No More Learning

XIII.


## p. 306 (#328) ############################################

306 The Growth of the Later Novel [Ch.
in Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803) and The Scottish Chiefs (1810), two
books of which every one has heard, and which, perhaps, even now,
not a very few have read. They are, however, almost utter, though
virtuous and wellintentioned, rubbish; and their popularity, indeed,
their existence, can only be accounted for by the irresistible nisus
towards, and appetite for, romantic matter which characterised the
time. A more complete absence of local colour and historical sense
than in Mrs Radcliffe or the three sisters Lee; the tears of the sen-
timental, dashed, to some extent, with the terrors of the other,
school; diction and conversation incredibly stilted and bombastic;
adventure only exciting to the rawest palate; and a general
diffusion of silliness, characterised these almost famous books.
Only to a taste so crude as their own can they give any direct
pleasure now; but, to the student, they may still be of some
interest as an example of the days of ignorance of the historical
novel, and one can excuse them something for having produced
some of the most delightful exercises of Thackeray's schoolboy
pencil.
It would be impossible to find a greater contrast to them
than a somewhat later novel which still belongs, in one respect,
to their class—that of books which lodge their name, at least,
securely in literary history. This is the Anastasius (1819) of
Thomas Hope, a man, like Beckford, of great wealth, varied
taste and experience in art and travel, who established himself
in literature by a single book. Anastasius became at once
popular, and has retained respect, if not popularity, ever since;
yet, some persons, not, perhaps, of very uncritical or uncatholic
taste, have been known to be disappointed when they read it.
It belongs, as a kind of outsider, to the old 'picaresque' class;
though it has little or nothing of the low comedy which that class
originally, and, in fact, generally, affected. The hero is a Greek
of considerable ability and courage, but absolutely untroubled
with conscience, who becomes renegade and goes through various
adventures. The eastern colour which Byron had made popular,
and which Hope could give with less monotony and from a more
varied experience than Byron himself, may have had a good deal to
do with the vogue of the book; but its author's undoubted command
of satirical contemplation of life, of an ornate, if rather too
elaborate, style, of descriptive power and of other good gifts, must
be allowed. Its autobiographical form, though dangerous, is not
fatal; but the book is, somehow, heavy reading. Even its
>


## p. 307 (#329) ############################################

2
x11]
Peacock
307
continual ironic persiflage, which takes up from Beckford the
manner of Anthony Hamilton and Voltaire and hands it on
to Kinglake in very similar material, becomes monotonous,
though it must be owned that a chapter of Anastasius, boiled
down with a whole modern novel, would supply it with ample
seasoning of a kind now much called for. Perhaps, what casts
a greater cold over it, to some tastes, is a defect very common
in novelists, before Scott—the overdose of pure narration, un-
relieved and unspirited by dialogue and dramatic action. Nothing
happens : everything is told, and there is a fatal suggestion of
the rhetorical harangue about it, despite the variety of its scenes
and the number of its (recited) characters. Towards the end of
the book, the author does, indeed, speak of 'getting rid of the
eternal' I 'which haunts' it. But he does this only by interposing
another narrator, not by adopting the livelier mixture of action
and speech. On the whole, there are few more useful exercises of
speculative criticism than to imagine the story of Anastasius as it
would have been told by Dumas.
26
.
6
uch
Martin
called
We began with an eccentric and we must end with one,
though of a very different class from Amory. After a not extensive,
but, also, not inconsiderable, popularity during the period of his
earlier production, the silence which Thomas Love Peacock im-
posed upon himself for thirty years, and the immense development
of the novel during those same thirty, rather put him out of sight.
But, first, the appearance of Gryll Grange, and then his death,
followed, not long after, by a nearly complete edition of his works,
brought him back; and, both before and after that publication, it
became rather the fashion with critics to discover' Peacock,
while a certain number, long before, either by their own good
fortune or their fathers' wisdom, had been instructed in him.
But he never was, is not even now, when fresh discoveries of
his work have been made, and probably never will be, popular;
and there have sometimes been almost violent recalcitrances
against him, such as that made by Mrs Oliphant in her book on
English literature. Nor, in more favourable estimates, has it
sometimes been difficult to discern a sort of hesitation-a not
knowing what to make of it. ' The compound of satire and romance
in him has puzzled many; just as it has in Heine and in Thackeray.
There is also, it would seem, an additional difficulty in the fact
that, though he wrote, besides the admirable songs in his fiction,
and one or two estimable longer poems, criticism and miscellanea
20-2


## p. 308 (#330) ############################################

308 The Growth of the Later Novel [Ch.
in prose, dramas long unpublished and not of much value and
some other things, the bulk of his work, and almost the whole of
his possible means of popular appeal, consists of a very peculiar
kind (or, rather, two kinds) of novel : one variety of which is re-
peated twice, and the other five times, in different material,
certainly, but (in the more numerous class, especially) on an
almost identical scheme and scale.
This more momentous and, perhaps, generally thought more
characteristic division contains three novels, Headlong Hall (1816),
Melincourt (1817) and Nightmare Abbey (1818), published close
together, a fourth, Crotchet Castle, which appeared a good deal
later (1831), and a fifth, already mentioned, between which and its
immediate predecessor there was a gap of a generation, in more than
the conventional sense of the word. Every one of these has the
same skeleton plot—the assembling of a party in a country house,
with more or less adventure, much more than less conviviality, no
actual murders, but a liberal final allowance of marriages. Some
differentia is, of course, provided-in Headlong Hall, with more
than the contrasted presentation of caricatured types-optimist,
pessimist, happy-mean man, professional man of letters and so
forth, carried out with lively conversation, burlesque incident and
a large interspersion of delightful songs, mainly convivial in
character, but contenting itself with next to no plot. The next
two are rather more substantial; the long and unequal, but, in
parts, admirable, Melincourt containing a good deal of political and
personal satire on rotten boroughs, the Lake poets, political economy,
perfectibilism and what not, with, for central figure, an amiable
orang-outang, whom a young philosopher of wealth and position has
taught to do everything but speak, and for whom he has bought a
baronetcy and a rotten borough. Nightmare Abbey, one of the
most amusing of all, turns on the unfortunate difficulty which a
young man (who, in some ways, is very like Shelley) has in fixing
his affections; and contains portraits, much more remote from the
original, of Byron and Coleridge. Crotchet Castle takes up the
scheme with much less exaggeration and burlesque, with little or
no personal satire, with a marked change of political and social
view, in the direction, if not exactly of conservatism, of some-
thing not unlike it, and with still more remarkable advance in
personal characterisation ; while Gryll Grange (1860) continues
this still further, with adaptation to the changed circumstances of
its own time.
The other two novels, Maid Marian (1822) and The Misfortunes


## p. 309 (#331) ############################################

X11]
Peacock
309
of Elphin (1829), though they could hardly have been written by
any other author, are not merely on a quite different plan, but in
what may look like, though it is not, a quite different vein.
Both, as, indeed, the titles show, are actually romantic in subject;
and, though both (and Elphin almost more than anywhere else)
exhibit Peacock's ironic-satirical treatment, it must be a very
dull person who does not see that he is not shooting at the
romance, but under cover of it. Peacock has been called a
Voltairean: and, much in the form and manner of most of his tales
derives, if not from Voltaire, from Voltaire's master,our own country-
man, Anthony Hamilton. He is, even in his later and more mellowed
condition, 'Mr Sarcastic' (the name of one of his characters)
or nothing. His earlier attitude towards Anglican clergy, and
his early personal lampoons on tory politicians and men of letters,
are almost too extravagant to give much amusement to those who
sympathise with them or any offence to those who do not. He
maintained, even to the last, a purely crotchety dislike to Scott.
Few people did more to spread the utterly unjust and unfounded
notion of Southey and Wordsworth (he is, almost of necessity,
rather more lenient to Coleridge) as profligate time-servers, who
feathered their nests at the expense of their consciences. But, for
all this, he was a romantic in his own despite, and his prose very
commonly, his verse still oftener, betrays him.
Nor can the greatest admirer of the literature, the political
views, or the ecclesiastical and academic institutions which—up to
his last work, at any rate, though not there—Peacock satirises,
resist, if he himself possesses any catholic love of letters and the
genuine sense of humour, the heartiest and most unfailing enjoy-
ment of Peacock's work. Except in Melincourt, where there are
some arid passages, the whole range of his novels yields nothing
,
but refreshment. The plot so frankly abdicates, and leaves its
place to be taken by amusing, if not very closely connected, in-
cident, that nobody but a pedant can feel the want of it; the
characters, if not deeply drawn, are sketched with a verve not
easily to be outdone ; the descriptions are always sufficient and
sometimes very much more; and the dialogue, in its own way, is
consummate. The present chapter has been occupied with the
eccentric novel in more than one or two senses of that adjective.
Peacock's kind of eccentricity is certainly one of those which show
the greatest idiosyncrasy, the imitation of which, though some-
times tried by persons of ability, has proved most difficult. But,
in itself, it is likely to retain its faculty of pleasing perhaps as long


## p. 310 (#332) ############################################

310 The Growth of the Later Novel [CH. XIII
as any kind, though never to any very large number of people.
The first readers of Gryll Grange (even if young enough to be
liable to the disease of thinking the last age obsolete) were
astonished to find an almost octogenarian recluse, who had long
given up writing, not in the least out of date. And the quality or
gift which effected this——the quality which, fifty years later, makes
the hundred year old manners and the hundred year old personages
of Nightmare Abbey more alive than most personages of contem-
porary novels—is never very likely to lose its preserving or its
refreshing power.


## p. 311 (#333) ############################################

CHAPTER XIV
BOOK PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION, 1625–1800
measure.
The middle of the seventeenth century is a drab tract in
the history of English book production. With the accession of
Charles I, the efforts of those in power to secure control over the
printing press were pursued with renewed activity, culminating,
in 1637, in a Star chamber decree which reenacted the celebrated
ordinance of 1586 with additional, and more drastic, provisions.
The many troubles which were gathering round the government
doubtless hindered the effective enforcement of this formidable
On the abolition of the Star chamber, in 1641, the
decree ceased to carry any authority, and, for the moment, printers
were freed from all control.
Now it was that, unhampered by restrictions, the press began
to pour forth political pamphlets of every description-persuasive,
polemical, abusive, scurrilous—of every shade of opinion, royalist
against parliament man, puritan versus churchman, challenges and
answers, newsbooks and gazettes. These, together with sermons
and lectures, were printed and vended in such numbers as well-
nigh made all other books unsaleable? ' It seemed, indeed, as
if all the efforts of the press could not keep pace with the fleeting
pens of ready writers and the feverish eagerness of the public to
devour their productions.
Printers were soon to discover, however, that liberty of the
press was no more to the taste of the Long parliament than it had
been to the hierocracy. As soon as it was able, amid the dis-
tractions of more pressing difficulties, parliament turned its atten-
tion to regulating the press in accordance with its own views.
The issue of various regulations and the punishment of sundry
offenders were followed, on 14 June 1643, by an order for the
regulating of printing3': a brief, business-like document which
aimed at the establishment of a rigorous censorship. In its main
1 See ante, vol. iv, p. 381.
? Milton, Areopagitica.
3 Rptd in Arber's ed. of Areopagitica (1868).


## p. 312 (#334) ############################################

312 Book Production and Distribution
[CH.
provisions it closely resembled the defunct decree of 1637, with
the important difference that the number of printers was not
limited.
It was this reactionary measure which called forth Milton's
Areopagitica, that powerful remonstrance, which, he says, he wrote
in order to deliver the press from the restraints with which it was encumbered;
that the power of determining what was true and what was false, what ought
to be published and what to be suppressed, might no longer be entrusted to a
few illiterate and illiberal individuals ?
But, notwithstanding Milton's denunciation of the act and his
scornful handling of the office of licenser, parliament could not
afford, even for the sake of liberty, to lay aside this weapon
of self defence. To what extent the censorship was effective is
not very clear. The aim, no doubt, was to suppress publications
inimical to the government; and books which did not trench upon
politics or religion were, probably, but little regarded ; but the
newspaper press was subjected to a rigorous system of licensing?
Under Cromwell's rule, the censorship, reinforced by a further
act in 1649, was more efficiently exercised, but was again relaxed
during the unrest which followed his death.
With the restoration, we come to the final and most autocratic
endeavour at state control of the press. The Licensing act of 1662,
which ‘asserted in the plainest terms the king's plenary prerogative
in the matter of printing,' was virtually a revival of the Star
chamber decree of 1637, with all its restrictive clauses, including
the limitation of the number of master printers to twenty, besides
the two university presses, but allowing an additional press at
York. The secret of the effectiveness of the new act lay in the
steps taken to secure its successful administration. The Stationers'
company, to which had formerly been committed the exercise
of police powers, was now superseded in that function by the
appointment, in 1663, of a surveyor of the imprimery and
printing presses. The new official was no less a person than Roger
L'Estrange. This ardent royalist possessed very pronounced and
even fantastic views upon the regulation of the press, and, in a
report on the manner in which the act should be administered, he
had already advised enlargement and stringent enforcement of its
provisions. The extensive powers conferred upon him comprised
the control of all printing offices, together with powers of search,
1 Milton, Second defence (1654), Robert Fellowes's translation. See also Masson's
Life of Milton, vol. , pp. 265 ff.
2 For some account of this see ante, vol. VII, chap. xv.


## p. 313 (#335) ############################################

Xiv]
The Evolution of Copyright
313
and also, with certain specified exceptions, the licensing of books
to be printed, and the exclusive privilege of publishing news! .
L'Estrange entered upon his duties with zest, and, under his
administration, the office of licenser was a real censorship. The
books which he himself licensed were conscientiously dealt with
from his point of view, and he had no hesitation in deleting or
altering passages which did not accord with his political creed.
Under his power of search, he made midnight raids on printing
houses, and at least one printer, John Twyn, suffered the extreme
penalty of the law for printing seditious matter. Notwithstanding
this activity, a large proportion of the books during this period
were issued without imprimatur, apparently with impunity; and
many publications of a questionable colour bear merely the date of
publication without any indication of their source. The act, after
having been in abeyance for some time, was renewed on the
accession of James II ; but at the revolution, L'Estrange was
deprived of his office, and, with the expiry of the act in 1694, the
attempt of the state to control the output of the press was finally
abandoned.
The passing of the first English Copyright act in 1709 began a
new period in the evolution of the law of literary property.
Hitherto, the only recognised form of copyright which had existed
was that which a member of the Stationers' company secured by
the entry of a 'copy' in the company's register, and this was a
purely trade regulation in which the author was completely
ignored? The monopoly of a work for a specified number of
years, which was occasionally granted to the writer by royal
patent, was an exceptional case and only emphasises the generally
defenceless position of authors.
In the sixteenth century, the Stationers' company had virtual
control of the whole trade and exercised a tolerably efficient
supervision over its members. But, during the succeeding century,
a number of causes tended to undermine its authority, so that,
at length, it became unable either to protect its members from the
piracy of outside traders or to restrain the less orderly among its
own ranks. The company, at different times, sought, by various
means, to regain its old power and importance, but in vain. All
efforts merely served to demonstrate the impotence of the guild to
1 Concerning the exercise of this privilege, see ante, vol. vii, chap. xv, and vol. ix,
chap. I.
See ante, vol. iv, p. 391,


## p. 314 (#336) ############################################

314 Book Production and Distribution
[CH.
control the trade in the old way, and to show that the day was
past for imposing restrictive fetters upon so important a craft.
The misdoings of piratical printers had long been a cause of
vexation to the owners of copyrights, and when, by the final lapse
of the licensing laws in 1694, all restraint was removed, booksellers
were at their wits' end to know how to protect their property.
Finally, the aid of parliament was evoked, and, after several
abortive attempts to secure legislation on the subject, a bill, which
is said to have been originally drafted by Swift, though much
altered in committee, was passed in 1709, under the title 'An Act
for the Encouragement of Learning. '
In this measure, the right of an author to property in his work
was, for the first time, recognised, or, rather, conferred upon him,
by the statute law of the country. The act provided that, in the
case of old books, the owners, whether authors or booksellers,
should have the exclusive right of printing them for a term of
twenty-one years from 10 April 1710, and no longer. In the case
of new books, authors were given the monopoly of printing them
for fourteen years, and, if the author were still living, a further
period of fourteen years from the end of that time. These
privileges were to depend upon entry of the work, before publica-
tion, in the Stationers' register ; and the interests of the public
were considered in a clause which provided that, if anyone thought
the published price of a book unreasonably high, the archbishop of
Canterbury, or other authority, might, on appeal, fix a fair price.
At this time, the copyright of practically every book was in the
hands of booksellers, and the statute was, in reality, a booksellers’
act. It would appear that authors did not at once realise the
advantage which the new law conferred upon them, for they
continued, in most cases, to sell their work outright to booksellers,
or publishers as they should perhaps be now called. Notwith-
standing the definite time limit expressed in the act, publishers
still clung to their belief in the existence of perpetual copyright in
their properties, and continued, as of yore, to take from authors
assignments of their work for ever. They not only believed
‘'
in their right to a monopoly in perpetuity, but backed that belief
by purchasing copyrights on that basis, and by actions at law
against those who, as they thought, infringed their privileges; and
the cause of copyright continued to be fought by the publisher, the
author counting for little or nothing in the conflict.
Two of the most important copyright cases of the eighteenth
century arose out of one book. In 1729, James Thomson, for
a
a


## p. 315 (#337) ############################################

XIV]
Printer, Bookseller, Author
315
a payment of £242. 108. Od. , assigned the copyright of The Seasons
to Andrew Millar, his heirs and assigns for ever. In 1763, another
bookseller, Robert Taylor, either relying upon the time limit of
the act of 1709, or willing to take the risk of issuing a saleable
book, brought out an edition of Thomson's popular poem. Millar,
thereupon, began an action against Taylor, and, in 1769–Millar, in
the meantime, having died-the court of king's bench delivered
judgment in favour of the plaintiff. The claim to perpetual copy-
right was thus upheld by the court, and, at Millar's sale in the
same year, Thomas Becket thought the copyright of The Seasons a
sufficiently good property to give £505 for it. But monopoly was
now being threatened from a new quarter. Cheap editions of
deceased English authors were being printed in Scotland, and a shop
for the sale of these books was opened in London by Alexander
Donaldson, an Edinburgh bookseller. One of these reprints was The
Seasons, and Becket, naturally wishing to protect a property
upon which he had adventured so substantial a sum, applied for an
injunction in Chancery against the piracy; but the case, on being
carried to the House of Lords, ended, in 1774, in Donaldson's
favour. Thus, the same book, which, in 1769, had, apparently,
established the claim to perpetual copyright, was, also, the instru-
ment through which the pretence to that right was finally
abolished ; and the period of copyright as defined by the statute
of 1709 remained unchanged until 1814.
Of the three principal agents-printer, bookseller, author-
concerned in the production and distribution of books, the printer
had his day in the sixteenth century. But, during the next
century, a change in the balance of power took place, and the
eighteenth century found the publishing-bookseller in the ascen-
dant. The printer, ousted from his position, had then, for the
most part, became the employe of the bookseller; while the author,
though rapidly gaining ground, did not come into his kingdom
until the approach of the nineteenth century.
As already stated, the usual practice was for an author to sell
his book outright to the publisher; but an instance of a writer
retaining some control over his work is afforded by the best-known
copyright transaction of the seventeenth century—the agreement
for the publication of Paradise Lost (1667), by which Samuel
Simmons covenanted to pay Milton five pounds down, with a
further payment of five pounds at the end of the sale of each
of the first three impressions. A little later than this, Richard


## p. 316 (#338) ############################################

316 Book Production and Distribution
[CH.
6
Baxter, in a vindication concerning his 'covenants and dealings
with booksellers,' gives interesting glimpses of the publishing
arrangements of his day. Baxter was evidently not a good man of
business, and when he took his famous Saints' Everlasting Rest
(1649—50) to Thomas Underhill and Francis Tyton to publish,
he made no agreement with them, but left the matter of profit 'to
their ingenuity. ' For the first impression of the work—a corpulent
quarto of nearly a thousand pages—they gave him ten pounds,
‘and ten pounds apiece, that is, twenty pounds for every after
impression till 1665. ' Then ‘Mr Underhill dieth ; his wife is poor:
Mr Tyton hath losses by the Fire, 1666'; and, though a tenth
edition was called for by 1669, Baxter got not a farthing for
any further impression, but ‘was fain, out of my own purse, to buy
all that I gave to any friend, or poor person, that asked it. '
For other works, he had the 'fifteenth book' (i. e. one fifteenth of
the impression) for himself, with eighteen pence a ream on the rest-
of the impression. William Bates, author of The Harmony of the
divine attributes (1674), must have been better at a bargain,
for he managed to get over a hundred pounds for the first
impression of that book, besides reserving to himself the arrange-
ment for further editions.
In Dryden's time, the writer of plays could look to two sources
of revenue. First, from the performance at the theatre, usually
the proceeds of third-night representations; and, second, from the
sale of the manuscript to a publisher. A judicious dedication
might, also, be a potential third source; but it must have been an
unusually good stroke when Theobald received, for his dedication
of Richard II (1720) to Lord Orrery, a present of a banknote for
one hundred pounds, enclosed in an Egyptian-pebble snuff-box of
the value of twenty pounds. The sum which a successful author
would get from the publisher of his play might be twenty or
twenty-five pounds, and, for this, he would probably be expected to
furnish a preface in order to attract readers and to swell out the size
of the piece. These prefaces were often mere padding, but those of
Dryden form some of the earliest essays in modern literary
criticism in England. Dryden, too, was called upon to supply pro-
logues to plays by other writers, and, finding his name was of value,
he, in due course, demanded and received double the customary
fee of five pounds. Later, in common with writers in other de-
partments of literature, the more successful playwrights were able
to command much larger sums for their copyrights, as in the case
1 Reliquiae Baxterianae (1696), App. p. 117.


## p. 317 (#339) ############################################

а
xiv] The Professional Man of Letters 317
of The Spartan Dame (1712), for which Chetwood, the bookseller,
paid Southerne the sum of one hundred and twenty pounds'.
Although the Copyright act of 1709 did not seem immediately
to make the position of the author stronger, yet the leaven of
betterment was surely at work, and it is during the eighteenth
century that the author gradually comes to the front. True, there
were, as there still are, sloughs which engulfed the needy writer,
and Grub street flourished. But, in įthe upper walks of the
profession, the author was becoming a person of some importance,
and one to be considered by the publisher. Literature was rising
to the rank of a liberal profession, and the man of letters occupies
henceforth, a recognised, and not unimportant, place in society.
A contributory cause of this improvement in the author's social
and commercial position is to be found in the fact that he could
now appeal to a much larger public. Reading was no longer
limited to the leisured few. The active part taken by the middle
classes in politics, commerce and general culture could hardly fail
to engender a habit of reading; and this advance towards literature,
literature, in its turn, applied itself to meet by appealing to a wider
public and bringing its genius to bear more intimately on the
interests and sympathies of daily life. At the same time as the rise
of the professional man of letters, there may also be discerned the
coming of that important person, the general reader. Buyers, as
well as readers, of books became more numerous, and the large
circulation of The Tatler and The Spectator, with their host of
imitators and ephemeral successors, indicates the existence of a
wide circle of readers who read for pleasure and recreation,
The patron of literature still existed, and rendered good
service in its cause of such was the earl of Oxford's generosity
towards Prior, and the duke of Queensberry's care of the 'inoffen-
sive' Gay—and the dedication of a book might, occasionally, still
be a substantial aid, though the pursuit of patrons and rewards-in-
advance was not often carried to such a fine art as that to which the
a
unscrupulous Payne Fisher had previously succeeded in bringing
ite But the author whose living depended upon his pen no longer
looked mainly to a patron or to a wealthy dedicatee for the
concrete reward of his labours. The publisher had become the
real patron. A book that was at all likely to find favour with the
reading public possessed a distinct commercial value; and this
pecuniary potentiality was in process of being realised by the
1 See ante, vol. viii, p. 190.
* Beginning with 3000 copies, the impression rose, sometimes, as high as 30,000.
6


## p. 318 (#340) ############################################

318 Book Production and Distribution
[CH.
author as well as by the publisher. The author naturally en-
deavoured to secure his fair share of profits, and we find that not
a few writers were fully capable of looking after their own interests.
A spirit of enterprise and emulation was moving among
publishers, and men with acumen, like Tonson, Lintot, Dodsley,
Millar and others, were ready to undertake the issue of works they
deemed to be of merit on terms liberal to the author. They not
only published books offered to them by authors, but they also
planned works to meet the needs and tastes of a rapidly widening
circle of readers. Commissions for books were freely given, and, ,
to a large extent, the professional writer was the employe of the
bookseller. In this aspect of the literary history of the time,
picturesque anecdote has been allowed to usurp too prominent a
place, and the petty squabbles between author and publisher, which
have been held up to public view, have, undeservedly, cast a sordid
smirch upon the story of eighteenth century literature. Poets and
other ‘literary creatures' might, in their more lofty moods, affect
to look down with disdain upon booksellers as much beneath
them ; but it was these upon whom they often depended to keep
body and soul from parting company, and to whom they turned in
financial difficulty. It was a common practice for publishers to
advance money upon work not yet done, and, not infrequently,
they were called on to rescue their authors from a debtor's prison.
a
It was during the civil war, when the art of letters was almost
submerged by the rush of political and polemical tracts with
which the country was then flooded, that the craft of printing fell
to its lowest estate, and the calling of publisher seemed, for the
time being, to retain but little connection with literature. The
chief name that stands out from this dead level is that of
Humphrey Moseley, of the Prince's Arms, in St Paul's church-
yard, who devoted himself to the production of poetry and
belles lettres. His publications include the first collected edition
of Milton's poems (1645), and works by Crashaw, D'Avenant,
Shirley, Herrick, Suckling and others. There was also Andrew
Crooke, Hobbes's publisher, who, in 1642, issued two surreptitious
editions of Religio Medici, and was entrusted with the publication
of the authorised edition in the following year; and it was from
Richard Marriot's shop in St Dunstan's churchyard that The
Compleat Angler was sent forth in 1653, whence was issued, also, the
first part of Hudibras ten years later. In the restoration period,
Henry Herringman, Dryden's first publisher, comes to the front as


## p. 319 (#341) ############################################

XIV]
Jacob Tonson
319
>
a publisher of polite literature and may be considered successor to
Moseley in this department of letters. He acquired a wide con-
nection with literary and scientific men of the day, and his shop,
frequently mentioned by Pepys, became the chief literary lounging
place in town. In this, the transition period of publishing,
Herringman forms a link between the old and the new order,
and was one of the earliest booksellers to give up the selling
of miscellaneous books and to devote himself entirely to the
business of his own publications.
It is with Jacob Tonson, the elder, that the modern line of
publishers may be said to begin.
One of his earliest ventures
was the issue, in 1678, of Nahum Tate's tragedy, Brutus of Alba,
and, in the next year, he gave some indication of his ambition
to make a name as a publisher of polite literature by bringing
out Dryden's Troilus and Cressida, though, in order to pro-
vide the twenty pounds wherewith to pay the author, he was,
apparently, obliged to take Abel Swalle into partnership in this
publication. Henceforth, his name is associated with that of
Dryden, whose publisher he became, in succession to Herringman.
Various anecdotes have been related of occasional friction between
publisher and author; but nothing occurred sufficiently serious
to disturb permanently the harmony of their relations. The pub-
lication of Tonson's Miscellany, the first volume of which appeared
in 1684, under the editorship of Dryden, brought him into
prominence, and, later, earned for him Wycherley's sobriquet
gentleman-usher to the Muses. ' In the preceding year, bis
instinct for a good thing had led him to purchase from Brabazon
Aylmer one half of the rights in Paradise Lost; but it was not
until five years later that he brought out by subscription his fine
folio edition of the poem? In 1690, he bought, at an advanced
price, the other half, and thus acquired the whole rights of what
produced him more money than any other poem he published.
Hitherto, new editions of deceased dramatists and poets had
consisted almost exclusively of mere reprints of old copies, and
Shakespeare's collected works existed only in the four folios ; but
Rowe's Shakespeare, which Tonson brought out in 1709, inau-
gurated a new era in the production of critical texts of the greater
writers? . An edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, in seven volumes,
was issued in 1711, from Tonson's new address, the 'Shakespear's
Head,' in the Strand, and it was at this shop, in the same year,
? In his portrait by Kneller, he is depicted with a copy of this book in his band.
? See ante, vol. v, chap. xi.
6


## p. 320 (#342) ############################################

320
Production and Distribution [CH.
Book
that Swift met Addison and Steele, the last of whom, both before
and after this time, was frequently at Tonson's house.
The sign
'Shakespear's Head' was well chosen, for, after Rowe's edition,
almost every important eighteenth century issue of Shakespeare
Pope's (1723—5), Theobald's (1733), Warburton's (1747), Johnson's
(1765), Steevens's (1766), Capell's (1767—8)—carries the name of
Tonson, either by itself or in partnership with others.
Tonson's social ambitions found scope in the Kit-cat club,
of which he was, for many years, secretary. His weakness for
good society occasionally gave offence to his contemporaries ; but
he was much esteemed. Dunton, whose characterisations are
generally direct, though, perhaps, showing a happy weakness for
the best side of a man, said of Tonson that he speaks his mind on
all occasions and will flatter nobody’; and even Pope, who could
not resist dubbing him “left-legged Jacob' in The Dunciad, speaks
of him, also, as 'genial Jacob,' and, again, as ‘old Jacob Tonson,
who is the perfect image and likeness of Bayle's Dictionary; so
full of matter, secret history, and wit and spirit, at almost four-
score. ' About the year 1720, Tonson retired from active part
in the business, leaving the traditions of the house to be carried on
by his nephew (Jacob II, d. 1735), and his great-nephew (Jacob
III, d. 1767). It was the third Jacob who paid Warburton five
hundred pounds for editing Shakespeare, whom Johnson eulogised,
and of whom George Steevens wrote that 'he was willing to admit
those with whom he contracted, to the just advantage of their own
labours; and had never learned to consider the author as an
under-agent to the bookseller? '
As Tonson's name is associated with Dryden, so is that of
his contemporary, Bernard Lintot, closely connected with Pope.
* The enterprizing Mr Lintot, the redoubtable rival of Mr Tonson,
began business at the sign of the Cross Keys about 1698, and he,
likewise, made plays a feature of his early publications. His con-
nection with Pope began with the Miscellaneous Poems and
Translations by several hands, which he launched in 1712 as
a set-off to Tonson's Miscellany. Three years later, he brought out
the first instalment of Pope's translation of the Iliad. The terms
on which Lintot, who made the highest offer, acquired the
work, were that he should supply, at his own expense, ‘all the
copies which were to be delivered to subscribers? or presented to
> Shakespeare's Works, vol. 1 (Advertisement to the Reader), 1778.
? There were 654 subscriptions to the work, which was issued, between 1715 and
1720, in six quarto volumes at a guinea each.
6


## p. 321 (#343) ############################################

XIV]
Bernard Lintot
32 1
friends, and pay the translator two hundred pounds for each
volume. Under this agreement, Pope is said to have received, in
all, some £5300 ; but the result was less fortunate for Lintot, who
had hoped to recoup his outlay and justify the enterprise by
the proceeds of a folio edition which he printed for ordinary sale.
The market for this impression was, however, spoiled by a cheap
duodecimo edition, printed in Holland and imported surreptitiously;
and Lintot, in self defence, had to undersell the pirate by issuing a
similar cheap edition. The method of publishing by subscription
became a common practice in the eighteenth century, and the
endeavour to secure a liberal patron for the dedication of a book
was succeeded by the effort to procure a list of subscribers
previous to publication. For an author who could 'command'
subscriptions, this was a very helpful means of coming to terms
with a publisher ; but, though this method of procedure has
continued to be largely used down to the present day, authors
gradually relinquished into the hands of publishers the task of
canvassing
A dispute arose over the translation of the Odyssey which
Lintot published in 1725—6, and he, too, was splashed with
mud from Pope's malicious pen. With a sensitive penchant for
singling out physical defects, Pope seized upon Lintot's ungainly
figure, and thus caricatured him :
As when a dab-chick waddles thro’ the copse
On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops :
So lab'ring on, with shoulders, hands, and head,
Wide as a wind-mill all his figure spread,
With arms expanded Bernard rows his state,
And left-legg'd Jacob seems to emulate.
In his dealings with authors, Lintot took an enlightened view of
the dignity of letters, and the title-pages of works by many of the
best writers of the day bear his imprint. A memorandum book in
which he entered 'copies when purchased ’ has preserved a record
of the sums which various authors received from him? A large
proportion of the entries consists of plays, and he also invested
freely in law books, which seem to have been always productive
property. In 1701, he purchased, for £3. 48. 6d. , a third share in
Cibber's Love's Last Shift, and, thereafter, acquired several other
plays by that writer. To Thomas Baker, a now forgotten drama-
tist, he gave, in 1703, £32. 58. Od. for The Yeoman of Kent. In
1 Extracts from this notebooks are printed in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes,
vol. VIII, pp. 293—304.
E. L XI. CH. XIV.
21


## p. 322 (#344) ############################################

322 Book Production and Distribution
[CH.
>
1702, Farquhar received £15 for The Troin Rivals, and, four years
later, just double that sum for The Beaux' Stratagem. For Gay's
Wife of Bath, he paid £25, while, for Trivia, he gave him £43,
and practically the same sum for Three Hours after Marriage.
Mrs Centlivre had £10 each for two plays, and Steele £21. 108. Od.
for The Lying Lover. Elkanah Settle, then long past his vogue,
could get no more than £3. 108. Od. for The City Ramble (1711);
but, for Rowe's Lady Jane Grey (1715), and Killigrew's Chit-Chat
(1719), Lintot had to pay £75. 58. Od. and £84 respectively, while,
upon Richard Fiddes's Body of Divinity, he expended so much as
£252. 108. Od. His transactions with Pope amounted to upwards of
four thousand pounds.
Lintot also kept translators busy. Homer seems to have had
special attraction for him, and served as a kind of counterpoise to
the Shakespeare of his rival Tonson. Besides issuing Pope's trans-
lation, he had covenanted with Theobald, in 1714, for a translation
of the Odyssey, but this scheme was abandoned when Pope under-
took his version. For a translation of the Iliad published in 1712,
he paid John Ozell £10. 88. 6d. for the first three books, and, in the
next year, he gave the same translator £37. 128. 6d. for his
Molière. The publication of some books was undertaken on
the half shares principle : in the case of Breval’s Remarks on
several parts of Europe (1726), author and bookseller each took
one guinea, the latter being at the expense of producing the book
and the copyright remaining his property ; Jeake's Charters of the
Cinque Ports (1728) was issued by subscription at a guinea, of
which author and bookseller each had half. For Urry's Chaucer,
eventually printed in 1721, a tripartite agreement for equal division
of the proceeds was entered into, in 1715, by Urry's executor,
the dean and chapter of Christ Church, Oxford, and Lintot;
the dean and chapter's share to be applied to the finishing of
Peckwater quadrangle, and the bookseller again paying the cost of
production.
Lintot's rivalry with Tonson must have been somewhat in
the nature of friendly competition, for his notebook records
several agreements with Tonson, relating to the publication of
various works, including a convention, in February 1718, that they
should be equally concerned in all plays bought by them eighteen
months from that date. He, too, in the heyday of success, retired
from the turmoil of business to country quiet.
With the year 1735, there enters into the publishing lists
perhaps the most attractive figure in the eighteenth century


## p. 323 (#345) ############################################

Xiv]
Robert Dodsley
323
I
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trade, Robert Dodsley, poet, playwright and quondam footman.
Lintot had now some years ago resigned his business into the
hands of his son Henry; and, at the house of Tonson, the third
Jacob was reigning. The substantial firm of Awnsham and John
Churchill, renowned for its big undertakings, had, with the death
of Awnsham in 1728, run its course; and James Knapton, who
made a feature of books of travel and works on trade and econo-
mics, was nearing the end of his career. Richard Chiswell, the
* metropolitan bookseller' of England, had long since been suc-
ceeded by Charles Rivington, who was laying the foundations
of what was to become the chief theological publishing house
of the next hundred years; and Thomas Longman, successor
to William Taylor, publisher of Robinson Crusoe, was quietly
building up the business in Paternoster row where his sign, a ship
in full sail, still keeps on its course. Lawton Gilliver, of the
Homer's Head in Fleet street, was now Pope's publisher; and
Edward Cave had been running his Gentleman's Magazine since
1731. Other active names in the publishing world were John
Brindley of New Bond street, Andrew Millar in the Strand,
Thomas Cooper at the Globe in Paternoster row, and James
Roberts in Warwick lane.
When Dodsley, with the patronage and assistance of Pope and
other friends, set up his sign, Tully's Head, in Pall Mall, he
was already known as a writer of poems, and his play, The Toy-
shop, which had been published by Gilliver a few months pre-
viously, achieved the success of six editions before the year was
out. In 1737, he made a great hit with Richard Glover's Leonidas;
in the next year came Johnson's London; and, soon, Dodsley was
recognised as one of the leading publishers of belles lettres,
his shop, ere long, becoming a favourite meeting place of the
literati of the day. A sound literary taste, seconded by enter-
prise and business ability, brought him abundant success; and
his probity of character and lovable personality endeared him
to a numerous company of friends. Chesterfield, Shenstone and
Spence were of this circle, and Johnson, who held 'Doddy' in
especial regard, said that he looked upon him as his patron.
Besides works by Pope and Johnson, it was from Tully's Head
that Young's Night Thoughts, Shenstone's Schoolmistress, Aken-
side's Pleasures of Imagination, Goldsmith's Present State of
Polite Learning, with many others of equal note were sent forth ;
and, if Gray's Eton Ode fell flat in 1747, the failure was more than
compensated for by the acclaim which greeted the Elegy in 1751.
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21-2


## p. 324 (#346) ############################################

324 Book Production and Distribution [ch.
But the publications by which Dodsley remains a living name
in English literature are the two anthologies to which he stood
in the relation of editor as well as publisher : the Select Collection
of Old Plays (1744-5) and the Collection of Poems by several
Hands (1748—58)? When the first of these was announced in
1743, sufficient names to justify the undertaking were received in a
week, and, at the time of publication, there were nearly eight
hundred subscribers.
Apparently, Dodsley considered a periodical publication to be
a proper adjunct to a house of standing, for he made more
than one adventure in that hazardous emprise. The Public
Register, which he launched in 1741 as a weekly rival to The
Gentleman's Magazine, was killed at its twenty-fourth number by
a boycott on the part of opposition journals. Five years later, he
projected a fortnightly literary magazine, called The Museum,
which appeared under the editorship of Mark Akenside ; and this
was followed by The World, which Edward Moore successfully
conducted from 1753 to 1756. But his greatest achievement
was The Annual Register, which he founded in conjunction with
Edmund Burke, and which still makes its yearly appearance.
In
March 1759, just before the first issue of the Register was
published, Dodsley relinquished the cares of business into the
hands of his younger brother, James, whom he had taken into
partnership some time previously.
It is understood to have been Robert Dodsley who first sug-
gested to Johnson the idea of the Dictionary; but the chief part
in the arrangements for its publication was undertaken by Andrew
Millar, a man of quite different calibre. Though not possessed of
great literary judgment himself, Millar had the instinct to choose
capable advisers, and his hard-headed business faculty carried him
into the front rank of his profession. He ventured boldly, and
must have been fairly liberal in his dealings with authors, or
Johnson, speaking from a writer's point of view, would scarcely
have expressed respect for him on the ground that he had raised
the price of literature. When Hume's History was in danger of
falling flat, it was Millar's energy that contributed largely to
securing its success ; and when, after giving Fielding a thousand
pounds for Amelia, he feared the book would not go off, he resorted
to a ruse to incite the trade to buy it.
The Dictionary, after the manuscript had at length been ex-
tracted from Johnson, was published jointly by several booksellers
1 See ante, vol. ix, pp. 190–1.


## p. 325 (#347) ############################################

XIV]
Trade
Books
325
iar:
JE
it
who had joined forces for the occasion. This practice of cooperation
in important undertakings was a regular feature in eighteenth
century publishing, and various associations for the purpose were
brought into existence. One of these, called The Conger, was
formed in 1719, and this was followed in 1736 by the New Conger.
After these came the famous organisation which met for the
transaction of business at the Chapter coffeehouse in St Paul's
churchyard; hence, books brought out by the associated partners
were, for a time, styled Chapter books, but, later, came to be
known as Trade books. This method of publication led to many
literary properties being divided into numerous shares, sometimes
80 many as a hundred or even more, which were bought or sold
and freely passed on from one bookseller to another. In 1776,
a sixteenth share of Pamela was sold for £18, and a thirty-second
part of Hervey's Meditations brought £32, while, in 1805, £11
was given for a one-hundredth share in The Lives of the
Poets. William Johnson, a London bookseller, stated, in 1774,
that three-quarters of the books in the trade had his name as
part proprietor. The cooperative system was attempted also on
behalf of authors, and a Society for the Encouragement of Learning
was founded with the object of securing to writers the whole pro-
duct of their labours ; but, though some books of note were
published through this channel about the middle of the century,
the society can hardly be said to have flourished.
Perhaps the largest combine for the issue of a trade book, was
that which brought out the edition of English Poets for which
Johnson wrote the Lives. In this undertaking, some forty book-
sellers were concerned, and the names of the proprietors included,
as Edward Dilly, one of the partners, said in a letter to Boswell,
“almost all the booksellers in London, of consequence! ' The
object was to defeat what they deemed to be an invasion of their
literary property, in the shape of a comprehensive issue of British
Poets, printed at the Apollo press in Edinburgh, in a hundred
cheap and handy volumes, and sold by John Bell of the Strand.
This John Bell, founder of Bell's Weekly Messenger, was a pioneer
in the production of cheap books, and, being a man of modern
ideas, he initiated, so it is said, the abolition of the long s.
Another form of cheap literature which had come into vogue, was
the 'Paternoster Row numbers,' so called from the Row being
their chief place of issue. These publications, which came out in
the form of weekly parts, consisted of standard works such as
Dit
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1 Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. Hill, G. B. , vol. II, p. 111.
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## p. 326 (#348) ############################################

326 Book Production and Distribution
[ch.
family Bibles with notes, Foxe's Martyrs, the works of Josephus,
the life of Christ, histories of England and the like, which, if
not read, at least gave a good air to the home. One of the earliest
to make a speciality of this form of publishing was Alexander
Hogg, who seems to have been possessed of all the arts and wiles
of the modern book canvasser; and his assistant, John Cooke,
after starting in the same line of business on his own account,
made an even better thing of it. He is said to have cleared some
thousands of pounds by Southwell's Notes and Illustrations on the
Bible, and his were the little 'whity-brown' covered sixpenny
numbers of the British poets on which Leigh Hunt 'doted. ' This
series of books, running, in all, to several hundred weekly parts,
consisted of three sections : select novels, select classics and select
poets-select, no doubt, meaning then, as now, those which could
be reprinted with impunity.
But the booksellers did not confine their meetings at coffee-
house or tavern to the business of dividing the profits on a book or
of planning a new venture. They also met for social intercourse
and good cheer; and occasional gatherings at the Devil tavern by
Temple bar developed into a regular club. It was at this club that
Davies first conceived the idea of writing his Life of Garrick, and,
as the work proceeded, he brought instalments of it to the club
which he read to the company with much complacency, and not a
little to their general information. And, in their relations with
authors, the festive side was not neglected by individual publishers,
such as the Dillys—the big house in the Poultry—'at whose
hospitable and well-covered table,' says Boswell, 'I have seen a
greater number of literary men, than at any other, except that
of Sir Joshua Reynolds. '
Thomas Cadell, too, the successor of Andrew Millar, celebrated
the completion of Gibbon's Decline and Fall, in 1788, by a literary
dinner at his house. Cadell, who was partner with William
Straham in many of his more important undertakings, was for
nearly a quarter of a century at the head of his profession, and his
name is associated with the leading historical writers of the time :
Hume, Robertson, Gibbon, Blackstone, Adam Smith. This was a
golden age for successful writers, and remuneration was on an
unprecedented scale. For his History of Charles V, Robertson
received £4500, and for his dull but popular history, Robert Henry
was paid £3300; Hume's History is said to have brought him
upwards of £5000, and Gibbon had two-thirds of the very hand-
some profits on his History; Cadell and Straham paid John 7
>


## p. 327 (#349) ############################################

XIV]
Edmund Curll
327
Hawkesworth £6000 for his Account of voyages. . . in the Southern
Hemisphere, and gave Hugh Blair £1100 for his three volumes
of Sermons ; and Charles Elliot, the Edinburgh bookseller, was
venturesome enough to give William Smellie a thousand guineas for
his Philosophy of Natural History when, according to Lackington,
only the heads of the chapters were written.
At the end of the eighteenth century, the third Thomas
Longman had recently entered on his successful career; the
theological house of Rivington was in the hands of Francis and
Charles Rivington, grandsons of the founder; Thomas Cadell,
the younger, had succeeded his father, who was now enjoying
wellearned leisure; the firm of Edward and Charles Dilly was
represented by the surviving partner, Charles ; George Robinson,
the king of the booksellers,' had yet a year to reign over his huge
business in Paternoster row; and John Murray, lately come
of age, had just assumed control of the business in Fleet street
which his father, the first John Murray, had acquired in 1768.
Naturally, most of those who engaged in bookselling and
publishing were primarily men of business, but there were among
them not a few who knew something more of books than merely
their title-pages and selling price. Many were attracted to the
calling by a taste for, and appreciation of, literature, and several
even aspired to enter the lists of authorship. Besides such out-
standing instances as Robert Dodsley, Samuel Richardson and
Thomas Davies, there was John Dunton of the Life and Errors,
and Lackington of the Memoirs and Confessions. Thomas Evans,
the humorist, who edited Shakespeare and Prior, and Andrew
Jackson, the Drury lane dealer in old books, who published the
first book of Paradise Lost in rime and cast his catalogues in
similar form, are representative of another class. To the criticisms
of his publisher, Joseph Johnson, William Cowper acknowledged
himself to be indebted; and Peter Elmsley, the Strand bookseller
and honoured friend of Gibbon, was noted for his discriminating
nicety in both the French and the English languages. To these
may be added Alexander Cruden, who compiled his Concordance
at his shop under the Royal Exchange; Arthur Collins, of the
Peerage; the younger William Bowyer, styled 'the learned
printer,' and his partner John Nichols, of the Anecdotes.
If Tonson, Lintot and Dodsley may be accounted among the
aristocracy of the publishers of their time, the nadir of the
profession is well represented in their contemporary, Edmund
Curll, that shameless rascal, in whom even the writer of The


## p. 328 (#350) ############################################

328 Book Production and Distribution [CH.
6
Dunciad found his match for scurrility. In the annals of the
trade, Curll's name stands for all that is false, low, dishonest and
obscene; indeed, his activity in producing books of an indecent
character added a new word—Curlicism—to the language. His
many misdeeds brought him varied experiences : from the trick
which Pope played upon him at the Swan tavern, and the tossing
he received at the hands of the Westminster scholars, up through
more than one appearance at the bar of the House of Lords, down
to imprisonment, fine and the pillory. But none of these things
deterred 'the dauntless Curll’ from his vicious course. After
he had been fined for printing The Nun in her Smock, and had
stood in the pillory for publishing The Memoirs of John Ker of
Kersland, he continued to advertise these books in his lists, with
a note appended to the latter calling attention to the fact that he
had suffered fine and corporal punishment on account of it.
At the outset of his career, he put forth as a 'second edition,
improv'd,' a mere reprint with new title-page-not an unknown
deception, it is true; but, with Curll, literary fraud was habitual,
and he had no hesitation in suggesting a wellknown writer to be
the author of some worthless production by one of his hacks.
Elizabeth Montagu, in a letter of 12 November 1739, writes
indignantly :
I got at last this morning the poems just published under Prior's name,
brought them home under my arm, locked my door, sat me down by my
fireside, and opened the book with great expectation, but to my disappoint-
ment found it to be the most wretched trumpery that you can conceive, the
production of the meanest of Curl's band of scribblers.
Curll's connection with the issue of Court Poems (1716)2 led to
his first encounter with Pope, and he afterwards made ignoble
appearance in The Dunciad; later, these two were concerned
in the talpine proceedings connected with the publication of the
1735 volume of Pope's Correspondence.
Curll's personal appearance, vividly sketched by Amory, was
as unprepossessing as his cast of mind. · Edmund Curll,' he says,
‘was in person very tall and thin, an ungainly, awkward, white-
faced man. His eyes were a light-grey, large, projecting, goggle,
and pur-blind. He was splay-footed, and baker-kneed. ' He adds,
however, that he had a good natural understanding, and was
well acquainted with more than the title pages of books. ' And,
since even a Curll must have his due, it should not be forgotten
i Climenson, Emily J. , Elizabeth Montagu (1906), vol. I, p. 38.
2 See ante, vol. ix, pp. 78 and 247.
3 Life of John Buncle (1825), vol. III, p. 262.


## p. 329 (#351) ############################################

XIV]
Grub Street
329
that he published a number of books of antiquarian, topographical
and biographical interest.
The name of Curll is also closely associated with Grub street,
a domain which is wont to be a temptation to indulge in the
picturesque—and to figure as a literary hades, inhabited by poor,
but worthy, geniuses, with stony-hearted booksellers as exacting
demons. Not that the existence of Grub street is to be doubted :
it was, indeed, a grim actuality, and many a garreteer realised
by experience
How unhappy's the fate
To live by one's pate
And be forced to write hackney for bread 1,
But the iniquity was not all on the side of the bookseller, nor did
the initiative come from him alone.
It was in the first half of the eighteenth century, after the
expiry of the licensing laws had removed all restraint from the
press, that this underworld of letters most flourished, writers and
booksellers striving with avid haste to make the most out of the
opportunity of the moment. Unscrupulous members of both
professions were little troubled by conscience, their common
concern being to produce—the one with the minimum of labour,
the other at the minimum of expense—anything that would sell.
Booksellers were 'out' for business, and paid as little as possible.
Some of them were hard taskmasters, no doubt, but they had a
sorry team to drive, and one may believe that, in general, these
Grub street authors got as much as they were worth.
In his Life of Dr John North, Roger North speaks of the
pickpocket work of demi-booksellers, who 'crack their brains to
find out selling subjects, and keep hirelings in garrets at hard
meat to write and correct by the groat’; and Amory, writing of
Curll, says that ‘his translators in pay lay three in a bed in the
Pewter Platter Inn at Holborn, and he and they were for ever
at work to deceive the public? ' John Dunton, a man of many
projects, who, in his time, published some six hundred books
and himself was the possessor of a ready pen, had considerable
experience of hackwriters. As soon as he set up in business,
they began to ply him with 'specimens'; but he conceived a very
poor opinion of the race, and thought their learning very often
lay in as little compass as their honesty.