imperfect civilisation—reading during the civil wars—reading after the restoration—french romances—first london catalogue, 1680—authors and booksellers—subscription books—books in numbers—the canvassing system.

in a condition of society which may be characterised as that of a very imperfect civilisation—when communication is difficult, and in some cases impossible; when the influence of the capital upon the provinces is very partial and uncertain; when knowledge is for the most part confined to the learned professions—we must regard the rich upper classes precisely in the same relation to popular literature as we now regard the poor lower classes. we must view them as essentially uncritical and unrefined, swallowing the coarsest intellectual food with greediness, looking chiefly to excitement and amusement in books, and not very willingly elevating themselves to mental improvement as a great duty. when ben jonson speaks of the "prerogative the vulgar have to lose their judgments, and like that which is naught"—when he derides the taste of "the beast the multitude"—he also takes care to tell us that his description of those who "think rude things greater than polished," not only applied to "the sordid multitude, but to the neater sort of our gallants: for all are the multitude; only they differ in clothes, not in judgment {198} or understanding."[19] about the time when jonson wrote thus—more calmly than when he denounced "the loathed stage, and the more loathsome age"—burton was exhibiting the intellectual condition of the gentry in his 'anatomy of melancholy:'—"i am not ignorant how barbarously and basely for the most part our ruder gentry esteem of libraries and books; how they neglect and contemn so great a treasure, so inestimable a benefit, as ?sop's cock did the jewel he found in the dunghill; and all through error, ignorance, and want of education." again, he says, "if they read a book at any time, 'tis an english chronicle, st. huon of bordeaux, amadis de gaul, &c., a play-book, or some pamphlet of news; and that at such seasons only when they cannot stir abroad." the "pamphlet of news" was a prodigious ingredient in the queer cauldron of popular literature for the next half-century. every one has heard of the thirty thousand tracts in the british museum, forming two thousand volumes, all published between 1640 and 1660. the impression of many of these was probably very small; for rushworth, to whom they became authorities, tells us that king charles i. gave ten pounds for the liberty to read one at the owner's house in st. paul's churchyard. this was the twenty years' work of milton's "pens and heads, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas." others were, "as fast reading, trying all things." milton asks, {199} "what could a man require more from a nation so pliant and so prone to seek after knowledge?" he truly answers: "wise and faithful labourers, to make a knowing people, a nation of prophets, sages, and worthies."[20] the "wise and faithful labourers" were scarcely to be found in the civil and ecclesiastical violence of these partisan writers. but they were the pioneers of constitutional liberty; and till that fabric was built up, literature, properly so called, would offer few things great or enduring. the demand for books in that stormy period was, doubtless, very limited. the belief that the ειχ?γ βασιλιχ? was written by charles i. would naturally account for the sale of fifty editions in one year. but from 1623 to 1664 only two editions of shakspere were sold; and when the restoration came, an act of parliament was passed that only twenty printers should practise their art in the kingdom. the fact, as recorded by evelyn, that at the fire of london, in 1666, the booksellers who carried on their business in the neighbourhood of st. paul's lost as many books, in quires, as were worth 200,000l., is rather a proof of a slow demand than of the enormous extent of bookselling. in the vaults of saint faith's were rotting many a copy of what the world has agreed to call "heavy" books; books in advance of their time; books that no price would have made largely saleable—the books for the few.

the terrible quarter of a century that had preceded {200} the restoration, and the new tastes which the return of the stuarts brought to england, would seem to have swept away even the remembrances of the popular literature of elizabeth and james. edward phillips, the nephew of milton, has a remarkable passage with reference to the poets: "as for the antiquated and fallen into obscurity from their former credit and reputation, they are for the most part those who have written beyond the verge of the present age; for let us look back as far as about thirty or forty years, and we shall find a profound silence of the poets beyond that time, except of some few dramatics, of whose real worth the interest of the now flourishing stage cannot but be sensible."[21] this was written in 1674. what had the people to read who had forgotten spenser, and daniel, and drayton; and herbert—who knew little of shakspere, except in the translations of davenant and dryden; and who, unquestionably, had small relish for the popular prose of another age, such as bacon's 'essays'? they had rhyming tragedies; they had obscene comedies; they had their sedleys and rochesters. it is not wonderful that the popular taste soon grew corrupted. pepys says (1666), "to deptford by water, reading othello, moor of venice, which i ever heretofore esteemed a mighty good play; but having so lately read the adventures of five hours, it seems a mean thing." their "light reading" was a marvel—that romance literature {201} which at one time was as popular in its degree as the shilling novel of our own day. we have before us mr. samuel speed's catalogue of books, printed for him in 1670. the first is 'pharamond, the famed romance, written by the author of those other two eminent volumes cassandra and cleopatra.' these famed and eminent volumes are large folios, translated from the french of m. de la calprenede. if calprenede was the dumas, madeleine scudery was the eugene sue of those days. no popularity that these moderns have obtained by their feuilletons could have exceeded the excitement produced here, as well as in france, by the wonderful folios of their predecessors. 'artamenes' and 'clelia,' to say nothing of 'almahide' and 'the illustrious bassa,' were in every mansion of the ladies of quality. the matron and her daughters sate at their embroidery while the companion read aloud, night after night, a page or two of these interminable adventures, in which greeks and romans talked the language of the grand monarque; and the intrigues of the court, and the characters of its personages, were mysteriously shadowed forth in what were called "portraits." what signified that they were stupid? they were as level to the comprehension of their high-born readers as the penny novels of the present day are to the intelligence of the factory-girl. they had a long popularity, and were reprinted again and again, in their eight or ten volumes, when the age of duodecimos had arrived. they had been fashionable, {202} and that was enough. character they had none, and very little of human passions. they were constructed upon the admirable recipe of molière in the 'précieuses ridicules'—a lover without feeling; a mistress without preference; mutual insensibility; sedulous attention to forms; a declaration in a garden; the banishment of the lover by the coquetting fair; perseverance; timid confessions; rivals; persecutions of fathers; jealousies conceived under false appearances; laments; despairs; abductions; and all that. mammas thought they were wisely instructing their daughters, when they permitted mademoiselle scudery to teach them "des règles dont, en bonne galanterie, on ne saurait se dispenser." in vain molière, and boileau, and scarron laughed at the great heroic romances. they held their own till le sage in france, and defoe and fielding in england, spoke the language of real life. they show us how long the great and little vulgar will feed upon husks, till some real fruit is offered to them. but it is remarkable how, in the same age, works of real genius and works of intense dulness will run side by side. it may be a question how far 'don quixote' drove out the romances of chivalry. 'tartufe,' and 'le malade imaginaire' were of the same era as that of the wonderful productions in which cyrus was talking galanterie to mandane through a thousand folio pages. when pepys thought 'othello' a mean thing compared with 'the adventures of five hours' he also bought {203} "hudibras, both parts, the book now in greatest fashion for drollery;" but he tells us his honest mind when he says, "i cannot, i confess, see enough where the wit lies." voltaire had a different standard of taste when he wrote, "i never met with so much wit in one single book as in this." the politics of 'hudibras' made it "in greatest fashion;" the wit shot over the heads of the idle, dissipated, slavish, and corrupt courtiers who gave it their patronage, but eventually left its author to starve. butler became popular in another generation; and so did milton. the first edition of 'paradise lost' sufficed for a circulation of seven years.

the earliest catalogue of books published in this country contains a list of "all the books printed in england since the dreadful fire, 1666, to the end of trinity term, 1680." the statistical results of this catalogue of the productions of the press for fourteen years have been ascertained by us. the whole number of books printed was 3550; of which 947 were divinity, 420 law, and 153 physic; 397 were school-books, and 253 on subjects of geography and navigation, including maps. about one-half of these books were single sermons and tracts. deducting the reprints, pamphlets, single sermons, and maps, we have estimated that, upon an average, 100 new books were produced in each year.

about the time when this catalogue was published, john dunton, one of the most eccentric, {204} and perhaps therefore amusing, of the publishing race, went into business with half a shop. he can tell us something of the manufacture of some of these books of the london catalogue. he says, "printing was now uppermost in my thoughts; and hackney authors began to ply me with specimens as earnestly, and with as much passion and concern, as the watermen do passengers with oars and scullers." he adds, "as for their honesty, 'tis very remarkable. they'll either persuade you to go upon another man's copy, to steal his thought, or to abridge his books which should, have got him bread for his lifetime."[22] there were varieties of this class:—"mr. bradshaw was the best accomplished hackney author i have met with; his genius was quite above the common size, and his style was incomparably fine." dunton had a suspicion that bradshaw wrote 'the turkish spy,' which might justify somewhat of his eulogium. roger north says that "the demi-booksellers," who deal in "the fresh scum of the press," are such as "crack their brains to find out selling subjects, and keep hirelings in garrets, at hard meat, to write and correct by the great; and so puff up an octavo to a sufficient thickness, and there is six shillings current for an hour and a half's reading, and perhaps never to be read or looked upon after." the people get these wares cheaper now. the publishers of that day, and long afterwards, were not very nice as to the uniform excellence of the books {205} they issued. dunton informs us that mr. william rogers, who was the publisher of sherlock and tillotson, was concerned in publishing "some dying speeches." they had books for all tastes, and carried their goods to many markets. they were equally at home in cheapside or at sturbridge fair; and the great bernard lintot exhibited his "rubric posts" in his shop, and kept a booth on the thames when it was frozen over. some, according to dunton, were "pirates and cormorants;" others, who had "the intimate acquaintance of several excellent pens, could never want copies." some were good at "projection"—the devisers of "selling subjects;" and the talent of some "lies at collection," which dunton exemplifies by mr. crouch, who "melted down the best of our english histories into twelvepenny books, which are filled with wonders, rarities, and curiosities." one, who "printed the flying post, did often fill it with stolen copies;" whilst jacob tonson, who paid dryden like a safe tradesman as he was, and made him presents of melons and sherry, is very indignant that the great poet charged him fifty guineas for fourteen hundred and forty-six lines, when he expected to have had fifteen hundred and eighteen lines for forty guineas. peace to their manes! they were all doing something towards the supply of that great want which was beginning to assert itself somewhat extensively in their day. they were, for the most part, rugged dealers in wares intellectual. they had many modes of turning a {206} penny beyond the profits which they derived, as publishers, from "the great genius" or "the eminent hand," which each patronised. they had some difficulties in their way as manufacturers; although the more cautious and lucky did make fortunes. the more limited the public, the more uncertain the demand. they were pretty safe with their tracts, and their abridgments, and their new comedies; but when they had to deal with works of learning, which were necessarily costly, they and their authors—for the authors had often to sustain the charges of printing—encountered serious losses. we shall see how, as the commerce of books extended, new measures were adopted to lessen, if not to remove, the risk.

amongst the 'calamities of authors' there are many touching records of

"solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty,"

produced by printing books that met with no ready sale. purchas was ruined by his 'pilgrimes;' castell by his 'lexicon heptaglotton;' ockley by his 'history of the saracens;' rushworth by his 'historical collections.' bishop kennett gave away his 'register and chronicle,' saying, "the volume, too large, brings me no profit." the remedy was to be found in publishing by subscription. this plan, like most other human things, was subject to abuse; but it was founded upon a true estimate of the peculiar risks of publishing. it is manifest that, if a certain number of persons unite in agreement {207} to purchase a book which is about to be printed, the author may be at ease with regard to the issue of the enterprise, and the subscribers ought to receive what they want at a lower cost than when risk enters into price. for more than half a century nearly all the great books were published by subscription; and the highest in literature felt no degradation in canvassing themselves with their "subscription receipts." it is easy to perceive, by the subscription prices, when the work was set on foot by an author, or his friends, simply as a more convenient mode of obtaining or bestowing money than begging or borrowing; and when there was a real market value given for the commodity offered. the scheme of levying contributions upon subscribers was as old as the days of taylor, the water poet. he published his 'pennilesse pilgrimage' in this fashion; and it seems that he sometimes gave his books to those who were unwilling to return his honorarium. he consoles himself by a lampoon against his false subscribers:—

"they took a book worth twelvepence, and were bound

to give a crown, an angel, or a pound;

a noble, piece, or half-piece, what they list,—

they past their words, or freely set their fist."

honest john had sixteen hundred and fifty such subscribers; but of these, seven hundred and fifty were "bad debtors."[23] in the next century, myles davies has the same story to tell of the degradation of the literary begging-letter writer. he leaves his {208} books at the great man's door; he writes letter upon letter, "with fresh odes upon his graceship, and an account where i lived, and what noblemen had accepted of my present." he walks before the "parlour-window," and "advances to address his grace to remember the poor author." at last his parcel of books is returned to him unopened, "with half-a-guinea upon top of the cargo," and "with desire to receive no more." heaven, in its mercy, has relieved the tribe from these heartbreaking disgraces. there may be "the fear that kills," but there is no longer the patron who starves. goldsmith has described the devices and the abasement of the little man in the coffee-house, who "drew out a bundle of proposals, begging me to subscribe to a new edition he was going to give the world of propertius, with notes." his plans were more ingenious and diversified than those of myles davies: "i first besiege their hearts with flattery, and then pour in my proposals at the breach. if they subscribe readily the first time, i renew my request to beg a dedication fee. if they let me have that, i smite them once more for engraving their coat-of-arms at the top." forty years after myles davies, samuel johnson was enduring the anxieties attendant upon the subscription plan, although friends stood between the author and the customer. he writes to burney in 1758, "i have likewise enclosed twelve receipts (for shakspere); not that i mean to impose upon you the trouble of pushing them with more importunity than may seem proper," &c. {209} long was the subscribed shakspeare delayed; and the proud struggling man had to bear churchill's malignity, as well as the reproaches of his own sense of honour:—

"he for subscribers baits his hook,

and takes your cash; but where's the book?"

well might johnson write, in more prosperous times, "he that asks subscription soon finds that he has enemies. all who do not encourage him, defame him." johnson and his publishers set no price upon their books, as a gratuity to the author, beyond their common market value. but great men had gone before them, who regulated their subscription prices by a higher estimate of the value of their works. steele had received a guinea an octavo volume for the republication of 'the tatler;' pope had six guineas for his six quarto volumes of 'the iliad;'—"a sum," says johnson, "according to the value of money at that time, by no means inconsiderable." the subscription to pope's 'shakspeare' was also six guineas for six volumes. johnson's projected translation of paul sarpi's 'history of the council of trent' was only to be charged twopence a sheet. that seems to have been the ordinary price of subscription books during the first half of the eighteenth century. du halde's 'china,' which appears to have required a great deal of what "the trade" call "pushing," was advertised by cave at three halfpence a sheet; besides the attraction of a complicated lottery-scheme, with marvellous prizes. when the subscribers to a new book {210} were served, the remaining copies were sold, generally at superior rates. sometimes, in the case of high-priced works, the unsold copies lay quiet through the mildew of a quarter of a century in the bookseller's warehouse. at tonson's sale, in 1767, pope's six-guinea shakspeare had fallen to sixteen shillings for the hundred and forty copies then sold as a "remainder."[24] many of the subscription books were remarkably profitable. the gains of pope upon his 'iliad' are minutely recorded in his life by johnson. lintot paid the expense of the subscription copies, and gave the poet two hundred pounds a volume in addition. lintot looked for his remuneration to an edition in folio. the project was knocked on the head by a reprint in holland, in duodecimo; which edition was clandestinely imported, as in the recent days of french editions of byron and scott. lintot took a wise course. he went at once to the general public with editions in duodecimo, at half-a-crown a volume, of which he very soon sold seven thousand five hundred copies. but it may well be doubted if pope would have made five thousand three hundred pounds, if he had originally gone, without the quarto subscription process, to the buyers of duodecimos. perhaps even the duodecimos would not have sold extensively without the reputation of the quartos. there was no great reading public to make a fortune for the poet out of small profits upon large sales. some {211} may think that pope would have been as illustrious without the ease which this fortune gave him. it may be so. but of one thing we are clear—that in every age the higher rewards of authorship, reaped by one eminent individual, are benefits to the great body of authors; and thus that the villa at twickenham had a certain influence in making what the world called "grub-street" less despicable and more thriving. it dissociated authorship from garrets. yet it is marvellous, even now, how some of the race of attorneys and stockbrokers turn up their eyes when they hear of a successful writer keeping a brougham, and lament, over their claret, that such men will be improvident.

in those days of subscription books there were great contrasts of success and loss; of steady support and capricious neglect. conyers middleton made a little fortune by his 'life of cicero,' in two volumes quarto, published in 1741. his suspected heterodoxy was no bar to his success. carte, in 1747, printed three thousand copies of the first volume of his 'general history of england,' for which he had adequate support. in that unlucky volume his jacobitism peeped out, in a relation of an astonishing cure for the king's-evil, produced by the touch of the first pretender, who, he says, "had not at that time been crowned or anointed." away went the "remainder" of the three thousand volumes to the trunk-maker, and of the subsequent volumes only seven hundred and fifty were printed. whether by subscription, or by the mode of fixing {212} a published price for a general sale,—which, in the second half of the century, was superseding the attempt to ascertain the number of purchasers before publication,—there was always a great amount of caprice, or prejudice, in the unripe public judgment of a book, which rendered its fate very hazardous and uncertain. hume, in 1754, published the first volume of his 'history of england.' he says, "mr. millar told me that in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five copies of it." gibbon published the first volume of his 'decline and fall of the roman empire' in 1776: "i am at a loss," he modestly tells us, "how to describe the success of the work without betraying the vanity of the writer. the first impression was exhausted in a few days; a second and third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand; and the bookseller's property was twice invaded by the pirates of dublin." thomson's 'seasons' was lying as waste paper in the publisher's shop, when one mr. whatley purchased a copy; and his authority in the coffee-houses brought it into notice. collins was not so fortunate. his 'odes' would not sell. he repaid the bookseller the price he had received for the copyright, settled for the printing, and burnt the greater part of the impression.

we have put together some of these scattered facts, to show how difficult was the publication of books before a great general public had been raised up to read and purchase, and how the risk {213} of expensive works was sought to be lessened by taking hostages against evil fortune. the subdivision of large books into weekly or monthly numbers was one of the expedients that was early resorted to for attracting purchasers. some curious relations of the first days of number-publishing are given in a rare pamphlet by the rev. thomas stackhouse, the author of the well-known 'history of the bible.' in 1732 two booksellers, mr. wilford and mr. edlin, "when the success of some certain things published weekly set every little bookseller's wits to work," proposed to this poor curate of finchley "to write something which might be published weekly, but what it was they knew not." at the castle tavern, in paternoster row, the trio deliberated upon the "something" that was to have a run. edlin was for a "roman history, brushing up ozell's dull style, when the old thing would still do in a weekly manner." wilford was for 'family directors.' stackhouse proposed the 'new history of the bible.' wilford backed out; edlin and stackhouse quarrelled. the divine wanted many works of commentators and critics. the bookseller maintained "that the chief of his subscribers lived in southwark, wapping, and ratcliff highway; that they had no notion of critics and commentators; that the work would be adapted to their capacity, and therefore the less learning in it the better." stackhouse got out of the hands of this encourager of letters, found another publisher, and prospered, as well as {214} he could, upon the subscriptions to his "four sheets of original matter for sixpence."[25] many of the number-books were published under fictitious names of authors; and some actual authors, clerical and lay, lent their names to works of which they never saw a line. one of the most accomplished of the number-book writers was dr. robert sanders, a self-created ll.d. he produced histories of england, in folio and quarto, under various names. he was the writer of the notes to the edition of the bible, published in 1773, under the honoured name of dr. henry southwell. the ingenious note-writer has told the story without reservation:—"as i was not a clergyman, my name could not be prefixed to it. application was made to several clergymen for the use of their names; and at last henry southwell, ll.d., granted his." in a year or two the indefatigable sanders was ready with a scheme for a larger commentary. he found a doctor who would lend his name for a hundred pounds; but such a sum was out of the question. a mere a.m. was purchased for twenty pounds; but the affair broke down. the commentator relates that he was told by the proprietors "they had no further occasion for my services, and even denied me my week's wages." we hope the laborious sanders was less scurvily treated by the publishers of that immortal work of his, which has been the glory of the number-trade even up to this hour, namely, 'the newgate calendar, or {215} malefactor's bloody register.' how many fortunes have been made out of this great storehouse of popular knowledge is of little consequence to society. it may be of importance to consider how many imps of fame have here studied the path to glory. sanders had a rival—the rev. mr. villette, ordinary of newgate—who published the 'annals of newgate, or malefactor's register,' &c., "intended as a beacon to warn the rising generation against the temptations, the allurements, and the dangers of bad company." in this title-page "the celebrated john sheppard," and "the equally celebrated margaret caroline rudd," are leading attractions. the author of the 'annals,' no doubt, prospered better than he of the 'calendar.'

poor wretched sanders, during the period when he was correcting lord lyttleton's 'history of henry ii.,' had "a weekly subsistence;" but in 1768 he writes, "during these six weeks i have not tasted one whole meal of victuals at a time."[26] the original race of number-publishers had no very exalted notion of the value of literary labour. their successors had no will to bestow any payment upon literature at all, while they had the old stores to produce and reproduce. they have now been forced into some few attempts at originality. but the employment of new authorship is a rare exception to their ordinary course. when the necessity does arise, there is always perturbation of mind. in a moment of despair, when his press was standing {216} still for some of that manuscript which, in an unlucky hour, he had bargained for with a living writer, one of this fraternity exclaimed, "give me dead authors, they never keep you waiting for copy!" many good books have, however, been produced by the early number-publishers. we may mention chambers' 'cyclop?dia,' smollett's 'history of england,' and scott's 'bible.' some well-printed books are still being produced, but the compilers help themselves freely to what others have dearly paid for. taken as a whole, they are the least improved, and certainly they are the dearest books, in the whole range of popular literature. the system upon which they are sold is essentially that of forcing a sale; and the necessary cost of this forcing, called "canvassing," is sought to be saved in the quantity of the article "canvassed," or in the less obvious degradation of its quality. the "canvasser" is an universal genius, and he must be paid as men of genius ought to be paid. he has to force off the commonest of wares by the most ingenious of devices. it is not the intrinsic merit of a book that is to command a sale, but the exterior accomplishments of the salesman. he adapts himself to every condition of person with whom he is thrown into contact. as in birmingham and other great towns there is a beggars' register, which describes the susceptibilities of the families at whose gates beggars call, even to the particular theological opinions of the occupants, so the canvasser has a {217} pretty accurate account of the households within his beat. he knows where there is the customer in the kitchen, and the customer in the parlour. he sometimes has a timid colloquy with the cook in the passage; sometimes takes a glass of ale in the servants' hall; and, when he can rely upon the charms of his address, sends his card boldly into the drawing-room. no refusal can prevent him in the end leaving his number for inspection. the system is most rife in north and midland england; it is not so common in the agricultural south, although it might be an instrument of diffusing sound knowledge amongst a scattered population. if an effort were honestly made to publish works really cheap, because intrinsically good, upon "the canvassing system," that system, which has many real advantages, might be redeemed from the disgrace which now too often attaches to it, in the hands of the quacks who are most flourishing in that line.

the number-trade was a necessary offshoot of that periodical literature which sprang up into importance at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and which, in all its ramifications, has had a more powerful influence than that of all other literature upon the intelligence of the great body of the people.