence."

"And ruin ourselves," said Machlinia. "Master Wynkyn, I shall fear to

work for you if you go on so madly. What has turned your head?"

"Hearken," said Wynkyn. "The day our good master was buried I had no

stomach for my home. I could not eat. I could scarcely look on the

sunshine. There was a chill at my heart. I took the key of our office,

for you all were absent, and I came here in the deep twilight. I sat

down in Master Caxton's chair. I sat till I fancied I saw him moving

about, as he was wont to move, in his furred gown, explaining this copy

to one of us, and shaking his head at that proof to the other. I fell

asleep. Then I dreamed a dream, a wild dream, but one that seems to have

given me hope and courage. There I sat, in the old desk at the head of

this room, straining my eyes at the old proofs. The room gradually

expanded. The four _frames_ went on multiplying, till they became

innumerable. I saw _case_ piled upon _case_; and _form_ side by side

with _form_. All was bustle, and yet quiet, in that room. Readers passed

to and fro; there was a glare of many lights; all seemed employed in

producing one folio, an enormous folio. In an instant the room had

changed. I heard a noise as of many wheels. I saw sheets of paper

covered with ink as quickly as I pick up this type. Sheet upon sheet,

hundreds of sheets, thousands of sheets, came from forth the

wheels—flowing in unstained, like corn from the hopper, and coming out

printed, like flour to the sack. They flew abroad as if carried over the

earth by the winds. Again the scene changed. In a cottage, an

artificer's cottage, though it had many things in it which belong to

princes' palaces, I saw a man lay down his basket of tools and take up

one of these sheets. He read it; he laughed, he looked angry; tears rose

to his eyes; and then he read aloud to his wife and children. I asked

him to show me the sheet. It was wet; it contained as many types as our

'Mirror of the World.' But it bore the date of 1844. I looked around,

and I saw shelves of books against that cottage wall—large volumes and

small volumes; and a boy opened one of the large volumes and showed me

numberless block-cuts; and the artificer and his wife and his children

gathered round me, all looking with glee towards their books, and the

good man pointed to an inscription on his bookshelves, and I read these

words,

MY LIBRARY A DUKEDOM.

I woke in haste; and, whether awake or dreaming I know not, my master

stood beside me, and smilingly exclaimed, 'This is my fruit.' I have

encouragement in this dream."

"Friend Wynkyn," said Pynson, "these are distempered visions. The press

may go forward; I think it will go forward. But I am of the belief that

the press will never work but for the great and the learned, to any

purpose of profit to the printer. How can we ever hope to send our wares

abroad? We may hawk our ballads and our merry jests through London; but

the citizens are too busy to heed them, and the apprentices and serving

men too poor to buy them. To the country we cannot send them. Good lack,

imagine the poor pedler tramping with a pack of books to Bristol or

Winchester! Before he could reach either city through our wild roads, he

would have his throat cut or be starved. Master Wynkyn, we shall always

have a narrow market till the king mends his highways, and that will

never be."

"I am rather for trying, Master Wynkyn," said Lettou, "some good cutting

jest against our friends in the Abbey, such as Dan Chaucer expounded

touching the friars. That would sell in these precincts."

"Hush!" exclaimed Wynkyn: "the good fathers are our friends; and though

some murmur against them, we might have worse masters."

"I wish they would let us print the Bible though," ejaculated Pynson.

"The time will come, and that right soon," exclaimed the hopeful Wynkyn.

"So be it," said they one and all.

"But what fair sheet of paper is that in your hand, good Wynkyn?" said

Pynson.

"Master Richard, we are all moving onward. This is English-made paper.

Is it not better than the brown thick paper we have had from over the

sea? How _he_ would have rejoiced in this accomplishment of John Tate's

longing trials! Ay, Master Richard, this fair sheet was made in the new

mill at Hertford; and well am I minded to use it in our Bartholomæeus,

which I shall straightly put in hand, when the Formschneider is ready. I

have thought anent it; I have resolved on it; and I have indited some

rude verses touching the matter, simple person as I am:—

"For in this world to reckon every thing

Pleasure to man, there is none comparable

As is to read and understanding

In books of wisdom—they ben so delectable,

Which sound to virtue, and ben profitable;

And all that love such virtue ben full glad

Books to renew, and cause them to be made.

And also of your charity call to remembrance

The soul of William Caxton, first printer of this book

In Latin tongue at Cologne, himself to advance,

That every well-disposed man may thereon look:

And John Tate the younger joy mote [may] he brook,

Which hath late in England made this paper thin,

That now in our English this book is printed in."

"Fairly rhymed, Wynkyn," said Lettou. "But John Tate the younger is a

bold fellow. Of a surety England can never support a Paper-mill of its

own."

"Come, to business," said William of Mechlin.

[Footnote 13: He always, in these marks, associated the device of Caxton

with his own; glorying, as he well might, in succeeding to the business

of his honoured master, and continuing for so many years the good work

which he had begun.]

[Footnote 14: These are the words with which this book closes.]

[Footnote 15:

"Wynkyn de Worde this hath set in print,

In William Caxton's house:—so fill the case."

Stanzas to '_Scala Perfectionis_,' 1494.]

[Footnote 16: To "fill the case" is to put fresh types in the case,

ready to arrange in new pages. The bibliographers scarcely understood

the technical expression of honest Wynkyn.]

[Footnote 17: There is a record in the parish books of St. Margaret's of

the churchwardens selling for 6_s._ 8_d._ one of the books bequeathed to

the church by William Caxton.]

APPENDIX A.

The following account of the invention of printing is given by an

ancient German chronicler of the name of Trithemius, who appears to have

personally known one of the three persons who clearly seem to have the

best title to be called the inventors of printing.

"At this time, in the city of Mentz on the Rhine in Germany, and not in

Italy, as some have erroneously written, that wonderful and then

unheard-of art of printing and characterizing books was invented and

devised by John Guttenberger, a citizen of Mentz, who, having expended

almost the whole of his property in the invention of this art, and on

account of the difficulties which he experienced on all sides, was about

to abandon it altogether; when, by the advice, and through the means, of

John Fust [or Faust], likewise a citizen of Mentz, he succeeded in

bringing it to perfection. At first they formed [engraved] the

characters or letters in written order on blocks of wood, and in this

manner they printed the vocabulary called a 'Catholicon.' But with these

forms [blocks] they could print nothing else, because the characters

could not be transposed in these tablets, but were engraved thereon, as

we have said. To this invention succeeded a more subtle one, for they

found out the means of cutting the forms of all the letters of the

alphabet, which they called matrices, from which again they cast

characters of copper or tin of sufficient hardness to resist the

necessary pressure, which they had before engraved by hand. And truly,

as I learned thirty years since from Peter Opilio (Schoeffer) de

Gernsheim, citizen of Mentz, who was the son-in-law of the first

inventor of this art, great difficulties were experienced after the

first invention of this art of printing, for in printing the Bible,

before they had completed the third quaternion (or gathering of four

sheets), 4000 florins were expended. This Peter Schoeffer, whom we have

above mentioned, first servant and afterwards son-in-law to the first

inventor, John Fust, as we have said, an ingenious and sagacious man,

discovered the more easy method of casting the types, and thus the art

was reduced to the complete state in which it now is. These three kept

this method of printing secret for some time, until it was divulged by

some of their workmen, without whose aid this art could not have been

exercised; it was first developed at Strasburg, and soon became known to

other nations. And thus much of the admirable and subtle art of printing

may suffice—the first inventors were citizens of Mentz. These three

first inventors of Printing, (videlicet) John Guttenberger, John Fust,

and Peter Schoeffer, his son-in-law, lived at Mentz, in the house called

Zum Jungen, which has ever since been called the Printing-office."

[Illustration: Guttenberg, Fust, and Schoeffer.]

The invention of Schoeffer, which, whatever might have been its first

mechanical imperfections, undoubtedly completed the principle of

printing, is more particularly described in an early document, which is

given in several learned works on typography, as proceeding from a

relation of Fust. It is as follows:—"Peter Schoeffer, of Gernsheim,

perceiving his master Fust's design, and being himself ardently desirous

to improve the art, found out (by the good providence of God) the method

of cutting (_incidendi_) the characters in a matrix, that the letters

might each be singly cast, instead of being cut. He privately cut

matrices for the whole alphabet; and when he showed his master the

letters cast from these matrices, Fust was so pleased with the

contrivance, that he promised Peter to give him his only daughter

Christina in marriage; a promise which he soon after performed. But

there were as many difficulties at first with these letters, as there

had been before with wooden ones; the metal being too soft to support

the force of the impression: but this defect was soon remedied by mixing

the metal with a substance which sufficiently hardened it." John

Schoeffer, the son of Peter, who was also a printer, confirms this

account, adding, "Fust and Schoeffer concealed this new improvement by

administering an oath of secrecy to all whom they intrusted, till the

year 1462, when, by the dispersion of their servants into different

countries, at the sacking of Mentz by the Archbishop Adolphus, the

invention was publicly divulged."

APPENDIX B.

BOOKS PRINTED BY CAXTON.

To our first printer are assigned 64 works, from 1471 to 1491. We

subjoin a list of them, furnished to the 'Penny Cyclopædia' by Sir Henry

Ellis, Principal Librarian of the British Museum. In this list are

included the French edition of the 'Recueil,' and the Oration of

Russell, which are considered doubtful.

1. 'Le Recueil des Histoires de Troyes, compose par raoulle le feure,

chapellein de Monseigneur le duc Philippe de Bourgoingne en l'an de

grace mil cccclxiiii.' fol.

2. 'Propositio clarissimi Oratoris Magistri Johannis Russell, decretorum

doctoris ac adtunc Ambassiatoris Edwardi Regis Anglie et Francie ad

illustr. Principem Karolum ducem Burgundie super susceptione ordinis

garterij, &c. 4to.

3. 'The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, composed and drawen out of

diverce bookes of latyn into Frensshe by Raoul le ffeure in the yere

1464, and drawen out of frensshe in to Englisshe by William Caxton at

the commaundement of Margarete Duchess of Burgoyne, &c., whych sayd

translacion and werke was begonne in Brugis in 1468 and ended in the

holy cyte of Colen 19 Sept. 1471,' fol.

4. 'The Game and Playe of the Chesse, translated out of the French,

fynysshid the last day of Marche, 1474,' fol.

5. A second edition of the same, fol. (with woodcuts).

6. 'A Boke of the hoole lyf of Jason,' (1475,) fol.

7. 'The Dictes and notable wyse Sayenges of the Phylosophers, transl.

out of Frenshe by lord Antoyne Wydeville Erle Ryuyeres, empr. at

Westmestre, 1477,' fol.

8. 'The Morale Prouerbes of Christyne (of Pisa),' fol. 1478.

9. 'The Book named Cordyale: or Memorare Novissima, which treateth of

The foure last Things,' begun 1478, finished 1480, fol.

10. 'The Chronicles of Englond,' Westm., 1480, fol.

11. 'Description of Britayne,' 1480, fol.

12. 'The Mirrour of the World or thymage of the same,' 1481, fol.

13. 'The Historye of Reynart the Foxe,' 1481, fol.

14. 'The Boke of Tullius de Senectute, with Tullius de Amicitia, and the

Declamacyon, which laboureth to shew wherein honour sholde reste,' 1481,

fol.

15. 'Godefroy of Boloyne; or, the laste Siege and Conqueste of

Jherusalem,' Westm., 1481, fol.

16. 'The Polycronycon,' 1482, fol.

17. 'The Pylgremage of the Sowle;' translated from the French, Westm.,

1483, fol.

18. 'Liber Festivalis, or Directions for keeping Feasts all the Yere,'

Westm., 1483, fol.

19. 'Quatuor Sermones' (without date), fol.

20. 'Confessio Amantis, that is to saye in Englisshe, The Confessyon of

the Louer, maad and compyled by Johan Gower, squyer,' Westm., 1483, fol.

21. 'The Golden Legende,' Westm., 1483, fol.

22. Another edition of 'The Legende,' sm. folio.

23. A third, 'fin. at Westmestre,' 20th May, 1483, fol.

24. 'The Booke callid Cathon' (Magnus), translated from the French,

1483, fol.

25. 'Parvus Chato' (without printer's name or date, but in Caxton's

type), folio.

26. 'The Knyght of the Toure,' translated from the French; Westm.

(1484), fol.

27. 'The Subtyl Historyes and Fables of Esope,' translated from the

French, 1484, fol.

28. 'The Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry, or Knyghthode,' translated from

the French (assigned to 1484), fol.

29. 'The Book ryal; or the Book for a Kyng,' 1484, fol.

30. 'A Book of the noble Historyes of Kynge Arthur and of certen of his

Knyghtes, which book was reduced in to Englysshe by syr Thomas Malory

Knyght,' 1485, fol.

31. 'The Lyf of Charles the Grete Kyng of Fraunce and Emperour of Rome,'

1485, fol.

32. Another edition of the same, 1485, fol.

33. 'Thystorye of the noble ryght valyaunt and worthy Knyghte Parys and

of the fayr Vyenne, the doulphyns doughter of Vyennoys,' translated from

the French, 1485, fol.

34. 'The Book of Good Maners,' 1486, fol.

35. 'The Doctrinal of Sapyence,' translated from the French, 1489, fol.

36. 'The Book of Fayttes of Armes and of Chyvalrye,' a translation from

the first part of Vegetius de Re Militari, 1489, fol.

37. 'The Arte and Crafte to knowe well to dye,' translated from the

French, 1490, fol.

38. 'The Boke of Eneydos, compyled by Vyrgyle,' translated from the

French, 1490, fol.

39. 'The Talis of Cauntyrburye' (no date), fol.

40. Another edition (without date or place), fol.

41. 'Infancia Salvatoris,' 4to.

42. 'The Boke of Consolacion of Philosophie, whiche that Boecius made

for his comforte and consolacion' (no date nor place), fol.

43. A collection of Chaucer's and Lydgate's minor Poems, 4to.

44. 'The Book of Fame, made by Gefferey Chaucer,' fol.

45. 'Troylus and Creseyde,' fol.

46. 'A Book for Travellers,' fol.

47. 'The Lyf of St. Katherin of Senis,' fol.

48. 'Speculum Vite Christi; or the myrroure of the blessyd Lyf of Jhesu

Criste,' fol.

49. 'Directorium Sacerdotum: sive Ordinale secundum Usum Sarum,' Westm.,

fol.

50. 'The Worke (or Court) of Sapience,' composed by John Lydgate, fol.

51. 'A Boke of divers Ghostly Maters,' Westm., fol.

52. 'The Curial made by Maystre Alain Charretier,' translated from the

French, fol.

53. 'The Lyf of our Lady, made by Dan John Lydgate, monke of Burye,'

fol.

54. 'The Lyf of Saynt Wenefryde, reduced into Englisshe,' fol.

55. 'A Lytel Tretise, intytuled or named The Lucidarye,' 4to.

56. 'Reverendissimi viri dni. Gulielmi Lyndewodi, LLD. et epi Asaphensis

constitutiones provinciales Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ,' 24mo.

57. 'The Hystorye of Kynge Blanchardyne and Queen Eglantyne his wyfe,'

fol.

58. 'The Siege of the noble and invyncyble Cytee of Rhodes,' fol.

59. 'Statuta apud Westmonasterium edita, anno primo Regis Ricardi

tercii,' fol.

60. 'Statutes' made in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Parliaments of Henry VII.,

folio. (The only fragment of this work known consists of two leaves.)

61. 'The Accidence' (mentioned in one of the sale catalogues of the

library of T. Martin of Palgrave).

62. 'The Prouffytable Boke of mānes soule, called The Chastysing of

Goddes Chyldern,' fol.

63. 'Horæ,' &c., 12mo., a fragment of eight pages, now at Oxford, in the

library bequeathed to the Bodleian by the late F. Douce, Esq.

64. A fragment of a Ballad, preserved in a volume of scraps and ballads

in the British Museum.

From the time of Caxton's press to that of Thomas Hacket, we have the

enumeration of 2926 books in Dr. Dibdin's work. The 'Typographical

Antiquities' of Ames and Herbert comes down to a later period. They

recorded the names of three hundred and fifty printers in England and

Scotland, or of foreign printers engaged in producing books for England,

that flourished between 1474 and 1600. The same authors have recorded

the titles (we have counted with sufficient accuracy to make the

assertion) of nearly 10,000 distinct works printed amongst us during the

same period. Many of these works, however, were only single sheets; but

on the other hand, there are doubtless many not here registered.

Dividing the total number of books printed during these 130 years, we

find that the average number of distinct works produced each year was 75.

APPENDIX C.

To avoid encumbering the preceding pages with foot-notes upon particular

passages, the author subjoins a list of the principal books which he has

referred to, or consulted, in this imperfect sketch of the Life of the

Father of English Printing:—

'Typographical Antiquities, or an Historical Account of the Origin and

Progress of Printing in Great Britain and Ireland.' By Joseph Ames and

William Herbert. 3 vols. 4to., 1785.

The same. Now greatly enlarged, with copious notes. By the Rev. Thomas

Frognall Dibdin. 4 vols. 4to., 1810.

'Biographia Britannica.' By Andrew Kippis. Article 'Caxton,' in vol.

iii., 1784.

'Life of William Caxton.' Treatise, Library of Useful Knowledge, 1828.

'A Treatise on Wood Engraving, Historical and Practical.' With

illustrations engraved on wood, by John Jackson, 1839.

'A Concise History of the Origin and Progress of Printing,' 1770.

'Introduction to the Literature of Europe.' By Henry Hallam. Vol. i.,

1836.

'Philobiblion, a Treatise on the Love of Books.' By Richard de Bury.

Translated by John B. Inglis, 1832.

'History of English Poetry.' By Thomas Warton. 4 vols. 8vo., 1824.

'The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer.' With an Essay on his Language and

Versification, &c. By Thomas Tyrwhitt. 5 vols., 1830.

'Specimens of the Early English Poets,' to which is prefixed an

'Historical Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the

English Poetry and Language.' By George Ellis. 3 vols., 1811.

'Illustrations of the Lives and Writings of Gower and Chaucer.' By the

Rev. Henry J. Todd, 1810.

'Three Early English Metrical Romances.' Edited by John Robson, for the

Camden Society. 1842.

'Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.' By Thomas Percy. 3 vols., 1794.

'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.' By Sir Walter Scott. 'Introductory

Remarks on Popular Poetry,' 1833.

'Sir Thomas More, or Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of

Society.' By Robert Southey. 2 vols., 1831.

'Utopia.' Written in Latin by Sir Thomas More. Translated by Ralph

Robinson. A new edition, by the Rev. T. F. Dibdin, 2 vols. 1808.

'The History of London.' By Thomas Maitland. 2 vols. folio, 1756.

'The New Chronicles of England and France.' By Robert Fabyan. Edited by

Sir Henry Ellis. 2 vols. 4to., 1811.

'The History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London.' By William

Herbert. 2 vols. 8vo., 1834.

'Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster.' By John Stow.

Augmented by John Strype. 2 vols. fol., 1720.

'Sir John Froissart's Chronicles.' Translated by Lord Berners. 2 vols.

4to. 1812.

'Memoirs of Philip de Comines.' Translated by Mr. Uvedale. 2 vols. 8vo.,

1723.

'Paston Letters. Original Letters, written during the Reigns of Henry

VI., Edward IV., and Richard III.' By Sir John Fenn. A new edition, by

A. Ramsay. 2 vols., 1840.

'Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne.' Par M. de Barante. 10 vols. 8vo., 1836.

'Statutes of the Realm.' From original records and authentic

manuscripts. Vol. ii., 1816.

'Memoirs of Wool,' &c. By John Smith. 2 vols., 1747.

'Extracts from the Issue Rolls of the Exchequer, Henry III. to Henry

VI.' 1837.

'Historie of the Arrivall of Edward IV.' Edited by John Bruce, for the

Camden Society. 1838.

'Wardrobe Accounts of Edward the Fourth.' By Nicholas Harris Nicolas.

1830.

'Monasticon Anglicanum.' By Sir William Dugdale. Edition of 1817.

'Retrospective Review.' Vol. xv. Article, 'The Knight of the Tower's

Advice to his Daughters.'

END OF PART I.

PART II.

THE MODERN PRESS.

THE MODERN PRESS.

CHAPTER I.

Cheap Popular Literature—Conditions of Cheapness—Popular Literature

of Elizabeth's reign—Who were the readers.

The history of Cheap Popular Literature is a long and instructive

chapter of the history of the condition of the People. Before the

invention of printing there was little literature that could be called

popular, and none that could be called cheap. But in the very earliest

stages of the press all books would be comparatively cheap, and all

literature to a certain extent popular. Our first printer, as we regard

his works, had a most especial eye to the largest number of readers. We

have no record of the price of his books beyond the fact that one of

them was sold for 6_s._ 8_d._, a price equal to that of a quarter of

wheat. But the subjects of his books, for the most part, show that he

thought it his especial business to simplify knowledge, and to furnish

reading for amusement. We can scarcely call any of his books learned.

What there is of science in them was of a popular sort, and illustrated

by diagrams. The histories were those of our old legendary chronicles,

as attractive even as the romances of chivalry which accompanied them.

His poetry was chiefly that of one of the great minds whose essential

attribute is that of universality. Caxton went to the largest number of

readers that his age presented to him.

It is a remarkable characteristic of the first century of printing, not

only in this country, but wherever a press was erected, that the highest

and most constant efforts of the new art were addressed to the diffusion

of the old stores of knowledge, rather than to an enlargement of the

stores. The early professors of the art on the continent, in Germany,

Italy, and France, were scholars who knew the importance of securing the

world's inheritance of the knowledge of Greece and Rome from any further

destruction, such as the scattered manuscripts of the ancient poets,

orators, and historians had experienced, through neglect and ignorance.

The press would put them fairly beyond the reach of any new waste. But

after the first half-century of printing, when these manuscripts had

been copied in type, and the public libraries and the princes and nobles

of Europe had been supplied, a fresh want arose out of the satisfaction

of the former want. Men of letters, who did not belong to the class of

the rich, anxiously demanded copies of the ancient classics; and their

demands were not made in vain. The Alduses, and Stephenses, and

Plantins, did not hold it good to keep books dear for the advancement of

letters; they anxiously desired to make them cheap, and they produced,

therefore, not expensive folios only, as their predecessors had done,

but neat and compactly printed octavos and duodecimos, for the general

market. The instant that they did this, the foundations of literature

were widened and deepened. They probably at first over-rated the demand;

indeed, we know they did so, and they suffered in consequence. But the

time was sure to come when their labours would be rewarded; and, at any

rate, they were at once placed beyond a servile dependence upon patrons.

When they had their customers in every great city and university, they

did not wait for the approving nod of a pope or a cardinal before they

began to print.

A new demand very soon followed upon the first demand for cheap copies

of the ancient classics, and this was even more completely the demand of

the people. The doctrines of the Reformation had proclaimed the Bible as

the best spiritual guide and teacher, and the people would have Bibles.

The first English Bible was bought up and burnt; those who bought the

Bibles contributed capital for making new Bibles, and those who burnt

the Bibles advertised them. The first printers of the Bible were,

however, cautious; they did not see the number of readers upon which

they were to rely for a sale. In 1540 Grafton printed but 500 copies of

his complete edition of the Scriptures; and yet, so great was the rush

to this new supply of the most important knowledge, that we have

existing 326 editions of the English Bible, or parts of the Bible,

printed between 1526 and 1600.

The early English printers did not attempt what the continental ones

were doing for the ancient classics. Down to 1540 no Greek book had

appeared from an English press. Oxford had only printed a part of

Cicero's Epistles; Cambridge, no ancient writer whatever: only three or

four old Roman writers had been reprinted, at that period, throughout

England. But a great deal was done for public instruction by the course

which our early printers took; for, as one of them says, "Divers famous

clerks and learned men translated and made many noble works into our

English tongue, whereby there was much more plenty and abundance of

English used than there was in times past." The English nobility were,

probably, for more than the first half-century of English printing, the

great encouragers of our press: they required translations and

abridgments of the classics, versions of French and Italian romances,

old chronicles, and helps to devout exercises. Caxton and his successors

abundantly supplied these wants; and the impulse to most of their

exertions was given by the growing demand for literary amusement on the

part of the great. Caxton, as we have seen, speaking of his 'Boke of

Eneydos,' says, "This present book is not for a rude uplandish man to

labour therein, nor read it." But a great change was working in Europe;

the "rude uplandish man," if he gave promise of talent, was sent to

school. The priests strove with the laity for the education of the

people; and not only in Protestant but in Catholic countries, were

schools and universities everywhere founded. Here, again, was a new

source of employment for the press—A, B, C's, or Abseys, Primers,

Catechisms, Grammars, Dictionaries, were multiplied in every direction.

Books became, also, during this period, the tools of professional men.

There were not many works of medicine, but a great many of law; and even

the people required instruction in the ordinances they were called upon

to obey, which they received in the form of proclamations.

The course of the early printers was based upon the principle that they

could produce books cheaper by the press than by the scribe. This point

once established, the next fact would be also clear—that the more

impressions they printed the cheaper the book could be afforded. Beyond

this great fact there was a difficulty. There would arise in their minds

the same doubt which has puzzled all printers and booksellers from the

time of Caxton to our times; which is at the bottom of all controversies

about dear books and low-priced books at the present hour; and which

will continue to perplex the producers of books, even should the entire

population beyond infancy become readers, and have the means of

purchasing books in some form or other. That question is simply a

commercial one, and is perfectly independent of any schemes of public or

private generosity for the enlightenment of the people; it is—Given the

subject of a book, its mode of treatment, the celebrity or otherwise of

its author, its amount of matter—what is the natural limit of its first

sale, and the necessary ratio of its published price? If the probable

demand be under-rated, there will be a high price, which will restrict

the natural demand; and if over-rated, there will be a low price, which

will curtail the natural profit. This is scarcely a question for

enthusiasts for cheapness to decide, upon the broad assertion that a

large sale of low-priced books will be more profitable than a small sale

of high-priced books.

In 1825, Archibald Constable, then the great publisher, propounded to

the then 'Great Unknown' his plan for revolutionising "the art and

traffic of bookselling." He exhibited the annual schedule of assessed

taxes, having reckoned the number of persons who paid for each separate

article of luxury; and from that document he calculated that, if he

produced every year "twelve volumes so good that millions must wish to

have them, and so cheap that every butcher's callant may have them, if

he please to let me tax him sixpence a week," he should sell them, "not

by thousands or tens of thousands, but by hundreds of thousands—ay, by

millions." It is recorded that a worthy divine, instructing his

bookseller to publish a sermon of his composition, decided that at least

twelve thousand should be the number printed, he having calculated that

one copy would be required in each parish by the clergyman alone, to say

nothing of chance customers. These statistics were ingenious, but they

were not safe guides. The callants did not consent to be taxed sixpence

a week; and the rectors and curates did not rush to St. Paul's

Churchyard to buy up the limited impression of the sermon.

But the Edinburgh publisher, and the rural divine, were nevertheless

right in their endeavour to find some principle upon which they could

determine the probable demand for a literary work. Constable proposed to

himself the union of goodness and cheapness, to create a demand that

(still using his own words) would have made him "richer than the

possession of all the copyrights of all the quartos that ever were, or

will be, hot-pressed." The goodness without the cheapness might have

produced little change in the market; the cheapness without the goodness

might have been more influential But, with the truest combination of

these qualities, there is nothing so easy or so common as to over-rate a

demand in the commerce of books. The price of a book aspiring to the

greatest popularity can only be settled by an estimate of the probable

number of readers at any one time in the community, and by a still more

difficult estimate of the sort of reading which is likely to interest

the greatest number. The same difficulty arises with regard to every new

book, and has always arisen. The amount of the "reading public," with

its almost endless subdivisions, arising out of station, or age, or

average intelligence, or prevailing taste, is very difficult to be

estimated in our own day; and there are not many authentic details ready

to our hand upon which we can make an estimate for any past period. We

will endeavour, out of these scanty landmarks, to collect some facts

relating to the former state and progressive extension of the realms of

print.

It is no modern discovery that a book cheap enough for the many amongst

reading people to buy, and at the same time a book which the many would

have a strong desire to buy, would be more advantageous to the

manufacturer of books than a dear book which the few only could buy, and

which the few only would desire to buy. There is preserved, in the

handwriting of Christopher Barker, in 1582, 'A Note of the offices and

other special licences for printing granted by her Majesty, with a

conjecture of their valuation.'[18] This worthy printer to the Queen

probably a little under-rated his own gains, when he says that the whole

Bible requires so great a cost, that his predecessors kept the realm

twelve years without venturing a single edition, but that he had

desperately adventured to print four in a year and a half, expending

about 3000_l._, to the certain ruin of his wife and family if he had

died in the time. Of these four editions, three were in folio, and one

in quarto. The sale of the folios would necessarily be limited by the

cost, in the way that the same unhappy patentee complains of as to his

Book of Common Prayer, "which few or none do buy except the minister."

But how stands the sale of smaller and less expensive books? Mr. Daye

prints the Psalms in metre, which book, "being occupied of all sorts of

men, women, and children, and requiring no great stock for the

furnishing thereof, is therefore gainful." The small Catechism is "also

a profitable copy, for that it is general." Mr. Seres prints the Morning

and Evening Prayer, with the Collects and the Litany; and where poor Mr.

Barker sells one Book of Common Prayer, "he (Seres) furnisheth the whole

parishes throughout the realm, which are commonly a hundred to one." But

with all his laments and jealousies, Queen Elizabeth's printer, in those

anti-commercial days, had hit the sound principle that is at the root of

the commerce of books. There is one of the printers, he says, whose

patent contains all dictionaries in all tongues, all chronicles and

histories whatsoever; and his position is thus described:—"If he print

competent numbers of each to maintain his charges, all England,

Scotland, and much more, were not able to utter them; and if he should

print but a few of each volume, the prices would be exceedingly great,

and he in more danger to be undone than likely to gain." Here are the

Scylla and Charybdis of the book-trade. Let "all good books on their

first appearance appeal to the needy multitude," says one adviser. Mr.

Barker answers, "All England, Scotland, and much more, were not able to

utter them." "Let the rich and luxurious be first addressed," say the

old traditional believers that dearness and excellence are synonymous.

Mr. Barker answers—"Print but a few of each volume, at exceedingly high

prices, and there is more danger of ruin than gain."

The Note of Christopher Barker to Lord Burghley is an answer to a

complaint that had been made in 1582, that the privileges granted to

members of the Stationers' Company "will be the overthrow of the

printers and stationers within this city, being in number one hundred

and seventy-five, and thereby the excessive prices of books

prejudiciable to the state of the whole realm." In the absence of any

knowledge of the numbers printed of a book, and of its consequent price,

at the time of this complaint against the monopolists of charging

"excessive prices," it may enable us to form some estimate of the

character of the books issued in 1582, and thence of the quality of the

readers of books, if we glance at two other sources of information—Ames

and Herbert's 'Typographical Antiquities,' and Mr. Collier's 'Extracts

from the Registers of the Stationers' Company.' The latter is especially

valuable, as showing what was doing in the most popular literature—the

literature of ballads and broadsides, of marvellous adventures and merry

tales—which matters Ames and Herbert rejected in a great degree.

In the twenty-fifth year of Queen Elizabeth then, we learn that the

printers of London had a good deal of work to do, in the production of

Bibles, Testaments, and Prayer-books—of A B C's, Primers, and

Catechisms; of divinity, chiefly controversial; of almanacs and

prognostications; of Latin books for grammar-schools; of grammars and

dictionaries; of statutes and law-books. This was the staple work of the

press, which had been going on from the beginning of the century, and

constantly increasing. We learn from the 'Privy-purse Accounts of

Elizabeth of York,' that, in 1505, twenty pence were paid for a Primer

and a Psalter. This sum was equal to a week's wages of a labourer in

husbandry. The Primer and the Psalter were scarcely for the labourer. In

1516 'Fitzherbert's Grand Abridgment,' then first published, cost the

lawyer forty shillings—a price equal to the expense of a week's commons

for all the students of Fitzherbert's inn. No doubt a century of

printing in England had greatly lowered the price of all books that were

essential instruments in the learned professions, or for the conduct of

school education. But in the reign of Elizabeth the class of general

readers had arisen; a class far more extensive than that of the clerks

and noble gentlemen to whom our first printers addressed their

translations of the classics, their French and Italian romances, their

'Gesta Romanorum,' their old chronicles, and their early poetry. It was

a time of travel and adventure. In this year, 1582, we find printed

'Discovery and Conquest of the East Indies,' 'Discovery and Conquest of

the Provinces of Peru, and also of the rich Mines of Potosi,' 'Divers

Voyages touching the Discovery of America' (Hakluyt), 'Acts and Gests of

the Spaniards in the West Indies,' 'State of Flanders and Portugal.' 'A

Discourse in commendation of Sir Francis Drake' had appeared in 1581.

Frobisher had received his poetical 'Welcome Home,' by Churchyard, in

1579. Of historical works, we have none printed in 1582, with the

exception of 'The Life, Acts, and Death of the most noble, valiant, and

renowned Prince Arthur,' which the readers of all classes would receive

with undoubting mind as an authentic record. But solid books of history

had very recently been produced. Holinshed had published his

'Chronicles;' Guicciardini had been translated by Jeffrey Fenton, and

Herodotus by B. R.

The rude historical Drama was then just arising to familiarise the

people with their country's annals. In ten more years the press would

teem with play-books; for the triumphant era was approaching of those

who, in 1579, Stephen Gosson denounced to uttermost perdition in his

'Pleasant invective against poets, pipers, jesters, and such-like

caterpillars of a commonwealth.' That species of popular literature is

almost absent from the Registers of 1582; but the materials upon which

much of the romantic drama is founded were familiar to the readers of

this period. Who were the readers, we may judge from the titles of some

of these novels. One will indicate a class:—'The Wonderful Adventures of

Simonides, gathered as well for the instruction of our noble young

gentlemen as our honourable courtly ladies.' The translators and writers

of these romances seem to have had no notion of a class of readers

beyond the circle of the rich and the high-born. Sidney's 'Arcadia' is

called 'The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia;' and in his Dedication to

"My dear Lady and Sister," he says, "It is done only for you, and to

you; ... for indeed for severer eyes it is not, being but a trifle, and

that triflingly handled." A few years after came Robert Greene, and

other writers of imagination, who were equally starved in writing plays

for the stage-managers and stories for the stationers. Greene's

'Pandosto,' afterwards called 'Dorastus and Fawnia,' is a small quarto

of 56 pages, in which Shakspere found the story of 'The Winter's Tale.'

The author describes this novelet as "pleasant for age to avoid dreary

thoughts; profitable for youth to eschew other wanton pastimes; and

bringing to both a desired content." He dedicates it "To the Gentlemen

Readers, Health;" and to these "Gentlemen" he says, "If any condemn my

rashness for troubling your ears with so many unlearned pamphlets, I

will straight shroud myself under the shadow of your courtesies." The

scholar was addressing the "gentlemen" of the Inns of Court and of the

Universities. He was looking to a ruder class of readers when, in 1591,

he published 'A Notable Discovery of Cosenage,' having himself, as he

confesses, kept villainous company. This tract he addresses "To the

young Gentlemen, Merchants, Apprentices, Farmers, and plain Countrymen."

Here is a great extension of the reading public: but we have some doubts

if Greene's tract ever reached "Farmers and plain Countrymen." The

question arises, how were books to be circulated in the provinces? It

was more than a century later before some of the largest towns, such as

Birmingham, had their booksellers. The pedlers who kept the fairs and

markets were the booksellers of the early days of the press. The last

new pamphlet travelled into the country in the same pack with the last

new ruff; it travelled many miles, and found few buyers. And yet for

some popular books the demand was not contemptible. Sir Thomas Challoner

translated 'The Praise of Folly,' of Erasmus, which was published in

1577; and the Stationers' Company stipulated with the publisher that he

should print "not above 1500 of any impression," and that "any of the

Company may lay on with him, reasonably, at every impression." Mr.

Collier, who gives this curious extract from "the Stationers'

Registers," thinks that this meant "sharing the profits." It meant that

whilst the sheets were at press any member of the Company might print

off a reasonable number for his own sale. To "lay on" is still a

technical term in printing. Challoner's Erasmus was an amusing book for

the scholar, and had, no doubt, a special sale amongst teachers and

students. Philip Stubbes, in his 'Anatomy of Abuses,' first published in

1583, bitterly complains that "pamphlets of toys and babbleries corrupt

men's minds and pervert good wits;" and he especially laments that such

books, being "better esteemed and more vendible than the godliest and

sagest books that be," have caused "that worthy Book of Martyrs, made by

that famous father and excellent instrument in God his Church, Master

John Foxe, so little to be accepted." We might have concluded that, even

in those days of limited bookselling, the great popular book of the

'Acts and Monuments' would have had an universal sale, with its

wonderful woodcuts and its deep interest for the bulk of the people. But

when its excitement was simply historical, two centuries afterwards, the

same book would be found in many a peasant's cottage, for the sole

reason that it might be purchased in small portions by a periodical

outlay. Whilst the wares of worthy John Fox were sleeping in the

bookseller's warehouse, the people were buying their 'Almanacs and

Prognostications,' which Christopher Barker, speaking of their patentee,

calls "a pretty commodity towards an honest man's living." They were

buying, in this year of 1582, 'The Dial of Destiny,' an astrological

treatise; 'The Examination and Confession of Witches;' 'The Execution of

Edmund Campion, the Jesuit;' 'The Interpretation of Dreams;' 'A Treatise

of the rare and strange Wonders seen in the Air.' They were buying 'A

Ballad of the Lamentation of a modest Maiden being deceitfully

forsaken;' A Ballad entitled 'Now we go, of the Papists' new overthrow;'

'The picture of two pernicious Varlets, called Prig Pickthank and Clem

Clawback;' 'A Ballad entitled a doleful Ditty, declaring the unfortunate

hap of two faithful friends, the one went out of her wits and the other

for sorrow died.' They were buying story-books in prose and

rhyme,—accounts of murders and treasons, of fires and earthquakes,—and

songs, "old and plain." The Court had its 'Euphues, very pleasant for

all gentlemen to read;' and the City its mirror of Court manners,

entitled 'How a young gentleman may behave himself in all companies.'

If we look very broadly at the character of the popular literature of

the middle period of the reign of Elizabeth, and compare it with the

popular literature of our own day, we shall find that the differences

are more in degree than in kind. We have purposely selected the period

before the uprising of our great dramatic literature, which must have

had a prodigious effect upon the intellectual condition of the people.

There was a great deal of training going forward in the grammar-schools

for the sons of tradesmen, and of the more opulent cultivators; but the

rudiments of knowledge were not accessible to the labourers in rural

districts, and the inferior handicraftsmen. There was, probably, no

great distinction in the acquirements of the gentry and the burgesses.

Some read with a real desire for information; some for mere amusement.

Newspapers were not as yet. In the country house where reading was an

occupation, there was Hall's 'Chronicle,' and Stow's 'Chronicle,' and,

may be, his rival Grafton's; there was Painter's 'Palace of Pleasure,'

Tusser's 'Five Hundred Points of good Husbandry,' and, though Philip

Stubbes denies its popularity, Fox's 'Book of Martyrs.' Chaucer and

Gower had become obsolete in the courtly circles; but Surrey, and

Sackville, and Gascoigne were dozed over after the noontide dinner. The

peers and commoners who came to Court and Parliament bought the new

Travels and Discoveries, and carried them into the country, for the

solace of many a long winter evening's curiosity about "antres vast and

deserts idle." The Greek and Roman classics were becoming somewhat

popularly known through translations. But it is tolerably clear that

much of the light reading, and most of the cheapest books, were rubbish

spun over and over again out of the novels of Bandello, and Boccaccio,

and Boisteau, and losing their original elegance in hasty and imperfect

translations. The taste for such reading received its best counteraction

when the stage became a noble instrument of popular instruction; and

when those who did not frequent the theatres had a wondrous store of

exciting fiction opened to them by a few plays of Shakspere and many

more of his contemporaries. It was in vain that puritanism, such as that

of Prynne, denounced "the ordinary reading of Comedies, Tragedies,

Arcadias, Amorous Histories, Poets," as unlawful. They held their empire

till civil war came to put an end to most home-studies, except that of

party and polemical pamphlets. But even in the tempestuous times that

preceded the great outbreak, Sir Henry Wotton, quoting the saying of a

Frenchman, laments that "his country was much the worse by old men

studying the venom of policy, and young men reading the dregs of fancy."

[Footnote 18: Archæologia, vol. xxv. page 100, &c.]

CHAPTER II.

Imperfect Civilisation—Reading during the Civil Wars—Reading after the

Restoration—French Romances—First London Catalogue, 1680—Authors and

Booksellers—Subscription Books—Books in Numbers—The Canvassing System.

In a condition of society which may be characterised as that of a very

imperfect civilisation—when communication is difficult, and in some

cases impossible; when the influence of the capital upon the provinces

is very partial and uncertain; when knowledge is for the most part

confined to the learned professions—we must regard the rich upper

classes precisely in the same relation to popular literature as we now

regard the poor lower classes. We must view them as essentially

uncritical and unrefined, swallowing the coarsest intellectual food with

greediness, looking chiefly to excitement and amusement in books, and

not very willingly elevating themselves to mental improvement as a great

duty. When Ben Jonson speaks of the "prerogative the vulgar have to lose

their judgments, and like that which is naught"—when he derides the

taste of "the beast the multitude"—he also takes care to tell us that

his description of those who "think rude things greater than polished,"

not only applied to "the sordid multitude, but to the neater sort of our

gallants: for all are the multitude; only they differ in clothes, not in

judgment or understanding."[19] About the time when Jonson wrote

thus—more calmly than when he denounced "the loathed stage, and the more

loathsome age"—Burton was exhibiting the intellectual condition of the

gentry in his 'Anatomy of Melancholy:'—"I am not ignorant how

barbarously and basely for the most part our ruder gentry esteem of

libraries and books; how they neglect and contemn so great a treasure,

so inestimable a benefit, as Æsop's cock did the jewel he found in the

dunghill; and all through error, ignorance, and want of education."

Again, he says, "If they read a book at any time, 'tis an English

chronicle, St. Huon of Bordeaux, Amadis de Gaul, &c., a play-book, or

some pamphlet of news; and that at such seasons only when they cannot

stir abroad." The "pamphlet of news" was a prodigious ingredient in the

queer cauldron of popular literature for the next half-century. Every

one has heard of the thirty thousand tracts in the British Museum,

forming two thousand volumes, all published between 1640 and 1660. The

impression of many of these was probably very small; for Rushworth, to

whom they became authorities, tells us that King Charles I. gave ten

pounds for the liberty to read one at the owner's house in St. Paul's

Churchyard. This was the twenty years' work of Milton's "pens and heads,

sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new

notions and ideas." Others were, "as fast reading, trying all things."

Milton asks, "What could a man require more from a nation so pliant and

so prone to seek after knowledge?" He truly answers: "wise and faithful

labourers, to make a knowing people, a nation of prophets, sages, and

worthies."[20] The "wise and faithful labourers" were scarcely to be

found in the civil and ecclesiastical violence of these partisan

writers. But they were the pioneers of constitutional liberty; and till

that fabric was built up, literature, properly so called, would offer

few things great or enduring. The demand for books in that stormy period

was, doubtless, very limited. The belief that the Ειχὼγ Βασιλιχὴ was

written by Charles I. would naturally account for the sale of fifty

editions in one year. But from 1623 to 1664 only two editions of

Shakspere were sold; and when the Restoration came, an act of Parliament

was passed that only twenty printers should practise their art in the

kingdom. The fact, as recorded by Evelyn, that at the fire of London, in

1666, the booksellers who carried on their business in the neighbourhood

of St. Paul's lost as many books, in quires, as were worth 200,000_l._,

is rather a proof of a slow demand than of the enormous extent of

bookselling. In the vaults of Saint Faith's were rotting many a copy of

what the world has agreed to call "heavy" books; books in advance of

their time; books that no price would have made largely saleable—the

books for the few.

The terrible quarter of a century that had preceded the Restoration, and

the new tastes which the return of the Stuarts brought to England, would

seem to have swept away even the remembrances of the popular literature

of Elizabeth and James. Edward Phillips, the nephew of Milton, has a

remarkable passage with reference to the poets: "As for the antiquated

and fallen into obscurity from their former credit and reputation, they

are for the most part those who have written beyond the verge of the

present age; for let us look back as far as about thirty or forty years,

and we shall find a profound silence of the poets beyond that time,

except of some few dramatics, of whose real worth the interest of the

now flourishing stage cannot but be sensible."[21] This was written in

1674. What had the people to read who had forgotten Spenser, and Daniel,

and Drayton; and Herbert—who knew little of Shakspere, except in the

translations of Davenant and Dryden; and who, unquestionably, had small

relish for the popular prose of another age, such as Bacon's 'Essays'?

They had rhyming tragedies; they had obscene comedies; they had their

Sedleys and Rochesters. It is not wonderful that the popular taste soon

grew corrupted. Pepys says (1666), "To Deptford by water, reading

Othello, Moor of Venice, which I ever heretofore esteemed a mighty good

play; but having so lately read The Adventures of Five Hours, it seems a

mean thing." Their "light reading" was a marvel—that romance literature

which at one time was as popular in its degree as the shilling novel of

our own day. We have before us Mr. Samuel Speed's Catalogue of Books,

printed for him in 1670. The first is 'Pharamond, the famed Romance,

written by the author of those other two eminent volumes Cassandra and

Cleopatra.' These famed and eminent volumes are large folios, translated

from the French of M. de la Calprenede. If Calprenede was the Dumas,

Madeleine Scudery was the Eugene Sue of those days. No popularity that

these moderns have obtained by their _feuilletons_ could have exceeded

the excitement produced here, as well as in France, by the wonderful

folios of their predecessors. 'Artamenes' and 'Clelia,' to say nothing

of 'Almahide' and 'The Illustrious Bassa,' were in every mansion of the

ladies of quality. The matron and her daughters sate at their embroidery

while the companion read aloud, night after night, a page or two of

these interminable adventures, in which Greeks and Romans talked the

language of the _Grand Monarque_; and the intrigues of the court, and

the characters of its personages, were mysteriously shadowed forth in

what were called "_Portraits_." What signified that they were stupid?

They were as level to the comprehension of their high-born readers as

the penny novels of the present day are to the intelligence of the

factory-girl. They had a long popularity, and were reprinted again and

again, in their eight or ten volumes, when the age of duodecimos had

arrived. They had been fashionable, and that was enough. Character they

had none, and very little of human passions. They were constructed upon

the admirable recipe of Molière in the 'Précieuses Ridicules'—a lover

without feeling; a mistress without preference; mutual insensibility;

sedulous attention to forms; a declaration in a garden; the banishment

of the lover by the coquetting fair; perseverance; timid confessions;

rivals; persecutions of fathers; jealousies conceived under false

appearances; laments; despairs; abductions; and all that. Mammas thought

they were wisely instructing their daughters, when they permitted

Mademoiselle Scudery to teach them "des règles dont, en bonne

galanterie, on ne saurait se dispenser." In vain Molière, and Boileau,

and Scarron laughed at the great heroic romances. They held their own

till Le Sage in France, and Defoe and Fielding in England, spoke the

language of real life. They show us how long the great and little vulgar

will feed upon husks, till some real fruit is offered to them. But it is

remarkable how, in the same age, works of real genius and works of

intense dulness will run side by side. It may be a question how far 'Don

Quixote' drove out the romances of chivalry. 'Tartufe,' and 'Le Malade

Imaginaire' were of the same era as that of the wonderful productions in

which Cyrus was talking _galanterie_ to Mandane through a thousand folio

pages. When Pepys thought 'Othello' a mean thing compared with 'The

Adventures of Five Hours' he also bought "Hudibras, both parts, the book

now in greatest fashion for drollery;" but he tells us his honest mind

when he says, "I cannot, I confess, see enough where the wit lies."

Voltaire had a different standard of taste when he wrote, "I never met

with so much wit in one single book as in this." The politics of

'Hudibras' made it "in greatest fashion;" the wit shot over the heads of

the idle, dissipated, slavish, and corrupt courtiers who gave it their

patronage, but eventually left its author to starve. Butler became

popular in another generation; and so did Milton. The first edition of

'Paradise Lost' sufficed for a circulation of seven years.

The earliest Catalogue of Books published in this country contains a

list of "all the books printed in England since the dreadful fire, 1666,

to the end of Trinity term, 1680." The statistical results of this

catalogue of the productions of the press for fourteen years have been

ascertained by us. The whole number of books printed was 3550; of which

947 were divinity, 420 law, and 153 physic; 397 were school-books, and

253 on subjects of geography and navigation, including maps. About

one-half of these books were single sermons and tracts. Deducting the

reprints, pamphlets, single sermons, and maps, we have estimated that,

upon an average, 100 new books were produced in each year.

About the time when this catalogue was published, John Dunton, one of

the most eccentric, and perhaps therefore amusing, of the publishing

race, went into business with half a shop. He can tell us something of

the manufacture of some of these books of the London catalogue. He says,

"Printing was now uppermost in my thoughts; and hackney authors began to

ply me with specimens as earnestly, and with as much passion and

concern, as the watermen do passengers with oars and scullers." He adds,

"As for their honesty, 'tis very remarkable. They'll either persuade you

to go upon another man's copy, to steal his thought, or to abridge his

books which should, have got him bread for his lifetime."[22] There were

varieties of this class:—"Mr. Bradshaw was the best accomplished hackney

author I have met with; his genius was quite above the common size, and

his style was incomparably fine." Dunton had a suspicion that Bradshaw

wrote 'The Turkish Spy,' which might justify somewhat of his eulogium.

Roger North says that "the demi-booksellers," who deal in "the fresh

scum of the press," are such as "crack their brains to find out selling

subjects, and keep hirelings in garrets, at hard meat, to write and

correct by the great; and so puff up an octavo to a sufficient

thickness, and there is six shillings current for an hour and a half's

reading, and perhaps never to be read or looked upon after." The people

get these wares cheaper now. The publishers of that day, and long

afterwards, were not very nice as to the uniform excellence of the books

they issued. Dunton informs us that Mr. William Rogers, who was the

publisher of Sherlock and Tillotson, was concerned in publishing "some

Dying Speeches." They had books for all tastes, and carried their goods

to many markets. They were equally at home in Cheapside or at Sturbridge

fair; and the great Bernard Lintot exhibited his "rubric posts" in his

shop, and kept a booth on the Thames when it was frozen over. Some,

according to Dunton, were "pirates and cormorants;" others, who had "the

intimate acquaintance of several excellent pens, could never want

copies." Some were good at "projection"—the devisers of "selling

subjects;" and the talent of some "lies at collection," which Dunton

exemplifies by Mr. Crouch, who "melted down the best of our English

histories into twelvepenny books, which are filled with wonders,

rarities, and curiosities." One, who "printed The Flying Post, did often

fill it with stolen copies;" whilst Jacob Tonson, who paid Dryden like a

safe tradesman as he was, and made him presents of melons and sherry, is

very indignant that the great poet charged him fifty guineas for

fourteen hundred and forty-six lines, when he expected to have had

fifteen hundred and eighteen lines for forty guineas. Peace to their

manes! They were all doing something towards the supply of that great

want which was beginning to assert itself somewhat extensively in their

day. They were, for the most part, rugged dealers in wares intellectual.

They had many modes of turning a penny beyond the profits which they

derived, as publishers, from "the great genius" or "the eminent hand,"

which each patronised. They had some difficulties in their way as

manufacturers; although the more cautious and lucky did make fortunes.

The more limited the public, the more uncertain the demand. They were

pretty safe with their tracts, and their abridgments, and their new

comedies; but when they had to deal with works of learning, which were

necessarily costly, they and their authors—for the authors had often to

sustain the charges of printing—encountered serious losses. We shall see

how, as the commerce of books extended, new measures were adopted to

lessen, if not to remove, the risk.

Amongst the 'Calamities of Authors' there are many touching records of

"Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty,"

produced by printing books that met with no ready sale. Purchas was

ruined by his 'Pilgrimes;' Castell by his 'Lexicon Heptaglotton;' Ockley

by his 'History of the Saracens;' Rushworth by his 'Historical

Collections.' Bishop Kennett gave away his 'Register and Chronicle,'

saying, "The volume, too large, brings me no profit." The remedy was to

be found in publishing by subscription. This plan, like most other human

things, was subject to abuse; but it was founded upon a true estimate of

the peculiar risks of publishing. It is manifest that, if a certain

number of persons unite in agreement to purchase a book which is about

to be printed, the author may be at ease with regard to the issue of the

enterprise, and the subscribers ought to receive what they want at a

lower cost than when risk enters into price. For more than half a

century nearly all the great books were published by subscription; and

the highest in literature felt no degradation in canvassing themselves

with their "subscription receipts." It is easy to perceive, by the

subscription prices, when the work was set on foot by an author, or his

friends, simply as a more convenient mode of obtaining or bestowing

money than begging or borrowing; and when there was a real market value

given for the commodity offered. The scheme of levying contributions

upon subscribers was as old as the days of Taylor, the Water Poet. He

published his 'Pennilesse Pilgrimage' in this fashion; and it seems that

he sometimes gave his books to those who were unwilling to return his

honorarium. He consoles himself by a lampoon against his false

subscribers:—

"They took a book worth twelvepence, and were bound

To give a crown, an angel, or a pound;

A noble, piece, or half-piece, what they list,—

They past their words, or freely set their fist."

Honest John had sixteen hundred and fifty such subscribers; but of

these, seven hundred and fifty were "bad debtors."[23] In the next

century, Myles Davies has the same story to tell of the degradation of

the literary begging-letter writer. He leaves his books at the great

man's door; he writes letter upon letter, "with fresh odes upon his

graceship, and an account where I lived, and what noblemen had accepted

of my present." He walks before the "parlour-window," and "advances to

address his grace to remember the poor author." At last his parcel of

books is returned to him unopened, "with half-a-guinea upon top of the

cargo," and "with desire to receive no more." Heaven, in its mercy, has

relieved the tribe from these heartbreaking disgraces. There may be "the

fear that kills," but there is no longer the patron who starves.

Goldsmith has described the devices and the abasement of the little man

in the coffee-house, who "drew out a bundle of proposals, begging me to

subscribe to a new edition he was going to give the world of Propertius,

with notes." His plans were more ingenious and diversified than those of

Myles Davies: "I first besiege their hearts with flattery, and then pour

in my proposals at the breach. If they subscribe readily the first time,

I renew my request to beg a dedication fee. If they let me have that, I

smite them once more for engraving their coat-of-arms at the top." Forty

years after Myles Davies, Samuel Johnson was enduring the anxieties

attendant upon the subscription plan, although friends stood between the

author and the customer. He writes to Burney in 1758, "I have likewise

enclosed twelve receipts (for Shakspere); not that I mean to impose upon

you the trouble of pushing them with more importunity than may seem

proper," &c. Long was the subscribed Shakspeare delayed; and the proud

struggling man had to bear Churchill's malignity, as well as the

reproaches of his own sense of honour:—

"He for subscribers baits his hook,

And takes your cash; but where's the book?"

Well might Johnson write, in more prosperous times, "He that asks

subscription soon finds that he has enemies. All who do not encourage

him, defame him." Johnson and his publishers set no price upon their

books, as a gratuity to the author, beyond their common market value.

But great men had gone before them, who regulated their subscription

prices by a higher estimate of the value of their works. Steele had

received a guinea an octavo volume for the republication of 'The

Tatler;' Pope had six guineas for his six quarto volumes of 'The

Iliad;'—"a sum," says Johnson, "according to the value of money at that

time, by no means inconsiderable." The subscription to Pope's

'Shakspeare' was also six guineas for six volumes. Johnson's projected

translation of Paul Sarpi's 'History of the Council of Trent' was only

to be charged twopence a sheet. That seems to have been the ordinary

price of subscription books during the first half of the eighteenth

century. Du Halde's 'China,' which appears to have required a great deal

of what "the trade" call "pushing," was advertised by Cave at three

halfpence a sheet; besides the attraction of a complicated

lottery-scheme, with marvellous prizes. When the subscribers to a new

book were served, the remaining copies were sold, generally at superior

rates. Sometimes, in the case of high-priced works, the unsold copies

lay quiet through the mildew of a quarter of a century in the

bookseller's warehouse. At Tonson's sale, in 1767, Pope's six-guinea

Shakspeare had fallen to sixteen shillings for the hundred and forty

copies then sold as a "remainder."[24] Many of the subscription books

were remarkably profitable. The gains of Pope upon his 'Iliad' are

minutely recorded in his Life by Johnson. Lintot paid the expense of the

subscription copies, and gave the poet two hundred pounds a volume in

addition. Lintot looked for his remuneration to an edition in folio. The

project was knocked on the head by a reprint in Holland, in duodecimo;

which edition was clandestinely imported, as in the recent days of

French editions of Byron and Scott. Lintot took a wise course. He went

at once to the general public with editions in duodecimo, at

half-a-crown a volume, of which he very soon sold seven thousand five

hundred copies. But it may well be doubted if Pope would have made five

thousand three hundred pounds, if he had originally gone, without the

quarto subscription process, to the buyers of duodecimos. Perhaps even

the duodecimos would not have sold extensively without the reputation of

the quartos. There was no great reading public to make a fortune for the

poet out of small profits upon large sales. Some may think that Pope

would have been as illustrious without the ease which this fortune gave

him. It may be so. But of one thing we are clear—that in every age the

higher rewards of authorship, reaped by one eminent individual, are

benefits to the great body of authors; and thus that the villa at

Twickenham had a certain influence in making what the world called

"Grub-street" less despicable and more thriving. It dissociated

authorship from garrets. Yet it is marvellous, even now, how some of the

race of attorneys and stockbrokers turn up their eyes when they hear of

a successful writer keeping a brougham, and lament, over their claret,

that such men will be improvident.

In those days of subscription books there were great contrasts of

success and loss; of steady support and capricious neglect. Conyers

Middleton made a little fortune by his 'Life of Cicero,' in two volumes

quarto, published in 1741. His suspected heterodoxy was no bar to his

success. Carte, in 1747, printed three thousand copies of the first

volume of his 'General History of England,' for which he had adequate

support. In that unlucky volume his Jacobitism peeped out, in a relation

of an astonishing cure for the king's-evil, produced by the touch of the

first Pretender, who, he says, "had not at that time been crowned or

anointed." Away went the "remainder" of the three thousand volumes to

the trunk-maker, and of the subsequent volumes only seven hundred and

fifty were printed. Whether by subscription, or by the mode of fixing a

published price for a general sale,—which, in the second half of the

century, was superseding the attempt to ascertain the number of

purchasers before publication,—there was always a great amount of

caprice, or prejudice, in the unripe public judgment of a book, which

rendered its fate very hazardous and uncertain. Hume, in 1754, published

the first volume of his 'History of England.' He says, "Mr. Millar told

me that in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five copies of it." Gibbon

published the first volume of his 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

in 1776: "I am at a loss," he modestly tells us, "how to describe the

success of the work without betraying the vanity of the writer. The

first impression was exhausted in a few days; a second and third edition

were scarcely adequate to the demand; and the bookseller's property was

twice invaded by the pirates of Dublin." Thomson's 'Seasons' was lying

as waste paper in the publisher's shop, when one Mr. Whatley purchased a

copy; and his authority in the coffee-houses brought it into notice.

Collins was not so fortunate. His 'Odes' would not sell. He repaid the

bookseller the price he had received for the copyright, settled for the

printing, and burnt the greater part of the impression.

We have put together some of these scattered facts, to show how

difficult was the publication of books before a great general public had

been raised up to read and purchase, and how the risk of expensive works

was sought to be lessened by taking hostages against evil fortune. The

subdivision of large books into weekly or monthly numbers was one of the

expedients that was early resorted to for attracting purchasers. Some

curious relations of the first days of number-publishing are given in a

rare pamphlet by the Rev. Thomas Stackhouse, the author of the

well-known 'History of the Bible.' In 1732 two booksellers, Mr. Wilford

and Mr. Edlin, "when the success of some certain things published weekly

set every little bookseller's wits to work," proposed to this poor

curate of Finchley "to write something which might be published weekly,

but what it was they knew not." At the Castle Tavern, in Paternoster

Row, the trio deliberated upon the "something" that was to have a run.

Edlin was for a "Roman History, brushing up Ozell's dull style, when the

old thing would still do in a weekly manner." Wilford was for 'Family

Directors.' Stackhouse proposed the 'New History of the Bible.' Wilford

backed out; Edlin and Stackhouse quarrelled. The divine wanted many

works of commentators and critics. The bookseller maintained "that the

chief of his subscribers lived in Southwark, Wapping, and Ratcliff

Highway; that they had no notion of critics and commentators; that the

work would be adapted to their capacity, and therefore the less learning

in it the better." Stackhouse got out of the hands of this encourager of

letters, found another publisher, and prospered, as well as he could,

upon the subscriptions to his "four sheets of original matter for

sixpence."[25] Many of the number-books were published under fictitious

names of authors; and some actual authors, clerical and lay, lent their

names to works of which they never saw a line. One of the most

accomplished of the number-book writers was Dr. Robert Sanders, a

self-created LL.D. He produced Histories of England, in folio and

quarto, under various names. He was the writer of the Notes to the

edition of the Bible, published in 1773, under the honoured name of Dr.

Henry Southwell. The ingenious note-writer has told the story without

reservation:—"As I was not a clergyman, my name could not be prefixed to

it. Application was made to several clergymen for the use of their

names; and at last Henry Southwell, LL.D., granted his." In a year or

two the indefatigable Sanders was ready with a scheme for a larger

commentary. He found a Doctor who would lend his name for a hundred

pounds; but such a sum was out of the question. A mere A.M. was

purchased for twenty pounds; but the affair broke down. The commentator

relates that he was told by the proprietors "they had no further

occasion for my services, and even denied me my week's wages." We hope

the laborious Sanders was less scurvily treated by the publishers of

that immortal work of his, which has been the glory of the number-trade

even up to this hour, namely, 'The Newgate Calendar, or Malefactor's

Bloody Register.' How many fortunes have been made out of this great

storehouse of popular knowledge is of little consequence to society. It

may be of importance to consider how many imps of fame have here studied

the path to glory. Sanders had a rival—the Rev. Mr. Villette, ordinary

of Newgate—who published the 'Annals of Newgate, or Malefactor's

Register,' &c., "intended as a beacon to warn the rising generation

against the temptations, the allurements, and the dangers of bad

company." In this title-page "the celebrated John Sheppard," and "the

equally celebrated Margaret Caroline Rudd," are leading attractions. The

author of the 'Annals,' no doubt, prospered better than he of the

'Calendar.'

Poor wretched Sanders, during the period when he was correcting Lord

Lyttleton's 'History of Henry II.,' had "a weekly subsistence;" but in

1768 he writes, "During these six weeks I have not tasted one whole meal

of victuals at a time."[26] The original race of number-publishers had

no very exalted notion of the value of literary labour. Their successors

had no will to bestow any payment upon literature at all, while they had

the old stores to produce and reproduce. They have now been forced into

some few attempts at originality. But the employment of new authorship

is a rare exception to their ordinary course. When the necessity does

arise, there is always perturbation of mind. In a moment of despair,

when his press was standing still for some of that manuscript which, in

an unlucky hour, he had bargained for with a living writer, one of this

fraternity exclaimed, "Give me dead authors, they never keep you waiting

for copy!" Many good books have, however, been produced by the early

number-publishers. We may mention Chambers' 'Cyclopædia,' Smollett's

'History of England,' and Scott's 'Bible.' Some well-printed books are

still being produced, but the compilers help themselves freely to what

others have dearly paid for. Taken as a whole, they are the least

improved, and certainly they are the dearest books, in the whole range

of popular literature. The system upon which they are sold is

essentially that of forcing a sale; and the necessary cost of this

forcing, called "canvassing," is sought to be saved in the quantity of

the article "canvassed," or in the less obvious degradation of its

quality. The "canvasser" is an universal genius, and he must be paid as

men of genius ought to be paid. He has to force off the commonest of

wares by the most ingenious of devices. It is not the intrinsic merit of

a book that is to command a sale, but the exterior accomplishments of

the salesman. He adapts himself to every condition of person with whom

he is thrown into contact. As in Birmingham and other great towns there

is a beggars' register, which describes the susceptibilities of the

families at whose gates beggars call, even to the particular theological

opinions of the occupants, so the canvasser has a pretty accurate

account of the households within his beat. He knows where there is the

customer in the kitchen, and the customer in the parlour. He sometimes

has a timid colloquy with the cook in the passage; sometimes takes a

glass of ale in the servants' hall; and, when he can rely upon the

charms of his address, sends his card boldly into the drawing-room. No

refusal can prevent him in the end leaving his number for inspection.

The system is most rife in North and Midland England; it is not so

common in the agricultural South, although it might be an instrument of

diffusing sound knowledge amongst a scattered population. If an effort

were honestly made to publish works really cheap, because intrinsically

good, upon "the canvassing system," that system, which has many real

advantages, might be redeemed from the disgrace which now too often

attaches to it, in the hands of the quacks who are most flourishing in

that line.

The number-trade was a necessary offshoot of that periodical literature

which sprang up into importance at the beginning of the eighteenth

century, and which, in all its ramifications, has had a more powerful

influence than that of all other literature upon the intelligence of the

great body of the people.

[Footnote 19: Discoveries.]

[Footnote 20: Areopagitica.]

[Footnote 21: Theatrum Poetarum, Preface.]

[Footnote 22: Dunton's 'Life and Errors,' ed. 1705, p. 70.]

[Footnote 23: 'A Kicksey Winsey.']

[Footnote 24: 'Gentleman's Magazine,' vol. lvii., quoted in Nicholls'

'Literary Anecdotes,' vol. v. p. 597.]

[Footnote 25: See Nicholls' 'Literary Anecdotes,' vol. ii. p. 394.]

[Footnote 26: Nicholls' 'Literary Anecdotes,' vol. ii. p. 730, and vol.

iii. p. 760.]

CHAPTER III.

Periodical Literature—Prices of Books; 18th Century—Two classes of

Buyers—The Magazines—Collections of the Poets—The Circulating Library—

Cheap Book-Clubs.

On the 8th of February, 1696, our friend John Dunton completed the

nineteenth volume of 'The Athenian Mercury, resolving all the most nice

and curious questions proposed by the ingenious.' This penny tract,

published twice a-week, consisted of a single leaf. "The ingenious"

ceased to question, and "The Athenian Society," as the bookseller called

his scribes, ceased to answer, after six years of this oracular labour.

There came an irruption of the barbarians, in the shape of "nine

newspapers every week." John proposed to resume his task "as soon as the

glut of news is a little over." The countryman waiting for the river to

roll by was not more mistaken. In 1709 there was one daily paper in

London; twelve, three times a-week; and three, twice a-week. Amongst

those of three times a-week was 'The Tatler,' which commenced April 12,

1709. The early Tatlers had their regular foreign intelligence. They

were as much newspapers as 'The Flying Post' and 'The Postboy.' But

Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., very soon discontinued the information which he

derived from letters from the Hague and advices from Berlin. He had

something of a more original character to offer his readers. The state

of popular enlightenment at this period has been described by Johnson in

his Life of Addison:—"That general knowledge which now circulates in

common talk was in his time rarely to be found. Men not professing

learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and in the female world any

acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured." Steele

and Addison had to form the taste of the new generation that they were

addressing. They knew that there was a large class craving amusement,

who might at the same time be refined and instructed without the

pretensions of "the budge doctors of the stoic fur." They meddled little

with politics. They left the furious discussions about Church and State

to papers with an earnest political purpose, of which Charles Leslie, a

violent Tory, thus spoke in his 'Rehearsals:'—"The greatest part of the

people do not read books; most of them cannot read at all: but they will

gather together about one that can read, and listen to an Observator or

Review, as I have seen them, in the streets." The Tatler has been

described as a great success; but we may measure that success by that of

the more popular Spectator. In No. 555 of that work Steele says,—"The

tax on each half-sheet has brought into the Stamp-Office, one week with

another, above 20_l._ a-week, arising from the single paper,

notwithstanding it at first reduced it to less than half the number that

was usually printed before the tax was laid." The tax being a halfpenny,

this would only show a daily circulation of 1600, and of about 3000 when

it was unstamped. But the sale in volumes, according to the same

statement, was as high as 9000 of each volume. This fact gives us a

higher notion of the popularity of these charming papers, and of the

consequent extent of general reading, than any other circumstance in the

literary history of that period. But even the comparatively small daily

sale was of importance, as showing that the great middle class was

beginning to seek something better than could be found in the coarse and

meagre news-sheets. The annals of 'The Gentlemen's Society at Spalding'

record that in April, 1709, some residents there heard of the Tatlers,

and ordered them to be sent to the coffee-house in the Abbey-yard:—"They

were accordingly had, and read there every postday, generally aloud to

the company, who could sit and talk over the subject afterwards." The

narrative goes on to say that "in March, 1711, the Spectator came out,

which was received and read here as the Tatler had been." Such are the

beginnings of popular knowledge. What the Tatler and Spectator were to

the gentlemen of Spalding, the Penny Magazine and Chambers' Journal were

to many a mechanic a hundred and twenty years after. One of this class

has recorded the influence of such works, which addressed a far larger

number than could be addressed at the beginning of the eighteenth

century:—"The Penny Magazine was published. I borrowed the first volume,

and determined to make an effort to possess myself with the second.

Accordingly, with January, 1833, I determined to discontinue the use of

sugar in my tea, hoping that my family would not then feel the sacrifice

necessary to buy the book.... I looked as anxiously for the issue of the

monthly part as I did for the means of getting a living."[27] It is this

spirit in the great mechanical class of this country that, in spite of

some popular reading that is corrupting, and much that is frivolous,

will ultimately raise and purify even the meanest sheet of our cheap

literature, and compel those who have the responsibility of addressing

large masses of the people to understand that an influential portion do

feel that the acquirement of knowledge is worth some sacrifice.

The 'Complete Catalogue of Modern Books, published from the beginning of

the century to 1756,' contains 5280 new works. In this Catalogue "all

pamphlets and other tracts" are excluded. We can scarcely, therefore,

compare this period, as to the number of books published, with that of

1680. The average number of the first 57 years of the 18th century was

93 new works each year. At the beginning of the century, the price of a

folio or quarto volume ranged from 10_s._ to 12_s._; an octavo from

5_s._ to 6_s._; and a duodecimo from 2_s._ 6_d._ to 3_s._ We have the

original 'Tatler' before us, with its curious advertisements of books,

sales by the candle, cordial elixirs, lotteries, and bohea tea at 24_s._

a-pound. Whitelocke's 'Memorials,' folio, is advertised at 12_s._;

Rowe's edition of Shakspeare, 8vo., is 5_s._ per volume; 'The Peerage of

England,' 8vo., 6_s._; Shakspeare's Poems, 12mo., 1_s._ 6_d._; 'The

Monthly Amusement,' each number containing a complete novel, is 1_s._;

Sermons are 2_d._ each. We learn, from other sources, that the first

edition of 'The Dunciad' was a sixpenny pamphlet; whilst 'The Governor

of Cyprus, a Novel,' and 'The Wanton Fryar, a Novel,' were each 12_s._

The number printed of an edition was, no doubt, very moderate, except

chiefly of books that were associated with some great popular

excitement. Sacheverell's Trial is said to have sold 30,000; as, in a

later period, 30,000 were sold of Burke's 'Reflections on the Revolution

in France.' The old booksellers were cautious about works of imagination

when they were expected to pay handsomely for copyright. The manuscript

of 'Robinson Crusoe' was pronounced dangerous by the whole tribe of

publishers, till one ventured upon an edition. The demand was such that

the copies could only be supplied by dividing the work amongst several

printers. One of Defoe's numerous assailants, in attempting to ridicule

him, gives the best evidence of his popularity: "There is not an old

woman that can go to the price of it but buys 'The Life and Adventures,'

and leaves it as a legacy with the 'Pilgrim's Progress.'" Richardson's

'Pamela,' published in 1741, sold five editions in one year. There are

fabulous accounts of Millar, the publisher, clearing 18,000_l._ by 'Tom

Jones.' In those times the Dublin pirates were as assiduous in their

plunder of English copyrights as the American publishers have been in

plundering the English, and the English the American, in our days.

Richardson was driven wild by the publication of half 'Sir Charles

Grandison' in Ireland, in a cheap form, before a single volume was

issued in England. There was a regular system of bribery in the English

printing-offices, through which the Dublin booksellers organised their

robberies. They sold their books surreptitiously in England and

Scotland; and from their greater cheapness they had the command of their

own market. This system lasted till the Union.

The prices of books do not appear to have much increased at the

beginning of the reign of George III. In some cases their moderation is

remarkable. We have seen how small was the demand for the first volume

of Hume's 'History' in 1754. We have a number of 'The Gazetteer and New

Daily Advertiser' at hand, May 9, 1764; and there we learn, from an

advertisement, what a change ten years had produced. A new edition of

the third and fourth volumes, in quarto, is advertised at 1_l._ 5_s._;

but "the proprietor, at the desire of many who wish to be possessed of

this valuable and esteemed history, is induced to a monthly publication,

which will not exceed eight volumes." These volumes were 5_s._ each. It

is manifest that the bookseller had found a new class to address when he

issued the monthly volumes. Hume says, "Notwithstanding the variety of

winds and seasons to which my writings had been exposed, they had still

been making such advances that the copy-money given me by the

booksellers much exceeded anything formerly known in England." He had

complained of the neglect of the "considerable for rank or letters." His

publisher saw that a history with such charms of style—so freed from

tedious quotations from state-papers and statutes—so unlike the great

folios of Carte and Rapin—was a book for a new race of readers.

Coleridge humorously enough says—"Poets and philosophers, rendered

diffident by their very number, addressed themselves to 'learned

readers;' then, aimed to conciliate the graces of 'the candid reader;'

till, the critic still rising as the author sank, the amateurs of

literature collectively were erected into a municipality of judges, and

addressed as 'the Town.' And now, finally, all men being supposed to

read, and all readers able to judge, the multitudinous 'Public,' shaped

into personal unity by the magic of abstraction, sits nominal despot on

the throne of criticism."[28] There is a great truth beneath the

sarcasm. The enduring patronage of the public was beginning when Andrew

Millar was bold enough to publish Hume's History in monthly

five-shilling volumes. But there are still many evidences that the

commerce of books at that period, and subsequently, did not contemplate

the existence of a large class of buyers, beyond those who were at ease

in their fortunes. In that farrago of sense and absurdity, 'The Life of

James Lackington, the present Bookseller, Finsbury-square, London,

written by himself' (1791), there is a remarkable disclosure of the mode

in which books were prevented being sold cheaply, after the original

demand had been satisfied:—"When first invited to these trade-sales, 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. And there was a kind of standing order amongst the

trade that, in case any one was known to sell articles under the

publication price, such a person was to be excluded from trade-sales—so

blind were copyright holders to their own interest." In the same manner,

it is within the memory of many living persons that there was an

invariable high price for fish in London, because the wholesale dealers

at Billingsgate always destroyed a portion of what came to market, if

the supply were above the average. The dealers in fish had not

recognised the existence of a class who would buy for their suppers what

the rich had not taken for their dinners; and knew not that the stalls

of Tottenham Court Road had as many customers ready for a low price as

the shops of Charing Cross for a high price. The fishmongers had not

discovered that the price charged to the evening customers had no effect

of lowering that of the morning. Nor had the booksellers discovered that

there were essentially two, if not more, classes of customers for

books—those who would have the dearest and the newest, and those who

were content to wait till the gloss of novelty had passed off, and good

works became accessible to them, either in cheaper reprints, or

"remainders" reduced in price. But books and fish have one material

difference. Good books are not impaired in value when they are

cheapened. Their character, which has been established by the first

demand, creates a second and a larger demand. Lackington destroyed no

books that were worth saving, but sold them as he best could. We have no

quarrel with his self-commendation when he says, "I could almost be vain

enough to assert that I have thereby been highly instrumental in

diffusing that general desire for reading now so prevalent among the

inferior orders of society."

What Lackington thought "a general desire for reading" was,

nevertheless, a very limited desire. "The inferior orders of society"

who had the desire did not comprehend many of the mechanics, and none of

the husbandry labourers. It may be doubted whether the Magazine

Literature that the eighteenth century called forth ever went beyond the

gentry and the superior traders. Kippis says of the magazines, "they

have been the means of diffusing a general habit of reading through the

nation." There appears to have been a sort of tacit agreement amongst

all who spoke of public enlightenment in the days of George III. to put

out of view the great body of "the nation" who paid for their bread by

their weekly wages. The magazines were certainly never addressed to this

class. But for the general book-buyers of the time, Cave's project of

'The Gentleman's Magazine' was a great step in popular literature. The

booksellers would not join him in what they held to be a risk. When he

had succeeded, and sold 10,000, then they set up the rival 'London

Magazine.' Cave threw all his energy into the magazine, and was

rewarded. "He scarcely ever looked out of the window, but with a view to

its improvement," said Johnson. 'The Gentleman's Magazine' commenced in

1731. Then came, year after year, magazines "as plenty as

blackberries:"—'The London,' 'The Universal,' 'The Literary,' 'The

Royal,' 'The Complete,' 'The Town and Country,' 'The Ladies',' 'The

Westminster,' 'The European,' 'The Monthly.' The first popular review,

'The Monthly,' was published in 1749, and 'The Critical' in 1756. The

public were now firmly established as the real patrons of letters. There

was an end of poor authors knocking at great men's doors with a bundle

of books. There was an end to paid Dedications and gratulatory Odes.

Johnson could afford to launch his Dictionary without the help of the

Earl of Chesterfield. Hume became "not only independent but opulent"

through the "copy-money" of the booksellers.

The publication of Collections of the Poets was another proof of the

extension of the reading public. The man who first projected such a

Collection went for cheapness. In 1777 John Bell announced an edition of

'The Poets of Great Britain; complete from Chaucer to Churchill.' The

London booksellers, to the number of forty, held a meeting, to resist

what they considered an invasion of their literary property—some works

within the time of the statute of Anne being legally theirs—others their

copyright by courtesy. They resolved to combine their various interests;

and they produced that edition of the Poets, in 68 volumes, which is

called Johnson's, though, according to Malone, he never saw a line of

the text. The 'Lives,' which Johnson wrote for two hundred guineas, will

endure as a great classic work, however deformed by hasty or prejudiced

judgment. Many of the Poets given in the series have no pretension to be

looked upon again, except as a part of literary history, which may show

how the most feeble may attain reputation in an age of mediocrity. The

booksellers spoke contemptuously of Bell's edition, which they called

"trifling." They boasted their superior printing; but they gave no place

in their Collection to Chaucer, Spenser, or Donne, as Bell had done.

They did not care to direct the public taste;—they printed what they

thought would sell. The demand for such Collections has always been one

of the proofs of a healthy condition of public intelligence; but the

want has not often been supplied with any judgment beyond that of the

rude commercial estimate of the prevailing fashion in poetry. It is

extremely difficult to deal with such matters. All literary students

have a proper horror of abridgments and analyses. They want all of an

author, or none. You can neither make Chaucer extremely popular by an

entire reprint, nor command a large sale by partial extract. But John

Bell was right, in 1777, to risk the printing of three great early

poets, whilst the booksellers began with Waller. Here were poets that

can never be wholly obsolete. But the rubbish called poetry that found

its way, by trade preferences, into Johnson's edition—the inanities of

the drivellers between Pope and Gray—let not these be reproduced in our

time, when such Collections are coming again into fashion, and showing,

as they showed before, an extension of readers.

The Circulating Library—what a revolution was that in popular

literature! How this new plant appeared above the earth, where it first

budded, where it bore its early fruit—how it grew into a great tree,

like that in the old title to Lilly's Grammar, where the apples of

knowledge are being gathered by little climbing-boys—would be difficult

to trace and to record. There it was—this great economiser of individual

outlay for books—in most market-towns at the beginning of the century.

The universal adoption of the name is the best proof of the common

recognition of the idea. It changed the habits of the old country

booksellers. It found them other occupation than keeping a stall in the

market-place, as did their worthy forefathers. They dealt no longer in

tracts and single sermons. It sent the chap-books into the villages. It

made the 'Seven Champions of Christendom' and 'The Wise Masters of

Greece' vulgar. It created a new literature of fiction. It banished

'Robinson Crusoe' to the kitchen, and 'The Arabian Nights' to the

nursery. It built up great printing-houses in Leadenhall-street; and

held out high rewards for rapid composition, at the rate of five pounds

per volume, to decayed governesses who had seen the world, and

bank-clerks of an imaginative turn of mind. These could produce a

wilderness of Italian bandits, with unlimited wealth and beauty, who had

won the hearts of credulous countesses, and only surrendered to the

hangman when whole armies came out to take them. These could unveil all

the mysterious luxuries of great mansions in Grosvenor-square, or of

sumptuous hotels in Bond-street. There was ever and anon a "bright

particular star" in the Milky Way of popular fiction. But the

circulating library went on its own course, whether the empyrean of

romance were dim or brilliant. "What have you got new?" was the

universal question put to the guardian of the treasures of this

recently-discovered world of letters. When the bower-maid of the

luxurious fair one, who lolled upon the sofa through a long summer's

day, as Gray did when he was deep in Crébillon, came to "change" the

book, great sometimes was the perplexity. It was not a difficult task to

"change," but the newness was puzzling. The lady and the neat-handed

Phillis pursued their studies simultaneously. They did not like

"poetry;" they did not like "letters." 'Sir Charles Grandison' was as

old and as tiresome as 'Pamela.' 'Tom Jones,' and 'Peregrine Pickle;'

they wondered why they were allowed to remain in the catalogue. They had

read 'Cœlebs in search of a Wife'—the charming book—but they did not

want it again. Perhaps, suggested the bookseller's apprentice, 'The

Monk' might do once more. And so the circulating library went on, slow

and struggling, till, about 1814, the unlucky desire for "something new"

brought down to the little greasy collection, whose delusive numbers of

volumes ranged from 1 to 3250, a new novel, with the somewhat

unpromising title of 'Waverley, or 'tis Sixty Years since.' At first,

the lady upon the sofa, and the counsellor of her studies, could not

endure it, for it was full of horrid Scotch. It was often "at home," as

the phrase went, for six months of its probation; when, somehow, it was

discovered that a new book of wonderful talent had come out of the

North. Another and another came, and in a few years the old circulating

library was ruined. The Burneys, and Edgeworths, and Radcliffes, and

Godwins, and Holcrofts, who had mixed with much lower company upon the

librarian's shelves, still held a place. But the Winters in London and

Winters in Bath, the Midnight Bells, the Nuns, and the Watch-Towers,

retired from business. There was then a new epoch in the

circulating-library life. The literature of travels and memoirs timidly

claimed a place by the side of the fashionable novel, which asserted its

dignity by raising its price to a guinea and a half. The old legitimate

stupidity, which did very well before the trade was disturbed, would no

longer "circulate." But the names of the producers of the higher fiction

were not "Legion." "Something new" must still be had. To meet the

market, every variety of west-end authorship was experimented upon. The

number to be printed could be calculated with tolerable exactness,

according to the reputation of the writer,—and this calculation

regulated the payment of copyright, from fifty pounds, and five hundred

printed, to the man without a name, up to fifteen hundred pounds, and an

impression of three thousand, to "the glass of fashion." But in this

department of the commerce of literature,—as it will be in the end with

every branch upon which the growth of popular intelligence is

operating,—the rubbish is perishable, has perished; the good endureth.

The circulating library is now, in many instances, a real instrument of

popular enlightenment. Yet in some of the smaller towns, and in

watering-places where raffles have their charm, and a musical

performance is patronised in the 'Fancy Repository,' by "audience fit

though few"—there the circulating library may be studied in its ancient

brilliancy. There, are still preserved, with a paper number on their

brown leather backs, and a well-worn bill of the terms of subscription

on their sides, those volumes, now fading into oblivion, whence the

writers of many a penny journal of fiction are drawing and will still

draw their inspiration. Many of these relics of a past age will live

over again in shilling volumes with new titles. The heroes and heroines

will change their names; the furniture of the apartments in which they

utter their vows of love will be modernised; every sentence which in the

slightest degree approaches the vulgar will be softened down or

obliterated. There is a great deal yet to be done in this way; and the

metamorphosis will go on and prosper. In the mean while the circulating

libraries, both in London and the provinces, are supporting a higher

literature of fiction than those of the past generation; and they find

also that there are other volumes almost as attractive as the last new

novel. They are doing the same work as the book-clubs. Both these modes

of co-operation have had the effect of making the demand for a book that

is at once solid and attractive more certain than the old demand by

individual purchasers. The certainty of the demand necessarily produces

a gradual reduction of price. An average demand is created, resulting

from an average of taste in those who belong to book-societies and

subscribe to circulating libraries. But these channels for the sale of

new books are not materially influenced by lowness of price. Cheapness

is greatly influential with the private purchaser; but very many are

content with the reading of a new book, through the club or the library,

who would never buy it for their own household. This first demand is one

of the means by which good books may be cheapened for a subsequent large

issue for the permanent home library. In 'The Life of Lackington' there

is the following passage:—"I have been informed that, when circulating

libraries were first opened, the booksellers were much alarmed; and

their rapid increase added to their fears, and led them to think that

the sale of books would be much diminished by such libraries. But

experience has proved that the sale of books, so far from being

diminished by them, has been greatly promoted; as from these

repositories many thousand families have been cheaply supplied with

books, by which the taste of reading has become much more general, and

thousands of books are purchased every year by such as have first

borrowed them at those libraries, and, after reading, approving of them,

have become purchasers."

One of the first attempts, and it was a successful one, to establish a

cheap Book-Club was made by Robert Burns. He had founded a Society at

Tarbolton, called the Bachelors' Club, which met monthly for the

purposes of discussion and conversation. But this was a club without

books; for the fines levied upon the members were spent in conviviality.

Having changed his residence to Mauchline, a similar club was

established there, but with one important alteration:—the fines were set

apart for the purchase of books, and the first work bought was 'The

Mirror,' by Henry Mackenzie. Dr. Currie, the biographer of Burns, in

recording this fact, says, "With deference to the Conversation Society

of Mauchline, it may be doubted whether the books which they purchased

were of a kind best adapted to promote the interest and happiness of

persons in this situation of life." The objection of Dr. Currie was

founded upon his belief that works which cultivated "delicacy of taste"

were unfitted for those who pursued manual occupations. He qualifies his

objection, however, by the remark, that "Every human being is a proper

judge of his own happiness, and within the path of innocence ought to be

permitted to pursue it. Since it is the taste of the Scottish peasantry

to give a preference to works of taste and of fancy, it may be presumed

they find a superior gratification in the perusal of such works." This

truth, timidly put by Dr. Currie, ought to be the foundation of every

attempt to provide books for all readers. We are learning to correct the

false opinions which, for a century or two, have been degrading the

national character by lowering the general taste. Those who maintained

that taste was the exclusive property of the rich and the luxurious,

could not take away from the humble the beauty of the rose or the

fragrance of the violet; they could not make the nightingale sing a

vulgar note to "the swink'd hedger at his supper;" nor, speaking purely

to a question of taste, did they venture to lower the noble translation

of the Bible, which they put into the hands of the poor man, to

something which, according to the insolent formula of those days, was

"adapted to the meanest capacity." A great deal of this has passed away.

It has been discovered that music is a fitting thing to be cultivated by

the people; the doors of galleries are thrown open for the people to

gaze upon Raffaelles and Correggios; even cottages are built so as to

satisfy a feeling of proportion, and to make their inmates aspire to

something like decoration. All this is progress in the right direction.

In the year 1825 Lord Brougham (then Mr. Brougham), in his 'Practical

Observations upon the Education of the People,' explained a plan which

has yet been only partially acted upon. "Book-Clubs or Reading Societies

may be established by very small numbers of contributors, and require an

inconsiderable fund. If the associates live near one another,

arrangements may be easily made for circulating the books, so that they

may be in use every moment that any one can spare from his work. Here,

too, the rich have an opportunity presented to them of promoting

instruction without constant interference: the gift of a few books, as a

beginning, will generally prove a sufficient encouragement to carry on

the plan by weekly or monthly contributions: and, with the gift, a

scheme may be communicated to assist the contributors in arranging the

plan of their association." Simple in its working as such a plan would

appear to be, the instances of these voluntary associations are really

few. In Scotland, Lending Libraries and Itinerating Libraries have, in

some districts, been established successfully; but in England, Lending

Libraries are scarcely to be found, except in connexion with schools, or

under the immediate direction of the minister of a parish or of a

dissenting congregation. In these cases, we fear, comes too frequently

into action the desire, laudable no doubt, to promote "the interest and

happiness of persons in this situation of life." They are not permitted

to choose for themselves. The best books of amusement are kept out of

their sight; and they contrive to get hold of the worst. The timidity

which insists upon supplying these libraries with _pattern_ books

renders the libraries disagreeable, and therefore useless.[29]

[Footnote 27: 'Autobiography of an Artisan.' By Christopher Thomson.

1847.]

[Footnote 28: 'Biographia Literaria,' vol. i. p. 60, ed. 1817.]

[Footnote 29: See page 309.]

CHAPTER IV.

Continued dearness of Books—Useful Knowledge Society—Modern Epoch of

Cheapness—Demand and Supply—The Printing-machine—The Paper-machine—

Revival of Woodcutting.

From the time when Hume's 'History' was published at 5_s._ a volume,

there appears to have been a steady advance in the price of books to the

end of the century. In the eleven years from 1792 to 1802, there was an

average publication of 372 new books per year. The number of new books

had quadrupled upon the average of those published from 1701 to 1756.

But the duodecimo had been increased in price from 2_s._ 6_d._ to 4_s._;

the octavo from 5_s._ or 6_s._ to 10_s._; the quarto from 12_s._ to

1_l._ 1_s._ From 1800 to 1827 there were published, according to the

London Catalogue, 19,860 books, including reprints; for which reprints

deducting one-fifth, there were 15,888 new books, being an annual

average of 588. Books were still rising in price. The duodecimo mounted

up to 6_s._, or became a small octavo at 10_s._ 6_d_.; the octavo was

raised from 10_s_. to 12_s._. or 14_s._; the quarto was very frequently

two guineas. Some of this rise of price was unquestionably due to the

general rise in the value of labour, and to the higher price of paper.

But more is to be ascribed to the determination of the great publishers

not sufficiently to open their eyes to the extension of the number of

readers, and the absolute certainty, therefore, that a system of

extravagantly high prices was an unnatural, bigoted, and unprofitable

system. They paid most liberally for copyright, and they looked only to

an exclusive sale for their remuneration. They did not apply the same

system to periodical works. The two great Reviews, the 'Edinburgh' and

the 'Quarterly,' were as cheap, if not cheaper, having regard to their

literary merit, than the cheapest books of the previous century. They

were certain of their profit through that union of excellence and

cheapness which could not fail to create a large demand. The publishers

generally had not the same reliance upon the increase of readers of

other popular works of original excellence. It has only been within the

last twenty years that their unalloyed confidence in a narrow market has

been first shaken, and then overthrown.

In looking back upon the changes of a quarter of a century, it is

impossible, even for the writer, who was identified with this great

movement in Popular Literature, to forbear speaking of what was

accomplished by 'The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.' One

who has written contemporary history in a broad and liberal spirit

says—"The institution of this Society was an important feature of its

times, and one of the honours belonging to the reign of George IV. It

did not succeed in all its professed objects: it did not give to the

operative classes of Great Britain a library of the elements of all

sciences—it omitted some of the most important of the sciences, and,

with regard to some others, presented anything rather than the elements.

It did not fully penetrate the masses that most needed aid. But it

established the principle and precedent of cheap publication (cheapness

including goodness), stimulated the demand for sound information, and

the power and inclination to supply that demand; and marked a great æra

in the history of popular enlightenment."[30] The Society originated

with Mr. Brougham, in 1826. He gathered around him some of the leading

statesmen, lawyers, and philanthropists of his day. Men eminent in

letters and in science joined the association. And yet its success was

so doubtful in the eyes of those who had been accustomed to consider

high price as a necessary condition of excellence, that one of the

greatest publishing houses refused to bring out the treatises without a

guarantee. The Society wisely went upon the principle, originally, of

leaving all the trade arrangements to its publishers. It placed its

'Library of Useful Knowledge,' its 'Farmer's Series,' its 'Maps,' in the

hands of Messrs. Baldwin, paying the literary and artistical expenses,

and receiving a rent upon the copies sold. Mr. Knight originated the

'British Almanac' and its 'Companion,' 'The Library of Entertaining

Knowledge,' 'The Penny Magazine,' and 'The Penny Cyclopædia;' and he

bore the entire expense and risk of these works, as he did also for 'The

Gallery of Portraits,' and 'The Journal of Education,' paying upon all a

rent when the sale reached a certain number of copies.[31] It is

sufficient to mention these facts to show that the operations connected

with this Society were not upon an insignificant scale, or not fruitful

of large results; and that they were essentially commercial operations.

The cry that was raised against this Society, by those who were

interested in the publication of dear books, was that of "monopoly."

That cuckoo cry was repeated on every side. Fashionable publishers

shouted it; the old conventional school of authors echoed it. Those who

wrote for the Society were called, in derision, "compilers." Scribblers

who never verified a quotation ridiculed patient industry as dulness.

From the time when the Society commenced a real "superintendence" of

works for the people—when it assisted, by diligent revision and friendly

inquiry, the services of its editors—the old vague generalities of

popular knowledge were exploded; and the scissars-and-paste school of

authorship had to seek for other occupations than Paternoster-row could

once furnish. Accuracy was forced upon elementary books as the rule and

not the exception. Books professedly "entertaining" were to be founded

upon exact information, and their authorities invariably indicated. No

doubt this superintendence in some degree interfered with the free

course of original composition, and imparted somewhat of the utilitarian

character to everything produced. But it was the only course by which a

new aspect could be given to cheap literature, by showing that the great

principles of excellence were common to all books, whether for the

learned or the uninformed. In seventeen years the Society accomplished

its main objects. There were considerable gains connected with it, and

there were great losses. These are evanescent. The good which it did

remains. It supplied the new demand for knowledge in a way that had

never before been contemplated; it supplied it at the cheapest rate then

possible; it broke down the distinctions between knowledge for the few

and knowledge for the many; it created a popular taste for art; it sent

its light into the strongholds of ignorance and superstition, by

superseding, for a time, a large amount of weekly trash, and destroying,

for ever, the astrological and indecent almanacs. But, beyond its own

productions, it raised the standard of all popular literature. It has

had worthy co-labourers and successors. It ceased its work when others

were in the field, honestly and successfully carrying forward what it

had begun. He who writes this will ever think it an honour that he long

worked in fellowship with Henry Brougham; and that he was a partaker,

for some years, in the councils of an association of men more or less

eminent, whose objects were never of a selfish, partial, or temporary

nature. He has sate at those councils with five cabinet ministers, who

felt most deeply that the education of the people, in its largest sense,

was as much their business as the imposition of taxes. Where is that

spirit now?