Acumen sæpe stomachosum, nonnunquam frigidum, interdum etiam facetum.CHAPTER XLIII.
Acumen sæpe stomachosum, nonnunquam frigidum, interdum etiam facetum.
The professional character who next comes under review, is termed by the Sexagenarian, in his notes, the Queer Bookseller. By the way, our friend appears to have been irresolute in the usage of the term professional. It has been erased, and afterwards re-written, with a quere annexed. Whether it should be exclusively confined to the higher professions of the church, law, and medicine, may admit of doubt, but that some limitation is necessary, appears from the following anecdote.
A country cousin visited a relation in the metropolis of some respectability, with the desire of soliciting his aid and advice as to his views in life. He was received by his relative with kindness, who having elsewhere heard that the young man was of a mechanic taste, and that he meditated being a maker of watches, complimented him onhis supposed talent, and was leading the conversation to the subject of mechanism and the arts. The youth, in high dudgeon, disdained the idea and drudgery of a tradesman’s life, and interrupted his relative by exclaiming, What, Sir, do you think me a tradesman?
Why I must confess that such a suggestion had been communicated to me.
No, Sir, you need not be ashamed of your relationship; I am not a tradesman; I am a Professor of Dancing; which being interpreted, was found to mean neither more nor less than a Country dancing master.
Fortunate was it for the old gentleman and his wife, that this eclaircissement took place in the evening, for on the morning following, they were awakened at an early hour by a most unaccountable noise in the chamber above that in which they slept, which would greatly have annoyed them, had they not conjectured, what in reality proved to be the fact, that their country cousin was practising the last new waltz, with one of the bed-room chairs.
But to return to our Queer Bookseller. The epithet is not intended to express the smallest disrespect, but the person in question was characterized by a dryness of manner peculiarly his own. He was seldom betrayed into a smile, nor didhe ever appear particularly exhilarated, even when the greatest wits of the day assembled at his house. He had to boast of the familiar acquaintance of Wilkes and Boswell, and Johnson and Cumberland, and Parr and Steevens, and a numerous tribe of popular writers. No one could exercise the rites of hospitality with greater liberality, and when enabled from success, to retire from the world with great opulence, he retained his kind feelings towards those, who had formerly been connected with him as authors, and gave them a frequent and cordial welcome at his table.
But to evince the powerful effect of habit, he retained so strong a partiality for the situation in which he had passed the greatest part of his life, and where he had accumulated his wealth, that though it was in the very noisiest part of the noisiest street in the city, he invariably, and for ever afterwards, made it the standard by which he estimated how far any thing was handsome, convenient, or agreeable. “My house in the city” comprised every thing which was animating and delightful without, and comfortable and exhilarating within.
With the dry manner above described, there was united an extraordinary simplicity, which, where this individual’s better qualities were not very well known, frequently gave offence. Our friend had never any intercourse with him on matters of businessbut once. In conjunction with a friend, whose works are now under more solemn and awful criticism elsewhere, he was prevailed upon to print a book on speculation, presuming, which indeed turned out to be the fact, that the booksellers would subscribe for the impression. The dry bookseller was, among others, applied to, but he returned the letter of application to the writer, simply writing under it, A. B. will not subscribe.
Upon another occasion an author who lived at a distance from the metropolis, at that period a great patriot, and flaming politician, had written a book of biography, the sale of which was to pour unheard-of riches into his bosom; guineas, for it was then the time of guineas, glittered in brilliant heaps before his warmed imagination. He employed a common friend to entreat the interposition of the Sexagenarian with some publisher, as being better acquainted with the nature of such negociations.
The office was readily accepted, and this same Queer gentleman was the person fixed upon to become the purchaser of the copy-right of this inestimable treasure. A meeting was appointed, the circumstances explained, the copy produced, was cast off, and agreed to be comprised in an octavo volume. Then succeeded the anxious moment of expectation of the reply to be given to, “How much will youadvance for the copy-right?”
The author had doubtless heard of the large sums given per volume to Gibbon, Robertson, Blair, Beattie, and other writers of that calibre; and though perhaps neither his pride nor his ambition carried his expectations quite so far as to suppose that he should be placed on a parallel with these illustrious names, yet his disappointment (and disappointment is always in proportion to the hopes indulged) cannot easily be described, when, in a dry, grave, and inflexible, tone, he heard the words “Twenty pounds and six copies.”
Thus was the flattering hope of authorship nipped in the bud; the labour of many successive months, in a moment rendered unavailing, and the fond dreams of fame and emolument made to vanish as by the wand of a sorcerer.
There are sundry other booksellers upon our list; for example, the Splendid Bookseller, the Cunning Bookseller, the Black Letter Bookseller, the Comical Bookseller, the Dirty Bookseller, the Fine Bookseller, the Unfortunate Bookseller, &c. &c.
The Splendid Bookseller, by patient and persevering frugality, with high connections, which seemed entailed upon his house, was enabled to retire to tranquillity and independence, long before the decline of life, or infirmities of age, rendered it necessary to do so. He was highly respectable,but could drive a hard bargain with a poor author, as well as any of his fraternity.
The Cunning Bookseller lived within a hundred miles of the preceding personage, but in pursuit of the main chance, would condescend to do, what his neighbour would have disdained. He would attend in person at the little auctions in the metropolis and its environs, where effects were distrained for rent or taxes, but among which, by chance, some less common books had found their way. In making a bargain with an author, he was dry and cold, and hard and sharp, as flint. He had also another way of getting on. If he saw those who frequented his shop, and whose means he knew to be less abundant, express any earnestness of curiosity about either his own publications, or books newly imported or published, he would, with great apparent civility, encourage them to become purchasers, by observing, that he should not be in a hurry to call for payment. But alas! the poor wights hardly had time to peruse their new acquisitions, before this sharp-faced dealer and chapman would call for a settlement, and either urge the having a bill at short date given him, or would provoke the pride of the poor scholar to part with other books, dear perhaps as the apple of his eye, to cancel the debt and get rid of his importunity.
By such modes of conduct, and by extraordinary success in various publications, and in one more particularly, he accumulated very large property, and retired. After his retirement, however, the “auri sacra fames” still continued to agitate him, nor had he entirely got the better of this infirmity, when death called upon him finally to settle all his accounts at once.
The Black Letter Bookseller was also somewhat of a singular character in his way, and in his day. He was a perfect master of his business, and of that part of it more immediately which related to the earlier productions of the English press. He was, moreover, acute, active, and obliging.
It was in his time that old English books, of a particular description both in prose and verse, were, from some cause or other, principally perhaps as they were of use in the illustration of Shakespeare, beginning to assume a new dignity and importance, and to increase in value at the rate of five hundred per cent. Tracts which for a long preceding interval, produced no more than eighteen-pence, now began to sell for more than as many shillings. This rage often extended to the whimsical titles, which it was the fashion of our forefathers to prefix to their publications; and it may perhaps be said truly of most of them, that in this, and this only, their principal value consisted. Itmust be allowed, that ingenuity must frequently have been put to the full stretch, to have devised such appellations as the following.
Hoplocrisma Spongus; or, a Sponge to wipe away the Weapon Salve. 1631.
An answer to this was published with the title of the Squeezing of Parson Foster’s Sponge. 1631.
Have with you to Saffron Walden.
Parthenia; or, the Maidenhead of the first Music that ever was printed for the Virginity. By John Bull.
The Seven Planets; or, wandering Motives of Will Alabaster’s Wit, retrograded and removed by John Raislor.
A Looking-glass for the Pope, wherein he may see his own Face, the express Image of Antichrist, by Lionel Sharp.
Work, more Work, and yet a little more Work, for a Mass Priest, by Alex. Cook, D.D.
Herba Parietis; or, the Wall-flower, as it grows out of the Stone Chamber belonging to the Metropolitan Prison, being a History which is partly true, partly romantick, morally divine; whereby a Marriage between Reality and Fancy is solemnized by Divinity, by Lewis Bayly, D.D.
The Parliament of Bees; or, a Bee-hive furnished with Twelve Honeycombs, by John Day.
A sorrowful Song for sinful Souls, by John Carpenter.
Humour, Heaven on Earth, with the Civil Wars of Death and Fortune, by John Davies.
A Counter Snarl for Ishmael Rabshakeh, a Cecropedian Lycaonite, by Edward Hoby.
The Horn-blast; a Reply to R. Horne, Bishop of Winchester, by Th. Stapleton, D.D.
Roaring Megg planted against the Walls of Melancholy, by Tho. Tyro. 1598.
A Mastiff Whelp, with other Ruff-Island-like Curs from among the Antipodes, alias London, in 85 Satires.
The Saint’s Soul excelling Humiliation, or Soul fatting Fasting. 1634.
Humour out of Breath; a Comedy.
The Foot out of the Snare.
Rub and a great Cast, in 100 Epigrams, by Freeman.
A Dechachordon of ten Quodlibetical Questions, by R. Persons. 1602.
Niobe dissolved into a Violin, or his Age drowned in his own Tears.
These are a few quaint things taken at hazard out of the Black Letter Bookseller’s catalogue; and it may be further observed on the subject, that all the books by Nash, Green, Withers, &c. then becoming very dear and rare, were distinguished by similarly eccentric appellations. OurBookseller, with great sagacity and diligence, availed himself of the prevailing phantasy, and thus laid the foundation of emoluments which he did not live to enjoy.
A whimsical anecdote of this personage will serve to illustrate the temper of the times, as demonstrated among us at the commencement of the French Revolution.
On the murder of the unfortunate King of France, the Sexagenarian wrote a pamphlet, which he entitled “Brief Memoirs of the Chief of the French Regicides,” for which at that time he had access to curious and authentic documents. He offered it to the Black Letter Bookseller and his partner, who accepted it, paid the sum agreed upon, and advertised it for sale on a certain day.
A short time, however, before this day arrived, the more active of the partners called upon the author, and informed him, that they should feel themselves much obliged if he would change the title-page of the intended pamphlet. Our friend expressed great surprise, and desired an explanation of the motives which induced such a request. The reply was to this effect:—That it was hardly possible then to foresee how matters would ultimately turn out; that they had among their best customers individuals ofstrongpolitical opinions, who might hereafter take great offence at their publishinga pamphlet with such a title. The author, who was loyal to the very core, endeavoured to argue and remonstrate, but all in vain. A new title was prefixed, the old one at some expence cancelled, and the brochure made its appearance with the more harmless and less offensive inscription of “Brief Memoirs of the Leaders of the French Revolution.” A large impression was very soon sold.
The scrupulous feelings on matters which regarded politics, rather increased than diminished on the part of this house. The author afterwards composed a waggish sort of parody, or rather commentary, on Paine’s Rights of Man, in which many of that writer’s doctrines and positions were turned to ridicule. He offered it to the Black Letter Bookseller, who ingenuously acknowledged that such was the spirit of the times, as to compel him to decline being the publisher of any works of a political tendency.