PAGE
THE BOOKSELLERS OF OLDEN TIMES 9
THE LONGMAN FAMILY 79
_Classical and Educational Literature._
CONSTABLE, CADELL, AND BLACK 110
_The “Edinburgh Review,” “Waverley Novels,” and
“Encyclopædia Britannica.”_
JOHN MURRAY 159
_Belles-Lettres and Travels._
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD 199
“_Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine._”
CHAMBERS, KNIGHT, AND CASSELL 234
_Literature for the People._
HENRY COLBURN 279
_Three-Volume Novels and Light Literature._
THE RIVINGTONS, THE PARKERS, AND JAMES NISBET 296
_Religious Literature._
BUTTERWORTH AND CHURCHILL 333
_Technical Literature._
EDWARD MOXON 347
_Poetical Literature._
KELLY AND VIRTUE 363
_The “Number” Trade._
THOMAS TEGG 379
_Book-Auctioneering and the “Remainder Trade.”_
THOMAS NELSON 399
_Children’s Literature and “Book-Manufacturing.”_
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO. 412
_Collecting for the Country Trade._
CHARLES EDWARD MUDIE 421
_The Lending Library._
W. H. SMITH AND SON 433
_Railway Literature._
PROVINCIAL BOOKSELLERS 441
_York: Gent and Burdekin. Newcastle: Goading, Bryson,
Bewick, and Charnley. Glasgow: Fowlis and Collins.
Liverpool: Johnson. Dublin: Duffy. Derby: Mozley,
Richardson, and Bemrose. Manchester: Harrop, Barker,
Timperley, and the Heywoods. Birmingham: Hutton,
Baskerville, and “The Educational Trading Co.” Exeter:
Brice. Bristol: Cottle._
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_THE BOOKSELLERS OF OLDEN TIMES._
Long ages before the European invention of the art of printing, long
even before the encroaching masses of Huns and Visigoths rolled the
wave of civilization backward for a thousand years, the honourable
trades, of which we aim to be in some degree the chroniclers, had their
representatives and their patrons. Without going back to the libraries
of Egypt--a subject fertile enough in the pages of mythical history--or
to the manuscript-engrossers and sellers of Ancient Greece--though by
their labours much of the world’s best poetry, philosophy, and wit was
garnered for a dozen centuries, like wheat ears in a mummy’s tomb, to
be scattered to the four winds of heaven, when the Mahometans seized
upon Constantinople, thenceforth to fructify afresh, and, in connection
with the art of printing, as if the old world and the new clasped
hands upon promise of a better time, to be mainly instrumental in the
“revival of letters”--it will be sufficient for our present purpose
to know that there were in Rome, at the time of the Empire, many
publishing firms, who, if they could not altogether rival the magnates
of Albemarle Street and the “Row,” issued books at least as good,
and, paradoxical as it may seem, at least as cheaply as their modern
brethren.
To the sauntering Roman of the Augustan age literature was an
essential; never, probably, till quite modern times was education--the
education, at all events, that supplies a capability to read and
write--so widely spread. The taste thus created was gratified in many
ways. If the Romans had no Mudie, they possessed public libraries,
thrown freely open to all. They had public recitations, at which
unpublished and ambitious writers could find an audience; over which,
too, sometimes great emperors presided, while poets, with a world-wide
reputation, read aloud their favourite verses. They had newspapers, the
subject-matter of which was wonderfully like our own. The principal
journal, entitled _Acta Diurna_, was compiled under the sanction of
the government, and hung up in some place of frequent resort for the
benefit of the multitude, and was probably copied for the private
accommodation of the wealthy. All public events of importance were
chronicled here; the reporters, termed _actuarii_, furnished abstracts
of the proceedings in the law courts and at public assemblies; there
was a list of births, deaths, and marriages; and we are informed
that the one article of news in which the _Acta Diurna_ particularly
abounded was that of reports of trials for divorce. Juvenal tells
us that the women were all agog for deluges, earthquakes, and other
horrors, and that the wine-merchants and traders used to invent false
news in order to affect their various markets. But, in addition to
all these means for gratifying the Roman taste for reading, every
respectable house possessed a library, and among the better classes the
slave-readers (_anagnostæ_) and the slave-transcribers (_librarii_)
were almost as indispensable as cooks and scullions. At first we
find that these slaves were employed in making copies of celebrated
books for their masters; but gradually the natural division of labour
produced a separate class of publishers. Atticus, the Moxon of the
period, and an author of similar calibre, saw an opening for his
energies in the production of copies of favourite authors upon a
large scale. He employed a number of slaves to copy from dictation
simultaneously, and was thus able to multiply books as quickly as they
were demanded. His success speedily finding imitators, among whom were
Tryphon and Dorus, publishing became a recognized trade. The public
they appealed to was not a small one. Martial, Ovid, and Propertius
speak of their works as being known all the world over; that young and
old, women and girls, in Rome and in the provinces, in Britain and in
Gaul, read their verses. “Every one,” says Martial, “has me in his
pocket, every one has me in his hands.”
“Laudat, amat, cantat nostros mea Roma libellos:
Meque sinus omnis, me manus omnis habet.”
Horace speaks of the repugnance he felt at seeing his works in the
hands of the vulgar. And Pliny writes that Regulus is mourning
ostentatiously for the loss of his son, and no one weeps like
him--_luget ut nemo_. “He composes an oration which he is not content
with publicly reciting in Rome, but must needs enrich the provinces
with a thousand copies of it.”
School-books, too, an important item in publishing eyes, were in demand
at Rome: Juvenal says that “the verses which the boy has just _conned
over_ at his desk he stands up to repeat,” and Persius tells us that
poets were ambitious to be read in the schools; while Nero, in his
vanity, gave special command that his verses should be placed in the
hands of the students.
Thus, altogether, there must have been a large book-buying public, and
this fact is still further strengthened by the cheapness of the books
produced. M. Geraud[1] concludes that the prices were lower than in our
own day. According to Martial the first book of his Epigrams was to be
bought, neatly bound, for five denarii (nearly three shillings), but
in a cheaper binding for the people it cost six to ten sestertii (a
shilling to eighteenpence); his thirteenth book of Epigrams was sold
for four sestertii (about eightpence), and half that price would, he
says, have left a fair profit (Epig. xiii. 3). He tells us, moreover,
that it would only require one hour to copy the whole of the second
book,
“Hæc una peragit librarius hora.”
This book contains five hundred and forty verses, and though he may
be speaking with poetical licence, the system of abbreviations did
undoubtedly considerably lessen the labour of transcribing, and
it would be quite possible, by employing a number of transcribers
simultaneously, to produce an edition of such a work in one day.
In Rome, therefore, we see that from the employment of slave
labour--and some thousands of slaves were engaged in this work of
transcribing--books were both plentiful and cheap.[2]
[Illustration: William Caxton. The first printer at Westminster.
1410-1491.]
[Illustration: Caxton’s Monogram.
(_Facsimile from his Works._)]
In the Middle Ages this state of things was entirely altered. Men
were too busy in giving and receiving blows, in oppressing and being
oppressed, to have the slightest leisure for book-learning. Slaves,
such as then existed, were valued for far different things than
reading and writing; and even their masters’ kings, princes, lords,
and other fighting dignitaries, would have regarded a quill-pen, in
their mail-gloved hands, as a very foolish and unmanly weapon. There
was absolutely no public to which bookmakers could have appealed, and
the art of transcribing was confined entirely to a few monks, whose
time hung heavily upon their hands; and, as a natural result, writers
became, as Odofredi says, “no longer writers but painters,” and books
were changed into elaborate works of art. Nor was this luxurious
illumination confined to Bibles and Missals; the very law-books were
resplendent, and a writer in the twelfth century complains that in
Paris the Professor of Jurisprudence required two or three desks to
support his copy of Ulpian, gorgeous with golden letters. No wonder
that Erasmus says of the _Secunda Secundea_ that “no man can carry it
about, much less get it into his head.”
At first there was no trade whatever in books, but gradually a system
of barter sprung up between the monks of various monasteries; and with
the foundation of the Universities a regular class of copyists was
established to supply the wants of scholars and professors, and this
improvement was greatly fostered by the invention of paper.
The booksellers of this period were called _Stationarii_, either from
the practice of stationing themselves at booths or stalls in the
streets (in contradistinction to the itinerant vendors) or from the
other meaning of the Latin term _statio_, which is, Crevier tells us,
_entrepôt_ or depository, and he adds that the booksellers did little
else than furnish a place of deposit, where private persons could send
their manuscripts for sale. In addition to this, indeed as their chief
trade, they sent out books to be read, at exorbitant prices, not in
volumes, but in detached parts, according to the estimation in which
the authors were held.
In Paris, where the trade of these _stationarii_ was best developed,
a statute regarding them was published in 1275, by which they were
compelled to take the oath of allegiance once a year, or, at most, once
every two years. They were forbidden by this same statute to purchase
the books placed in their hands until they had been publicly exposed
for sale for at least a month; the purchase money was to be handed over
direct to the proprietor, and the bookseller’s commission was not to
exceed one or two per cent. In addition to the _stationarii_, there
were in Paris several pedlars or stall-keepers, also under University
control, who were only permitted to exhibit their wares under the free
heavens, or beneath the porches of churches where the schools were
occasionally kept. The portal at the north end of the cross aisle in
Rouen Cathedral is still called _le Portail des Libraires_.
[Illustration: Wynkyn de Worde. 1493-1534. The second printer at
Westminster.
(_From a drawing by Fathorne._)]
[Illustration: Headpiece of William Caxton.]
In England the first stationers were probably themselves the engrossers
of what they sold, when the learning and literature of the country
demanded as the chief food A B C’s and Paternosters, Aves and Creeds,
Graces and Amens. Such was the employment of our earliest stationers,
as the names of their favourite haunts--Paternoster Row, Amen
Corner, and Ave Maria Lane--bear ample witness; while the term
stationer soon became synonymous with bookseller, and, in connection
with the Stationers’ Company, of no little importance, as we shall soon
see, in our own bookselling annals.
In 1292, the bookselling corporation of Paris consisted of twenty-four
copyists, seventeen bookbinders, nineteen parchment makers, thirteen
illuminators, and eight simple dealers in manuscripts. But at the time
when printing was first introduced upwards of six thousand people are
said to have subsisted by copying and illuminating manuscripts--a fact
that, even if exaggerated, says something for the gradual advancement
of learning.
The European invention of printing, which here can only be mentioned;
the diffusion of Greek manuscripts and the ancient wisdom contained
therein, consequent upon the capture of Constantinople by the Turks;
the discovery of America; and, finally, the German and English
religious Reformations, were so many rapid and connected strides in
favour of knowledge and progress. All properly-constituted conservative
minds were shocked that so many new lights should be allowed to stream
in upon the world, and every conceivable let and hindrance was called
up in opposition. Royal prerogatives were exercised, Papal bulls were
issued, and satirists (_soi-disant_) were bitter. A French poet of this
period, sneering at the invention of printing, and the discovery of the
New World by Columbus, says of the press, in language conveyed by the
following doggerel:--
“I’ve seen a mighty throng
Of printed books and long,
To draw to studious ways
The poor men of our days;
By which new-fangled practice,
We soon shall see the fact is,
Our streets will swarm with scholars
Without clean shirts or collars,
With Bibles, books, and codices
As cheap as tape for bodices.”
In spite of this feeling against the popularization of learning and the
spread of education--a feeling not quite dead yet, if we may trust the
evidence of a few good old Tory speakers on the evil effects (forgery,
larceny, and all possible violation of the ten commandments) of popular
education--a feeling perhaps subsiding, for a country gentleman of
the old school told us recently that he “would wish every working man
to read the Bible--the Bible only--and _that_ with difficulty”--a
progressive sign--the world was too well aware of the good to be
gathered from the furtherance of these novelties to willingly let them
die, and though the battle was from the first a hard one, it has been,
from first to last, a winning battle.
[Illustration: Richard Pynson. Died about 1530.]
[Illustration: Monogram used by Richard Pynson.]
It will be essential throughout this chapter, and indeed throughout the
whole work, to bear in mind that it was not till quite modern times
that a separate class was formed to buy copyrights, to employ printers,
and to sell the books wholesale, to which their names were affixed
on the title-pages--to be in fact, in the modern acceptation of the
word, Publishers. There was no such class among the old booksellers;
but they had to do everything for themselves, to construct the types,
presses, and other essentials for printing, to bind the sheets when
printed, and finally, when the books were manufactured, to sell them
to the general public. For long, many of the booksellers had printing
offices; they all, of course, kept shops, at which not only printed
books but stationery was retailed; bookbinders were not unfrequent
among them; and, to very recent times, they were the chief proprietors
of newspapers, a branch of the trade that appears, from some modern
instances, to be again falling in their direction.
In England the printing press found a sure asylum, but at first the
books printed were very few in number and the issue of each book small.
The works produced by Caxton consisted almost entirely of translations.
“Divers famous clerks and learned men,” says one of the early printers,
“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.” Wynkyn de Worde followed closely in his master’s
footsteps; but soon a new source of employment for the press was
discovered, and De Worde turned his attention to the production of
_Accidences_, _Lucidaries_, _Orchards of Words_, _Promptuaries for
Little Children_, and the like. With the Reformation came of course a
great demand for Bibles, and, between the years 1526 and 1600, so great
was the rush for this new supply of hitherto forbidden knowledge that
we have no less than three hundred and twenty-six editions, or parts of
editions, of the English Bible.
In the “Typographical Antiquities” of Ames and Herbert are recorded
the names of three hundred and fifty printers in England and Scotland,
who flourished between 1474 and 1600. Though these “printers” were
also booksellers, their history belongs more properly to the annals
of printing. We will, therefore, confine ourselves to a preliminary
account of the Stationers’ Company, and then enter forthwith upon such
biographical sketches as our space will allow, of the men who may be
regarded, if not uniformly in the modern sense as publishers, at any
rate as the representative booksellers of old London.
The “Stationers or Text-writers who wrote and sold all sorts of books
then in use” were first formed into a guild in the year 1403, by the
authority of the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, and possessed
ordinances made for the good government of their fellowship; and thus
constituted they assembled regularly in their first hall in Milk Street
under the government of a master and two wardens; but no privilege or
charter has ever been discovered, under which, at that period, they
acted as a corporate body. The Company had, however, no control over
printed books until they received their first charter from Mary and
Philip on 4th May 1557. The object of the charter is thus set forth in
the preamble: “Know ye that we, considering and manifestly perceiving
that several seditious and heretical books, both in verse and prose,
are daily published, stamped and printed, by divers scandalous,
schismatical, and heretical persons, not only exciting our subjects
and liege-men to sedition and disobedience against us, our crown
and dignity; but also to the renewal and propagating very great and
detestable heresies against the faith and sound Catholic doctrine of
Holy Mother the Church; and being willing to provide a proper remedy
in this case,” &c. The powers granted to the Company by this charter
were, verbally, absolute. Not only were they to search out, seize, and
destroy books printed in contravention of the monopoly, or against the
faith and sound Catholic doctrine of Holy Mother Church; but they might
seize, take away, have, burn, or convert to their own use, whatever
they should _think_ was printed contrary to the form of any statute,
act, or proclamation, made or _to be_ made. And this charter renewed
by Elizabeth in 1588, amplified by Charles II. in 1684, and confirmed
by William and Mary in 1690, is still virtually in existence. It is
scarcely strange that such enormous powers as these were but little
respected; indeed Queen Elizabeth herself was one of the first to
invade their privileges, and she granted the following, among other
monopolies, away from the Stationers’ Company:--
To Byrde, the printing of music books.
To Serres, psalters, primers, and prayer books.
To Flower, grammars.
To Tothill, law books.
To Judge (the Queen’s Printer), Bibles and Testaments.
To Watkin and Roberts, almanacs and prognostications.
To Vautrollier, Latin Testaments and other Latin books.
To Marsh, school-books.
To Day, A B C’s and catechisms.
(This last had his printing office in Moorgate Street, ornamented with
the motto, “Arise, for it is Day!”)
The Stationers’ Company, sorely damaged in trade by the sudden
and almost entire loss of their privileges, petitioned the Queen,
representing that they were subject to certain levies, that they
supplied when called upon a number of armed men, and that they expected
to derive some benefit when they underwent these liabilities. As a
reply they were severely reprimanded for daring to question the Queen’s
prerogative, upon which they petitioned again, but more humbly, that
they might at least be placed on an equal footing with the interlopers,
and be permitted to print something or other. Her Majesty was shortly
pleased to sanction an arrangement by which they were to possess the
exclusive right of printing and selling psalters, primers, almanacs,
and books tending to the same purpose--the _A B C_’s, the _Little
Catechism_, Nowell’s _English_ and _Latin Catechisms_, &c.
Ward, and Wolf a fishmonger, however, disputed the power of the
Company, declaring it to be lawful, according to the written law of
the land, for any printer to print all books; and when the Master and
Wardens of the Company went to search Ward’s house, preparatory to
seizing, burning, or conveying away his books, they were ignominiously
defeated by his wife. The Lord Treasurer likewise sent commissioners
thither, “but they, too, could bring him to nothing.”
Learning from this how useless the tremendous powers conferred upon
them by their charter really were, the Stationers’ Company took a wiser
course and subscribed £15,000 to print the books in which they had the
exclusive property.
[Illustration: Richard Grafton, English Printer and Historian. Died
after 1572. The first printer of the Common Prayer.]
[Illustration: John Wight or Wyghte. Was living in 1551. A printer of
law books.]
The “entry” of copies at Stationers’ Hall was commenced in 1558, but
without the delivery of any books, and these entries seem originally to
have been intended by the booksellers of the Company to make known to
each other their respective copyrights, and to act as advertisements
of the works thus entered. Half a century later, Sir Thomas Bodley
was appointed librarian at Oxford, and so great was his zeal for
obtaining books that he persuaded the Company of Stationers in London
to give him a copy of every book that was printed, and this voluntary
offering was rendered compulsory by the celebrated Licensing Act of
1663, which prohibited the publication of any book unless licensed
by the Lord Chamberlain, and entered in the Stationers’ Registers,
and which fixed the number of copies to be presented gratis at
three. In the reign of William and Mary the liberty of the press was
restored, but in the new Act the door was unfortunately thrown open
to infractions of literary property by clandestine editions of books,
and in the following reign the property of copyright was secured for
fourteen years, though the perpetuity of copyright was still vulgarly
believed in, and, by the better class of booksellers, still respected.
The number of compulsory presentation copies was gradually increased
to eleven, forming a very heavy tax upon expensive books, and was only
in our own times reduced to five. At present the registration of books
at Stationers’ Hall is quite independent of the presentations, which
are still compulsory. The fee for the registration or assignment of a
copyright is five shillings.
By the end of the last century all the privileges and monopolies of
the Company had been shredded away till they had nothing left but
the right to publish a common Latin primer and almanacs. In 1775 J.
Carnan,[3] an enterprizing tradesman, questioning the legality of
the latter monopoly, published an almanac on his own account, and
defended himself against an action brought by the Company in which the
monopoly was declared worthless. As, however, the Company still paid
the Universities for the lease of the sole right to publish almanacs,
they endeavoured to recover their privilege by Act of Parliament, but
were defeated by Erskine in a memorable speech, who showed that, while
supposed to be protectors of the order and the decencies of the press,
the Company had not only entirely omitted to exercise their duties,
but that, even in using their privileges, they had, to increase their
revenue, printed, in the “Poor Robin’s” and other almanacs, the most
revolting indecencies; and the question was decided against them.
[Illustration:
Rayne Wolfe.
Paul’s Churchyard.
King Henry VIII.’s
printer.
]
[Illustration: 1547.]
[Illustration: John Day or Daye. “A famous printer. He lived over
Aldgate.”
1522-1584.]
The “earliest men of letters”--if we accept the word in its modern
meaning of those who earn their bread by their pens--were the
dramatists; but the publication of their plays was a mere appendix
to the acting thereof, and Shakespeare never drew a penny from the
printing of his works. The Elizabethan dramatists--the Greenes and
Marlowes--led a life of wretchedness only paralleled later on by the
annals of Grub Street. As the use of the printing press expanded,
however, a race of authors by profession sprang into existence. At
the time of the Commonwealth James Howell, author of the “Epistolæ
Ho-elianæ,” who was thrown into the Fleet prison, appears to have made
his bread by scribbling for the booksellers; Thomas Fuller, also, was
among the first, as well as the quaintest, hack-writers; he observes,
in the preface to his “Worthies,” that no stationers have hitherto
lost by him. His “Holy State” was reprinted four times before the
Restoration, but the publisher continued to describe the last two
impressions, on the title-page, as only the third edition, as if he
were unwilling that the extent of the popularity should be known--a
fact probably unprecedented. But still the great writers had either
private means, or lived on the patronage of rank and wealth; for the
reward of a successful book in those days did not lie in so much hard
cash from one’s publisher, but in hopes of favour and places from
the great. The famous agreement between Milton and Samuel Simmons, a
printer, is one of the earliest authenticated agreements of copy money
being given for an original work; it was executed on April 27th, 1667,
and disposes of the copyright of “Paradise Lost” for the present sum
of five pounds, and five pounds more when 1300 copies of the first
impression should be sold in retail, and the like sum at the end of
the second and third editions, _to be accounted as aforesaid; and
that_ (each of) _the said first three impressions shall not exceed
fifteen books or volumes of the said manuscript_. The price of the
small quarto edition was three shillings in a plain binding. Probably,
as Sir Walter Scott remarks, the trade had no very good bargain of it,
for the first impression of the poem does not seem to have been sold
off before the expiration of seven years, nor till the bookseller (in
accordance with a practice nor confined solely to that age) had given
it five new title-pages. The second five pounds was received by Milton,
and in 1680, for the present sum of eight pounds, his widow resigned
all further right in the copyright, and thus the poem was sold for
eighteen pounds instead of the stipulated twenty. The whole transaction
must be regarded rather as an entire novelty, than as an example of a
bookseller’s meanness--a view too often unjustly taken.
The first “eminent man of letters” was Dryden, who serves us as a
connecting link between those who earned their livelihood by writing
for the stage and those who earned it by working for the booksellers,
and the first “eminent publisher” was Jacob Tonson, his bookseller.
Dryden, like his predecessors, commenced life as a dramatist, but
in his times plays acquired a marketable value elsewhere than on
the stage. Before Tonson started, Dryden’s works--almost entirely
plays--were sold by Herringman, the chief bookseller in London, says
Mr. Peter Cunningham, before Tonson’s time; but now only remembered
because Dryden lodged at his house, taking his money out in kind, as
authors then often did.
[Illustration: Jacob Tonson.
1656-1736.
(_From the Portrait by Kneller._)]
Jacob Tonson, born in 1656, was the son of a barber-surgeon in Holborn,
who died when his two sons were both very young, leaving them each a
hundred pounds to be paid them on their coming of age. The two lads
resolved to become printers and booksellers, and, at fourteen, Jacob
was apprenticed to Thomas Barnet. After serving the usual term of seven
years he was admitted to the freedom of the Stationers’ Company, and
immediately commenced business with his small capital at the Judge’s
House, in Chancery Lane, close to the corner of Fleet Street. Like
many other publishers he began trade by selling second-hand books and
those produced by other firms, but he soon issued plays on his own
account; finding, however, that the works of Otway and Tate, which
were among his first attempts, had no very extensive sale, he boldly
made a bid for Dryden’s next play, but the twenty pounds required by
the author was too great a venture for his small capital, so “Troilus
and Cressida; or Truth found too Late,” was published conjointly by
Tonson and Levalle in 1679. This connection with Dryden, which lasted
till the poet’s death, was of only less importance to the furtherance
of Tonson’s fortune than a bargain concluded four years later with
Brabazon Aylmer for one-half of his interest in the “Paradise Lost,”
which Dryden told him was one of the greatest poems England had ever
produced. Still he waited four years before he ventured to publish, and
then only by the safe method of subscription, and in 1788 the folio
edition came out, and by the sale of this and future editions Tonson
was, according to Disraeli, enabled to keep his carriage. The other
moiety of the copyright was subsequently purchased. There is a pleasant
description of Tonson, in these early days, in a short poem by Rowe:--
“While in your early days of reputation
You for blue garter had not such a passion,
While yet you did not live, as now your trade is,
To drink with noble lords and toast their ladies,
Thou Jacob Tonson, wert, to my conceiving,
The cheerfullest, best honest fellow living.”
From John Dunton, the bookseller, we get the following
description:--“He was bookseller to the famous Dryden, and is himself
a very good judge of persons and authors; and, as there is nobody more
competently qualified to give their opinion upon another, so there is
none who does it with a more severe exactness, or with less partiality;
for, to do Mr. Tonson justice, he speaks his mind upon all occasions,
and will flatter nobody.”
Not only did Tonson first make “Paradise Lost” popular, but some years
afterwards he was the first bookseller to throw Shakespeare open to a
reading public.
Then, as now, however, the works in most urgent demand were
“novelties,” and with these Dryden supplied his publisher as fast
almost as pen could drive upon paper. From the correspondence between
Dryden and Tonson, printed in Scott’s edition of the poet’s works,
they seem to have been privately on very friendly terms, falling
out only when agreements were to be signed or payments to be made.
Tonson was at this time publishing what are sometimes known as
_Tonson’s_, sometimes as _Dryden’s_, _Miscellany Poems_, written, so
the title-pages averred, by the “most eminent hands.” _Apropos_ of
this, Pope writes, “Jacob creates poets as kings create knights, not
for their honour, but for their money. I can be satisfied with a bare
saving gain without being thought an eminent hand.” The first volume of
the “Miscellany” was published in 1684, and the second in the following
year, and of this second, Dryden writes, after thanking the bookseller
for two melons--“since we are to have nothing but new, I am resolved
we shall have nothing but good, whomever we disoblige.” The third
“Miscellany” was published in 1693, and Tonson sends an earnest letter
of remonstrance anent the amount of “copy” received of the translation
of Ovid:--“You may please, sir, to remember that upon my first proposal
about the third ‘Miscellany,’ I offered fifty pounds, and talked of
several authors without naming Ovid. You asked if it should not be
guineas, and said I should not repent it; upon which I immediately
complied, and left it wholly to you what, and for the quantity too;
and I declare it was the furthest in the world from my thoughts that
by leaving it to you I should have the less.” He proceeds to show that
Dryden had sold a previous, though recent translation to another
bookseller at the rate of 1518 lines for forty guineas, while he adds,
“all that I have for fifty guineas are but 1446; so that if I have no
more, I pay ten guineas above forty, and have 72 lines less for fifty
in proportion. I own, if you don’t think fit to add something more, I
must submit; ’tis wholly at your choice, for I left it entirely to you;
but I believe you cannot imagine I expected so little; for you were
pleased to use me much kindlier in Juvenal, which is not reckoned so
easy to translate as Ovid. Sir, I humbly beg your pardon for this long
letter, and, upon my word, I had rather have your good will than any
man’s alive.”
These were hard times for Dryden, for through the change of government
he had been deprived of the laureateship, and it is little likely that
Tonson ever received his additional lines or recovered his money.
Frequent at this period were the bickerings between them. On one
occasion, the bookseller having refused to advance a sum of money, the
poet forwarded the following triplet with the significant message,
“Tell the dog that he who wrote these lines can write more:”--
“With leering looks, bull-faced and freckled fair,
With two left legs, with Judas-coloured hair,
And frowsy pores that taint the ambient air.”
The descriptive hint is said to have been successful. On another
occasion, when Bolingbroke was visiting Dryden, they heard a footstep.
“This,” said Dryden, “is Tonson; you will take care not to depart
before he goes away; for I have not completed the sheet which I
promised him; and, if you leave me unprotected, I shall suffer all the
rudeness to which resentment can prompt his tongue.” And yet, almost
at this period, we find Dryden writing, “I am much ashamed of myself
that I am so much behindhand with you in kindness.”
[Illustration: Richard Jones, Jhones, or Johnes, English Printer. Was
living in 1571.]
[Illustration: John Dunton.
1659-1733.]
Dryden’s translations of the classics had been most successful in
selling off the “Miscellanies” very rapidly, and Tonson now induced the
author, by the offer of very liberal terms, to commence a translation
of Virgil. As usual, the preliminary terms were to be settled in a
tavern--a custom between authors and booksellers that seems to have
been universal. “Be ready,” writes Dryden, “with the price of paper,
and of the books. No matter for any dinner; for that is a charge to
you, and I care not for it. Mr. Congreve may be with us as a common
friend.” There were two classes of subscribers, the first of whom paid
five guineas each, and were individually honoured with the dedication
of a plate, with their arms engraved underneath; the second class paid
two guineas only. The first class numbered 101, and the second 250,
and the money thus received, minus the expense of the engravings, was
handed over to Dryden, who received in addition from Tonson fifty
guineas a book for the _Georgics_ and _Æneid_, and probably the same
for the _Pastorals_ collectively. But the price actually charged to
the subscribers of the second class appears to have been exorbitant,
and reduced the amount of Dryden’s profits to about twelve or thirteen
hundred pounds--still a very large sum in those days. Frequent,
however, were the disputes between them during the progress of the
work. The currency at this time was terribly deteriorated. In October,
1695, the poet writes, “I expect fifty pounds in good silver: not such
as I have had formerly. I am not obliged to take gold, neither
will I; nor stay for it beyond four-and-twenty hours after it is
due.” Good silver, however, was very scarce, and was at a premium of
forty per cent; so after a year’s wrangling he had to put up with the
fate of all who then sold labour for money. “The Notes and Queries,”
continues Dryden, perhaps as a gibe at Jacob’s parsimony, “shall be
short; because you shall get the more by saving paper.” Again he
attacks him, this time half playfully:--“Upon trial I find all of your
trade are sharpers, and you not more than others; therefore I have
not wholly left you.” Tonson all along wished to dedicate the work to
King William, but Dryden, a staunch Tory, would not yield a tittle of
his political principles, so the bookseller consoled himself by slyly
ordering all the pictures of Æneas in the engravings to be drawn with
William’s characteristic hooked nose; a manœuvre that gave rise to the
following:--
“Old Jacob, by deep judgments swayed,
To please the wise beholders,
Has placed old Nassau’s hook-nosed head
On young Æneas’ shoulders.
“To make the parallel hold tack,
Methinks there’s little lacking;
One took his father pick-a-back,
And t’other sent his packing.”
In December, 1699, Dryden finished his last work, the “Fables,” for
which “ten thousand verses” he was paid the sum of two hundred and
fifty guineas, with fifty more to be added at the beginning of the
second impression. In this volume was included his Ode to St. Cecilia,
which had first been performed at the Music Feast kept in Stationers’
Hall, on the 22nd of November, 1697.
In 1700 the poet died, but Tonson was by this time in affluent
circumstances.
About the date of Dryden’s death, probably before it, as his portrait
was included among the other members, the famous Kit-Cat Club was
founded by Tonson. Various are the derivations of the club. The most
circumstantial account of its origin is given by the scurrilous writer,
Ned Ward, in his “Secret History of Clubs.” It was established, he
says, “by an amphibious mortal, chief merchant to the Muses, to
inveigle new profitable chaps, who, having more wit than experience,
put but a slender value as yet upon their maiden performances.”
(Tonson must have been a rare publisher if he found “new chaps” to be
in any way profitable.) With the usual custom of the times, Tonson
was always ready to give his author, especially upon concluding a
bargain, wherewithal to drink, but he now proposed to add pastry in
the shape of mutton pies, and, according to Ward, promises to make the
meeting weekly, provided his clients would give him the first refusal
of their productions. This generous proposal was very readily agreed
to by the whole poetic class, and the cook’s name being Christopher,
called for brevity Kit, and his sign the Cat and Fiddle, they very
merrily derived a quaint denomination from puss and her master, and
from thence called themselves the Kit-Cat Club. According to Arbuthnot,
their toasting-glasses had verses upon them in honour of “old cats and
young kits,” and many of these toasts were printed in Tonson’s fifth
“Miscellany.” At first they met in Shire Lane, (Ward says Gray’s Inn
Lane), and subsequently at the Fountain Tavern in the Strand. In a
short time the chief men of letters having joined the club, “many
of the quality grew fond of sharing the everlasting honour that was
likely to crown the poetical society.” Sir Godfrey Kneller, himself
a member, painted portraits of all the members, commencing with the
Duke of Somerset, and these were hung round the club-room at Tonson’s
country house at Water Oakeley, where the members of the club were in
after-times wont to meet. The tone of the club-room became decidedly
political, and interesting as it is, our space forbids us to do more
than give the following lines from “Faction Displayed” (1705), which,
by-the-way, quotes Dryden’s threatening triplet, already alluded to:--
“I am the Touchstone of all modern wit;
Without my stump, in vain you poets writ.
Those only purchase everlasting fame
That in my ‘Miscellany’ plant their name.
I am the founder of your loved Kit-Kat,
A Club that gave direction to the state.
’Twas here we first instructed all our youth
To talk profane and laugh at sacred truth;
We taught them how to toast and rhyme and bite,
To sleep away the day, and drink away the night.”
By this time Tonson had taken his nephew into partnership, had left his
old shop in Chancery Lane, and changed his sign from the “Judge’s Head”
to the “Shakespeare’s Head;” and he and his descendants had certainly a
right to the latter symbol, for the editions of Rowe, Pope, Theobald,
Warburton, Johnson, and Capell, were all associated with their name.
The following schedule of the prices paid to the various editors
possesses some bibliographical interest:--
£ _s._ _d._
Rowe 36 10 0
Hughes 28 7 0
Pope 217 12 0
Fenton 30 14 0
Gay 35 17 6
Whalley 12 0 0
Theobald 652 10 0
Warburton 500 0 0
Capell 300 0 0
Dr. Johnson, for 1st edition. 375 0 0
” for 2nd edition. 100 0 0
Upon Dryden’s death Tonson had looked round anxiously for a likely
successor, and had made humble overtures to Pope, and in his later
“Miscellanies” appeared some of Pope’s earliest writings; but Pope soon
deserted to Tonson’s only rival--Bernard Lintot, who also opposed him
in an offer to publish a work of Dr. Young’s. The poet answered both
letters the same morning, but unfortunately cross-directed them: in the
one intended for Tonson he said that Lintot was so great a scoundrel
that printing with him was out of the question, and in Lintot’s that
Tonson was an old rascal.
Jacob Tonson died in 1736, and is reported on his death-bed to have
said--“I wish I had the world to begin again, because then I should
have died worth a hundred thousand pounds, whereas now I die worth only
eighty thousand;”--a very improbable story, for, in spite of Dryden’s
complaints, Tonson seems to have been a generous man for the times,
and to have fully earned his title of the “prince of booksellers.” His
nephew died a few months before this, and was succeeded by his son,
Jacob Tonson the third, who carried on the business in the same shop
opposite Catherine Street in the Strand, until his removal across the
road, only a short time before his death. He died in 1767, when the
time-honoured name was erased from the list of booksellers.
Bernard Lintot, or, as he originally wrote his name, Barnaby Lintott,
was the son of a Sussex yeoman, and commenced business as a bookseller
at the sign of the Cross Keys, between the Temple Gates, in the year
1700. He is thus characterized by John Dunton--“He lately published
a collection of _Tragic Tales_, &c., by which I perceive he is angry
with the world, and scorns it into the bargain; and I cannot blame him:
for D’Urfey (his author) both treats and esteems it as it deserves;
too hard a task for those whom it flatters; or perhaps for Bernard
himself, should the world ever change its humour and grin upon him.
However, to do Mr. Lintot justice, he is a man of very good principles,
and I dare engage will never want an author of _Sol-fa_,[4] so long as
the play-house will encourage his comedies.” The world, however, did
grin upon him, for in 1712 he set up a “Miscellany” intended to rival
Tonson’s, and here appeared the first sketch of the “Rape of the Lock,”
and this introduction to Pope was to turn out of as much importance in
his fortunes as the previous connection with Dryden had been to Tonson.
A memorandum-book, preserved by Nichols, contains an exact account of
the money paid by Lintot to his various authors. Here are the receipts
for Pope’s entire works:--
£ _s._ _d._
1712, Feb. 19. Statius, first book; Vertumnus and
Pomona 16 2 6
1712, March 21. First edition of the Rape 7 0 0
1712, April 9. To a Lady presenting Voiture upon
Silence to the author of a Poem called
Successio 3 16 6
1712-13, Feb. 23. Windsor Forest 32 5 0
1713, July 22. Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day 15 0 0
1714, Feb. 20. Additions to the Rape 15 0 0
1715, Feb. 1. Temple of Fame 32 5 0
1715, April 31. Key to the Lock 10 15 0
1716, July 17. Essay on Criticism 15 0 0
-------------
In 1712 Pope, mindful of Dryden’s success, commenced his translation
of Homer, and in 1714 Lintot, equally mindful probably of the
profits Tonson had derived from Virgil, made a splendid offer for
its publication. He agreed to provide at his own expense all the
subscription and presentation copies, and in addition to pay the author
two hundred pounds per volume. The Homer was to consist of six quarto
volumes, to be delivered to subscribers, as completed, at a guinea a
volume, and through the unremitting labours of the poet’s literary and
political friends, six hundred and fifty-four copies were delivered at
the original rate, and Pope realized altogether the munificent sum of
five thousand, three hundred and twenty pounds, four shillings.
It was probably just after the publication of the first volume, in
August, 1714, that Pope wrote his exquisitely humorous letter to the
Earl of Burlington, describing a journey to Oxford, made in company
with Lintot. “My lord, if your mare could speak, she would give an
account of what extraordinary company she had on the road; which since
she cannot do, I will.” Lintot had heard that Pope was “designed for
Oxford, the seat of the Muses, and would, as my bookseller, by all
means accompany me thither.... Mr. Lintot began in this manner: ‘Now,
damn them, what if they should put it in the newspapers, how you and I
went together to Oxford? What would I care? If I should go down into
Sussex, they would say I was gone to the Speaker. But what of that?
If my son were but big enough to go on with the business, by God! I
would keep as good company as old Jacob.’... As Mr. Lintot was talking
I observed he sat uneasy on his saddle, for which I expressed some
solicitude. ‘’Tis nothing,’ says he; ‘I can bear it well enough, but
since we have the day before us, methinks it would be very pleasant for
you to rest awhile under the woods.’ When we alighted, ‘See here, what
a mighty pretty Horace I have in my pocket! what if you amused yourself
by turning an ode, till we mount again? Lord, if you pleased, what a
clever Miscellany might you make at leisure hours.’ ‘Perhaps I may,’
said I, ‘if we ride on; the motion is an aid to my fancy, a round trot
very much awakens my spirits; then jog on apace, and I’ll think as hard
as I can.’
“Silence ensued for a full hour, after which Mr. Lintot tugged the
reins, stopped short and broke out, ‘Well, sir, how far have you gone?’
I answered, ‘Seven miles.’ ‘Zounds, sir,’ said Lintot, ‘I thought you
had done seven stanzas. Oldworth, in a ramble round Wimbleton hill,
would translate a whole ode in half this time. I’ll say that for
Oldworth (though I lost by his Sir Timothy’s), he translates an ode of
Horace the quickest of any man in England. I remember Dr. King would
write verses in a tavern three hours after he could not speak; and
there’s Sir Richard, in that rambling old chariot of his, between Fleet
ditch and St. Giles’s pound shall make half a job.’ ‘Pray, Mr. Lintot,’
said I, ‘now you talk of translators, what is your method of managing
them?’ ‘Sir,’ replied he, ‘those are the saddest pack of rogues in the
world; in a hungry fit, they’ll swear they understand all the languages
in the universe. I have known one of them take down a Greek book upon
my counter and cry, Ay, this is Hebrew. I must read it from the latter
end. My God! I can never be sure of those fellows, for I neither
understand Greek, Latin, French nor Italian myself.’ ‘Pray tell me next
how you deal with the critics.’ ‘Sir’, said he, ‘nothing more easy.
I can silence the most formidable of them; the rich ones for a sheet
a-piece of the blotted manuscript, which costs me nothing; they’ll go
about to their acquaintance and pretend they had it from the author,
who submitted to their correction: this has given some of them such
an air, that in time they come to be consulted with, and dictated to
as the top critic of the town. As for the poor critics, I’ll give you
one instance of my management, by which you may guess at the rest. A
lean man, that looks like a very good scholar, came to me t’other day;
he turned over your Homer, shook his head, shrugged up his shoulders,
and pished at every line of it. One would wonder, says he, at the
strange presumption of some men; Homer is no such easy task, that every
stripling, every versifier--He was going on, when my wife called to
dinner. ‘Sir,’ said I, ‘will you please to eat a piece of beef with
me?’ ‘Mr. Lintot,’ said he, ‘I am sorry you should be at the expense
of this great book; I am really concerned on your account.’ ‘Sir, I am
much obliged to you; if you can dine upon a piece of beef, together
with a slice of pudding.’ ‘Mr. Lintot, I do not say but Mr. Pope, if he
would condescend to advise with men of learning--’ ‘Sir, the pudding
is on the table, if you please to go in.’ My critic complies, he comes
to a taste of your poetry, and tells me in the same breath that the
book is commendable and the pudding excellent. These, my lord, are a
few traits by which you may discern the genius of Mr. Lintot, which I
have chosen for the subject of a letter. I dropt him as soon as I got
to Oxford.”
Pope’s _Iliad_ took longer in coming out than was expected. Gay writes
facetiously, “Mr. Pope’s _Homer_ is retarded by the great rains that
have fallen of late, which causes the sheets to be long a-drying.”
However, in 1718, the six volumes had been completely delivered to the
subscribers, and three days afterwards Tonson announced, as a rival,
the first book of Homer’s _Iliad_, translated by Mr. Tickell. “I send
the book,” writes Lintot to Pope, “to divert an hour, it is already
condemned here; and the malice and juggle at Button’s (for Addison had
assisted Tickell in the attempted rivalry) is the conversation of those
who have spare moments from politics.”
Lintot intended to reimburse his expenses by a cheap edition, but here
he was anticipated by the piratical dealers, who caused a cheap edition
to be published in Holland; a nefarious proceeding that Lintot met by
bringing out a duodecimo edition at half-a-crown a volume, “finely
printed from an Elzevir letter.”
The _Odyssey_ was published in 1725, likewise by subscription, and
Pope gained nearly three thousand pounds by the transaction, avowing,
however, that he had only “undertaken” the translation, and had been
assisted by friends; and “undertaker Pope” became a favourite byword
among his many unfriendly contemporaries. Lintot was, however,
disappointed with his share of the profits, and, pretending to have
found something invalid in the agreement, threatened a suit in
Chancery. Pope denied this, quarrelled, and finally left him, and
turned his rancour to good account in the pages of the _Dunciad_.
By this time Lintot’s fortunes were firmly assured. Pope was, says Mr.
Singer, “at first apprehensive that the contract (for the _Iliad_)
might ruin Lintot, and endeavoured to dissuade him from thinking any
more of it. The event, however, proved quite the reverse. The success
of the work was so unparalleled as to at once enrich the bookseller,
and prove a productive estate to his family,” and he must have
certainly been progressing when Humphrey Walden, custodian of the Earl
of Oxford’s heraldic manuscripts, made, in 1726, the following entry
in his diary: “Young Mr. Lintot, the bookseller, came inquiring after
_arms_, as belonging to his father, mother and other relations, who
now, it seems, want to turn gentlefolks. I could find none of their
names.” “Young Mr. Lintot” was Bernard’s son and successor--Henry.
There was scarcely a writer of eminence in the “Augustan Era,” whose
name is not to be found in Lintot’s little account book of moneys paid.
In 1730, however, he appears to have relinquished his business and
retired to Horsham in Sussex, for which county he was nominated High
Sheriff, in November, 1735, an honour which he did not live to enjoy,
and which was consequently transferred to his son. Henry Lintot died in
1758, leaving £45,000 to his only daughter, Catherine.
Edmund Curll is, perhaps, as a name, better known to casual readers
than any other bookseller of this period, and it is not a little
comforting to find that the obloquy with which he has ever been
associated was richly merited. He was born in the west of England, and
after passing through several menial capacities, became a bookseller’s
assistant, and then kept a stall in the purlieus of Covent Garden. The
year of his birth is unknown, and the writer of a contemporary memoir,
_The Life and Writings of E. C--l_, who prophesied that “if he go on
in the paths of glory he has hitherto trod,” his name would appear in
the _Newgate Calendar_, has unluckily been deceived. He appears to
have first commenced publishing in the year 1708, and to have combined
that honourable task with the vending of quack pills and powders for
the afflicted. The first book he published was _An Explication of
a Famous Passage in the Dialogue of St. Justin Martyr with Typhon,
concerning the Immortality of Human Souls_, bearing the date of 1708;
and, curiously enough, religious books formed in aftertime a very large
portion of his stock, side by side, of course, with the most filthy and
ribald works that have ever been issued.
In 1716 began his quarrel with Pope, originating as far as we know
in the publication of the _Court Poems_, the advertisement of which
said that the coffee-house critics assigned them either to a Lady
of Quality, Mr. Gay, or the translator of _Homer_. It is not clear
now whether Pope was really annoyed by the appearance of the volume,
or whether he had first secretly promoted it, and then endeavoured
to divert suspicion. At all events, he had a meeting with Curll at
the “Swan Tavern,” in Fleet Street, where, writes the bookseller,
“My brother, Lintot, drank his half-pint of old hock, Mr. Pope his
half-pint of sack, and I the same quantity of an emetic powder; but
no threatenings past. Mr. Pope, indeed, said that no satire should
be printed (tho’ he has now changed his mind). I answered that they
should not be wrote, for if they were they would be printed.” Curll,
on entering the tavern, declared he had been poisoned, and for months
the town was amused with broadsides and pamphlets relative to the
affair. Pope afterwards published his version of the story in his
_Miscellanies_; the “Full and True Account” is, however, as gross and
unquotable as Curll’s own worst publication.
Later on in the same year the bookseller fell into a fresh scrape. A
Latin discourse had been pronounced at the funeral of Robert South by
the captain of Westminster School, and Curll, thinking it would be
readily purchased by the public,
“did th’ oration print,
Imperfect, with false Latin in’t,”
and thereby aroused the anger of the Westminster scholars, who enticed
him into Dean’s Yard on the pretence of giving him a more perfect copy;
there, he met with a college salutation, for he was first presented
with the ceremony of the blanket, in which, “when the skeleton had
been well shook, he was carried in triumph to the school, and, after
receiving a mathematical construction for his false concords, he was
re-conducted to Dean’s Yard, and on his knees asking pardon of the
aforesaid Mr. Barber (the captain whose Latin he had murdered) for his
offence, he was kicked out of the yard, and left to the huzzas of the
rabble.”
No sooner was Curll out of one scrape than he fell into another; for,
still in this same year, he was summoned to the bar of the House of
Lords for printing and publishing a paper entitled _An Account of the
Trial of the Earl of Winton_, a breach of the standing orders of the
House. However, having received kneeling a reprimand from the Lord
Chancellor, he was dismissed upon payment of the fees.
While the authorities were quick enough to punish any violation of
their own peculiar privileges, they were graciously pleased to wink
at the perpetual offences Curll was committing against public morals,
for Curll was a strong politician on the safe party side, and in his
political publications had in view the interests of the government.
However, he was attacked on all sides by public opinion and the press.
_Mist’s Weekly Journal_ for April 5, 1718, contained a very strong
article on the “Sin of Curllicism.” “There is indeed but one bookseller
eminent among us for this abomination, and from him the crime takes
its just denomination of Curllicism. The fellow is a contemptible
wretch a thousand ways; he is odious in his person, scandalous in his
fame; ... more beastly, insufferable books have been published by this
one offender than in thirty years before by all the nation.” Curll,
“the Dauntless,” did not long remain in silence, and his reply is
characteristically outspoken, for the writer was never a coward. “Your
superannuated letter-writer was never more out than when he asserted
that Curllicism was but of four years’ standing. Poor wretch! he is but
a novice in chronology;” and then, after threatening the journalist
with the terrors of an outraged government, he concludes “in the words
of a late eminent controvertist, the Dean of Chichester.”
Curll was fond of the dignitaries of the Church, and endeavoured
to play a shrewd trick upon one of them; he sent a copy of Lord
Rochester’s _Poems_ (certainly not the most innocent book he published)
to Dr. Robinson, Bishop of London, with a tender of his duty, and a
request that his lordship would please to revise the interleaved volume
as he thought fit; but the bishop, not to be caught, “smiled” and said,
“I am told that Mr. Curll is a shrewd man, and should I revise the book
you have brought me, he would publish it as approved by me.”[5]
Public dissatisfaction seems to have been expressed more forcibly
against Curll than heretofore, and to have taken the form of a
remonstrance to government, for he published _The Humble Representation
of Edmund Curll, Bookseller and Citizen of London, containing Five
Books complained of to the Secretary_. As the books were eminently of a
nature requiring an apology, we cannot do more than give their titles:
1. _The Translation of Meibomius and Tractatus de Hermaphroditis_; 2.
_Venus in the Cloister_; 3. _Ebrietatis Encomium_; 4. _Three New Poems,
viz. Family Duty, The Curious Wife, and Buckingham House_; and 5. _De
Secretis Mulierum_. At last the government did interfere, as we learn
from a notice in _Boyer’s Political State_, Nov. 1725:--
“On Nov. 30, 1725, Curll, a bookseller in the Strand, was tried at the
King’s Bench Bar, Westminster, and convicted of printing and publishing
several obscene and immodest books, greatly tending to the corruption
and depravation of manners, particularly one translated from a Latin
treatise entitled _De Usu Flagrorum in Re Venereâ_; and another from
a French book called _La Religieuse en Chemise_.” In the indictment
Curll is thus accurately summed up: _homo iniquus et sceleratus ac
nequiter machinans et intendens bonos mores subditorum hujus regni
corrumpere et eos ad nequitiam inducere_; and in the _State Trials_ we
read the following report of the sentence:--
“This Edmund Curll stood in the pillory at Charing Cross, but was
not pelted or used ill; for being an artful, cunning (though wicked)
fellow, he had contrived to have printed papers dispersed all about
Charing Cross, telling the people how he stood there for vindicating
the memory of Queen Anne.”
It does, in fact, appear that he received three sentences at once, and
that not until Feb. 12, 1728. For publishing the _Nun in her Smock_,
and the treatise _De Usu Flagrorum_, he was sentenced to pay a fine of
twenty-five marks each, and to enter into recognizances of £100 for
his good behaviour for one year; but for publishing the _Memoirs of
John Ker of Kersland, Esq._ (a political offence), he was fined twenty
marks, and ordered to stand in the pillory for the space of one hour.[6]
In 1729 Curll was again pilloried--this time by Pope in the _Dunciad_,
in connection with Tonson and Lintot:
“With authors, stationers obey’d the call
(The field of glory is a field for all);
Glory and gain th’ industrious tribe provoke,
And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke;
A poet’s form she placed before their eyes,
And bade the nimblest racer seize the prize.
* * * * *
----Lofty Lintot in the circle rose:
‘The Prize is mine, who ‘tempts it are my foes;
With me began this genius, and shall end.’
He spoke, and who with Lintot shall contend?
“Fear held them mute. Alone untaught to fear,
Stood dauntless Curll: ‘Behold that rival here!
The race by vigour, not by vaunts, is won:
So take the hindmost, hell,’ he said, ‘and run.’
Swift as a bard the bailiff leaves behind
He left huge Lintot, and outstript the wind.
As when a dab-chick waddles through the copse
On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops,
So labouring on with shoulders, hands, and head,
Wide as a windmill all his figure spread,
With arms expanded Bernard views his state,
And left-legged Jacob seems to emulate.”