[1] “Essai sur les Livres dans l’Antiquité.”
[2] For a very interesting article on this subject, see _Cornhill
Magazine_, vol. ix.
[3] Carnan is said, by Mr. Knight, to have been so frequently
prosecuted that he invariably kept a clean shirt in his pocket, that
he might lessen the inconvenience of being carried off unexpectedly to
Newgate.
[4] D’Urfey was a music-master.
[5] This anecdote is often incorrectly related of Wilkes and the _Essay
on Woman_.
[6] The _Daily Post_, Feb. 13, 1728.
[7] A most interesting and voluminous collection of “notes” in
reference to Curll was contributed to “Notes and Queries” (2nd series,
vols. ii., iii., and x.) by M.N.S. Many of our facts in relation to him
have been taken from that source, and for a far fuller account, in the
rough material, we refer the reader thither.
[8] West says he sat next Lackington at a sale when he spent upwards of
£12,000 in an afternoon.
[9] _Bookseller_, June, 1865.
[10] As we shall have no other opportunity of referring to the third
in rank of the leading quarterlies, we must, perforce, compress its
history in a foot-note. The _Westminster Review_ was started more than
fifty years ago, by Jeremy Bentham, who was succeeded in editorship
by Sir John Browning, in conjunction with General Perronet Thompson,
whose labours in the cause of radical reform gave him considerable
notoriety at the time. They made way for the accomplished statesman
Sir William Molesworth, the editor of _Hobbes_. A profounder thinker
still, Mr. John Stuart Mill, followed. Most of his philosophical essays
appeared in its pages, at a time when Grote and Mr. Carlyle were both
contributing. For more than twenty years now the _Review_ has been
in the hands of Dr. Chapman, who, beginning life as a bookseller in
Newgate Street, was the first English publisher to recognise the
value of Emerson’s writings. Under Dr. Chapman, what is now the
great feature--the Quarterly Summary of Contemporary Literature--was
introduced. The _Review_ has lately attracted much attention by the
bold manner in which the “Social Evil” and the “Contagious Diseases
Acts” have been discussed in its columns, and these articles are
generally attributed to the able pen of the editor himself.
[11]
I. “On Dryden.” (_E. R._, 1828.)
II. “History.” (_E. R._, 1828.)
III. “Mirabeau.” (_E. R._, 1832.)
IV. “Cowley and Milton.”
V. “Mitford’s Greece.”
VI. “Athenian Orator.”
VII. “Barère’s Memoirs.”
VIII. “Mill’s Essay on Government.” (_E. R._, 1829.)
IX. “Bentham’s Defence of Mill.” (_E. R._, 1829.)
X. “Utilitarian Theory of Government.” (_E. R._, 1829.)
XI. “Charles Churchill.”
Many of these may be found in the volume of _Miscellanies_ published by
Longmans. It has been denied that No. XI. is by Macaulay at all.
[12] For a further account of these extraordinary sales, see Allibone’s
_Dictionary of English Literature_, vol. ii., from which many of the
above facts have been drawn.
[13] Among the sufferers by this failure was the family of Robert
Watt, M.D., author of “Bibliotheca Britannica,” for which £2000 had
been given in bills, all of which were dishonoured. He was a ploughboy
until his seventeenth year, wrote many medical treatises, and occupied
his concluding years with a work precious and indispensable to
every student. The whole plan of the “Bibliotheca” is new, and few
compilations of similar magnitude and variety ever presented, in a
first edition, a more complete design and execution.
[14] _Quarterly Review_, vol. lxx.
[15] Given to Dallas.
[16] Published by James Power, music seller.
[17] Written at Geneva, and published by John Hunt, London.
[18] This sketch was written before the publication of Mr. W.
Chambers’s life of his brother, but has been revised in accordance with
that interesting memoir.
[19] Mr. Long has deposited in the Public Library at Brighton his
private copy of the “Encyclopædia,” interleaved with the names of the
contributors, and other interesting information as to the progress of
the work.
[20] Mr. G. W. M. Reynolds, of the “Mysteries of London” notoriety,
commenced life also as a temperance lecturer, and was at one time
editor of the _Teetotaller_ Newspaper.
[21] Lockhart, in his article in the _Quarterly_, says that Hook’s
diary shows a clear profit of £2000 on the _first series_. This must be
incorrect.
[22] The term _Conger_ is ingeniously said to be derived from the eel,
meaning that the association, collectively, would swallow all smaller
fry.
[23] _Aldine Magazine_, p. 50.
[24] It was from the intricacy of thought of some few of the poems of
the “Christian Year,” that Sydney Smith christened it by the name of
“The Sunday Puzzle.”
[25] For the facts in the earlier portion of this memoir we are
indebted to an interesting obituary notice in the _Bookseller_.
[26] For a very interesting bibliographical account of Mr. Tennyson’s
works, showing the various changes which the poems have undergone, see
“Tennysoniana,” by R. H. Shepherd (1856).
[27] For a full account of this interesting and successful bookseller
_see_ “Life of Alderman Kelly,” by the Rev. R. C. Fell (1856).
[28] Tegg left a manuscript autobiography, which was published twenty
years after his death, in the _City Press_; to this interesting
memorial we are indebted for the facts in our present narrative.
[29] This “Petition” was first printed in the _Examiner_, 7th April,
1839, and afterwards republished.
[30] The _Bookseller_, June, 1864.
[31] The _Bookseller_, 1861.
[32] The above account is abridged from the _Bookseller_ of November,
1869.
[33] To a timely notice in a recent number of the _Bookseller_ we are
indebted for the main facts in Duffy’s life.