THE SPECTATOR

40. Numb. I | The Spectator | Non fumum ex fulgore, ſed ex fumo dare lucem | Cogitat ut ſpecioſa dehinc miracula promat. Hor. | To be continued every Day. | Thurſday, March 1. 1711. [At the end] London: Printed for Sam. Buckley, at the Dolphin in Little Britain; and sold by A. Baldwin in Warwick-Lane.

The last Tatler had appeared in the previous January: the new paper like its predecessor came out in single folio sheets, but, as may be seen above, its editors considered the demand sufficient to warrant its daily publication.

The first fifteen numbers bore the imprint here given, with the additional information, after the second number, "where Advertisements are taken in." Buckley paid Addison and Steele £575, on November 10, 1712, for a half-share in the copyright of the paper and in the numbers not yet published. On October 13, 1714, he transferred this assignment to Jacob Tonson, Jr., whose name appears October 2, 1712, in place of that of Baldwin's and of "Charles Lillie, Perfumer, at the Corner of Beaufort-Buildings in the Strand," who had sold the sheet from the sixteenth number, dated March 19, 1711, until that time.

On December 6, 1712, the following notice by Steele appeared, and as it sums up briefly the main points in the Spectator's successful career, it may be regarded as a text for the succeeding notes.

"I have nothing more to add, but having ſwelled this Work to Five hundred and fifty-five Papers, they will be diſpoſed into ſeven Volumes, four of which are already publiſh'd, and the three others in the Preſs. It will not be demanded of me why I now leave off, tho' I muſt own my ſelf obliged to give an Account to the Town of my Time hereafter, ſince I retire when their Partiality to me is ſo great, that an Edition of the former Volumes of Spectators of above Nine thouſand each Book is already ſold off, and the Tax on each half Sheet has brought into the Stamp-Office one Week with another above 20 l. a Week ariſing from this ſingle Paper, notwithſtanding it at first reduced it to leſs than half the number that was uſually Printed before this Tax was laid."

Volumes 1 and 2, printed in octavo, were bound up, and, dedicated to Lord Somers and Lord Halifax, were issued in 1712; volumes 3 and 4, with dedications to Henry Boyle and the Duke of Marlborough, came out the next year; and the remaining three, with dedications to the Marquis of Wharton, Earl of Sunderland, and Sir Paul Methuen, were also published in 1713. With the help of Eustace Budgell, Addison issued a continuation of the paper in 1714, which, when it made enough numbers for a volume, was issued with a dedication to Will Honeycomb, in 1715. An edition in duodecimo was also published. A few copies on large paper sold at one guinea a volume.

There is some difference of opinion as to the exact number of copies circulated, all founded on the facts given in the Spectator itself. In No. 10, Addison says that there were already 3000 copies distributed every day. "So that if I allow Twenty Readers to every Paper, which I look upon as a modeſt Computation, I may reckon about Threeſcore thouſand Diſciples in London and Weſtminster". On July 23, 1711, he wrote: "... my Bookſeller tells me, the Demand for theſe my Papers increaſes daily," and on December 31 he repeated, "I find that the Demand for my Papers has encreaſed every Month ſince their firſt appearance in the World." On the 1st of August, 1712, St. John's Stamp Act came into force, by which a halfpenny stamp was imposed upon all newspapers and periodical sheets. This attempt to suppress free expression of opinion succeeded to some extent; many of the papers of the day ceased to exist. The Spectator continued as before, but the price was raised from one penny to twopence. "... A payment of over £20. a week for stamp duty represents a daily circulation of more than 1,600 copies, or 10,000 a week, from the 1st August to the 6th December 1712, and the daily circulation before the 1st August would therefore be, according to Steele's statement, nearly 4000."

Two hundred and seventy-four of the 635 papers are attributed to Addison, and from 236 to 240 to Steele. Addison usually signed his essays with one of the letters of the name Clio, and Steele wrote over the initials T. and R. Besides the two principal writers, Budgell, Hughes, Parnell, Pope and Tickell are thought to have contributed papers, but considerable uncertainty exists with regard to their work.

Folio.

Collation: In numbers.

DANIEL DEFOE
(1661?-1731)

The story is told of how Defoe's manuscript was refused by many of the London publishers before William Taylor, one of the most esteemed and successful of them, accepted it. The book came out April 25, and its success was immediate; a second edition was called for only seventeen days after the first; a third followed twenty-five days later, and a fourth on the 8th of August. The Farther | Adventures | Of Robinson Crusoe; | Being the Second and Laſt Part | Of His | Life ... To which is added a Map of the World ... was issued in August of the same year, and was followed on August 6, 1720, by a sequel called Serious Reflections | During | The | Life ... of Robinson Crusoe. Further evidence of the popularity of the work is furnished by the piracies, numerous imitations, and translations that appeared within a short time after its publication.

Lowndes and others repeat an error of Dibdin's in saying that Robinson Crusoe first appeared in the Original London Post, or Heathcot's Intelligence, from No. 125 to No. 289 inclusive, the latter dated October 7, 1719. The story was reprinted in that paper, "with a care to divert and entertain the reader," but beginning October 7, 1719, and ending with No. 289, dated October 19, 1720. The unsigned folding map was used in this last as well as in the fourth edition of the first part. An engraving representing the hero of the story is placed sometimes as a frontispiece. It is signed, like the map of the island, "Clark & Pine Sc.," and, while not remarkable for artistic merit, is certainly notable as having been the model of all future conceptions.

Defoe sold all his property in Robinson Crusoe to Taylor, who gained a very large fortune by it and its successors. When that worthy man died, only five years after the publication of the book, he was reputed to be worth between forty and fifty thousand pounds. He added an introduction to The Serious Reflections, in which he says:

"The ſucceſs the two former Parts have met with, has been known by the Envy it has brought upon the Editor, expreſs'd in a thouſand hard Words from the Men of Trade; the Effect of that Regret which they entertain'd at their having no Share in it: And I muſt do the Author the Justice to ſay that not a Dog has wag'd his Tongue at the Work itſelf, nor has a Word been ſaid to leſſen the Value of it, but which has been the viſible Effect of that Envy at the good Fortune of the Bookſeller."

A guarantee of this good fortune may be seen in the imprint of the book, which now reads: "At the Ship and Black-Swan in Pater-noſter Row," that last-named property having been purchased out of the proceeds of its sale. After Taylor's death, the business was sold to Thomas Longman, the founder of the firm of Longmans, Green & Co., for over three thousand pounds.

Octavo.

Collation: 3 l., pp. 364. [4 l.] pp. 373. [9 l.], pp. 270, 84 [2 l.]

JONATHAN SWIFT
(1667-1745)

"I have employed my time, (beside ditching) in finishing, correcting, amending, and transcribing my travels in four parts complete, newly augmented and intended for the press, when the world shall deserve them, or rather when a printer shall be found brave enough to venture his ears." This is what Swift says in a letter written to Pope, and thus it will be seen that there could have been no real doubt among Swift's friends as to the authorship of the book, though for very obvious reasons it was found desirable to have it published anonymously. Even after it was issued, and had proved a success, the pretense of ignorance of the author's identity was kept up. Pope himself writes, November 16, 1726 (the work appeared October 28):

"I congratulate you first on what you call your cousin's wonderful book, which is publica trita manu at present, and I prophesy will hereafter be the admiration of all men...." "Motte," (the publisher who had been brave enough to risk his ears), "received the copy, he tells me, he knew not from whence, nor from whom, dropped at his house in the dark, from a hackney coach. By computating the time I found it was after you left England, so for my part, I suspend my judgement."

Swift was staying with Pope when the manuscript was so mysteriously left at Motte's door by Charles Ford, his intermediary, through whom, and Erasmus Lewis, all the business was conducted. Writing under the assumed name of Sympson, Swift demanded that Motte should give him £200, which the publisher agreed to do after six months if the success of the book would allow. The whole issue was exhausted within a week after its appearance, and a second edition speedily followed, making the payment, which we learn was promptly effected, an easy matter. We are told that Swift used to leave the profits of his writing to the booksellers; but Gulliver proved the exception to the rule. He says, in 1735, "I never got a farthing by anything I writ, except one about eight years ago, and that was by Mr. Pope's prudent arrangement for me." Motte, like Taylor with Robinson Crusoe, grew rich out of it; or, as Swift puts it to Knightley Chetwood in a letter dated February 14, 1726-7, in which he still keeps up the mystery of the authorship, "... in Engl^d I hear it hath made a bookseller almost rich enough to be an alderman."

Of its success, Arbuthnot says, November 8, 1726: "Gulliver's Travels, I believe, will have as great a run as John Bunyan. It is in everybody's hands...." Gay wrote a few days later: "The whole impression sold in a week. From the highest to the lowest it is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery." "Here is a book come out," says Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, "that all our people of taste run mad about...."

It speaks well for Motte's sagacity that he should have been willing to undertake the publishing of so violent a book at all, and we are little surprised that he balked at certain passages, and that, to avoid offense, "he got those alterations and insertions made" which Swift afterward so bitterly resented. In the letter to Knightley Chetwood quoted above, Swift said: "In my Judgment I should think it hath been mangled in the press, for in some parts it doth not seem of a piece, but I shall hear more when I am in England." In a letter to Ford written more than six years later, we find him still recurring to the matter:

"Now you may please to remember how much I complained of Motte's suffering some friend of his (I suppose it was Mr. Tooke, a clergyman, now dead) not onely to blot out some things that he thought might give offence, but to insert a good deal contrary to the author's manner and style and intention. I think you had a Gulliver interleaved and set right in those mangled and murdered pages ... To say the truth I cannot with patience endure that mingled and mangled manner as it came from Motte's hands, and it will be extremely difficult for me to correct it by other means, with so ill a memory and so bad a state of health." Swift had good reason to complain about this matter as he did, personally and through Ford, who wrote to Motte blaming him for the printer's gross errors. "Besides the whole sting is absent out of several passages in order to soften them. Thus the style is debased, the humours quite lost, and the matter insipid," cries the enraged author. The interleaved copy was forthcoming, and the text as corrected was printed in Dublin in 1735.

The bibliography of the book is perplexing. There seem to have been four distinct issues, or, rather, editions, during the first year; while copies of the same edition show many variations. The edition to which the large paper copies belong is usually called the first. In it the four parts are paged separately, and the portrait of Gulliver, signed "Sturt et. Sheppard. Sc.," is found in two states. One of these states, evidently the first, has the inscription, "Captain Lemuel Gulliver, of Redriff Ætat. ſuæ 58.," in two lines below the oval. The other has the inscription around the oval, as follows: "Captain Lemuel Gulliver Of Redriff Ætat. Suæ LVIII.," and beneath, where the name was before, a quotation from Persius now appears.

The three other editions have distinct differences of type, setting and ornaments. The portrait in all of these is of the second state. Two of these editions have the parts paged separately, but one has a continuous pagination for each volume. One edition was reissued in 1727, with verses by Pope prefixed. On the title-page of the first volume it is called "second edition," and on that of the second volume, "second edition corrected." This edition was probably considered by the publisher to be the most correct, and was therefore, probably, the last issued in 1726.

Octavo.

Collation: Two volumes. Volume I: 1 l., xvi, 148 pp.; 3 ll., 164 pp. Volume II: 3 ll., 155 pp.; 4 ll., 199 pp. Portrait, four maps.

ALEXANDER POPE
(1688-1744)

The friend to whom, under the name of Lælius, the four Epistles that make up the Essay were addressed, was Henry Saint John, first Viscount Bolingbroke, the object of Pope's reverence, and the inspirer of much of his poetry. It seems to be agreed that Bolingbroke's philosophical fragments gave the "philosophical stamina" to this work also.

The first part appeared in February, the second, about April, 1733; they were undated and anonymous, for fear of charges against the author's orthodoxy. Pope went to considerable lengths to mislead the public in this matter, but, as Dr. Crowley says, the applause received "took off all the alarm which the writer might have felt at his new experiment in the marriage of metaphysics with immortal verse." "The design of concealing myself," said our author, "was good, and had its full effect. I was thought a divine, a philosopher and what not? and my doctrine had a sanction I could not have given to it."

In "Epistle II," as the second part is called on the title-page, there is a note "To the Reader" which says: "The Author has been induced to publiſh theſe Epiſtles ſeparately for two Reaſons; The one, that he might not impoſe upon the Publick too much at once of what he thinks incorrect; The other, that by this Method he might profit of its Judgement on the Parts, in order to make the Whole leſs unworthy of it." At the end of "Epistle III," which came out the same year, is a note as follows: "N. B. The Reſt of this Work will be publiſhed the next Winter." And at the end of the fourth Epistle, issued about the middle of January, 1734: "Lately Publiſhed the three former Parts of An Essay on Man. In Epiſtles to a Friend. Sold by J. Wilford at the Three Flower-de-Luces, behind the Chapter-Houſe in St. Paul's Church-yard."

All four parts were issued in octavo and quarto, as well as in folio. The quarto edition bears the dates of publication. A second edition of the first part, called "Epistle I, corrected by the Author," contained a table of contents to the first three Epistles. The fourth Epistle was originally issued with such a table called, "The Contents, Of the Nature and State of Man, with reſpect to Happiness."

Pope intrusted the publication of the book to John Wilford, who was afterward summoned before the House of Lords for breach of privilege in publishing, with the bookseller, Edmund Curll, the names of the titled correspondents in the advertisement to the quasi-unauthorized Letters. Pope made the change from Bernard Lintot, his usual publisher, to Wilford in order to conceal his identity the more completely, and to add to the mystery of authorship.

The volume is handsome in appearance: it is ornamented with initial letters, and woodcut and type-metal head- and tail-pieces.

Folio.

Collation: 19 pp., 1 l., 18, 20 pp., 2 ll., 18 pp., 1 l.

JOSEPH BUTLER
BISHOP OF DURHAM
(1692-1752)

The Analogy ran into edition after edition, and is reprinted even now. "Few productions of the human mind," Allibone tells us, "have elicited the labours of so many learned commentators as have employed their talents in the exposition of Butler's Analogy." He gives seventeen editions with commentaries, printed before 1858. In recent times no less a name than that of Gladstone may be counted among the number.

The Knaptons were the publishers of Butler's first printed volume, Fifteen Sermons, 1726.

Quarto

Collation: 5 ll., x, 11-320 pp.

THOMAS PERCY
BISHOP OF DROMORE
(1729-1811)

Although his name does not appear upon the title-page, the author signed it to the dedication to Elizabeth, Countess of Northumberland. He offers the book, he says, with some hesitation, yet hopes that the names of so many men of learning and character among his patrons and subscribers will "ſerve as an amulet to guard him from every unfavourable cenſure for having beſtowed any attention on a parcel of Old Ballads."

The book came out in February, after four or five years of active preparation. Johnson criticised it, but in the main the work was received with the verdict, which has held ever since, that it marked an epoch. Dibdin says that when it appeared, the critics "roared aloud for a sight of the MS.!" especially Joseph Ritson, the antiquary, who denied its existence. Dibdin, however, saw the folio, and describes it at some length, besides quoting notes in the Bishop's handwriting, one of which is of especial interest:

"Memorandum. Northumberland House, Nov. 7, 1769. This very curious old Manuscript in its present mutilated state, but unbound and sadly torn, I rescued from destruction, and begged at the hands of my worthy friend Humphrey Pitt, Esq. then living at Shiffnal in Shropshire, afterwards of Prior Lee near that town; who died very lately at Bath: viz. in Summer, 1769. I saw it lying dirty on the Floor under a Bureau in ye Parlour: being used by the Maids to light the fire. It was afterwards sent most unfortunately to an ignorant Bookbinder, who pared the margin, when I put it into Boards in order to lend it to Dr. Johnson."

James Dodsley, the printer of our charming volumes, was the younger brother of Robert, with whom, as R. & J. Dodsley, he was for some time a partner, until, in 1759, he became the sole proprietor of the house. He lacked the elder man's energy, but he carried on an extensive and profitable business. He is said to have paid Percy 100 guineas for the first edition of the Reliques—not a very large sum for such a work. Pickford tells us, however, that "as the Reliques became popular, and as other editions were in request, so did the sums paid to Percy increase; and best of all, the book attracted the notice of those in a high class, in whose power it was to forward and promote the interests of the editor." Whatever the basis of his relations with Dodsley, we have his own word for it that when the third edition was published he "had no share in the property of the impression." Those "in a high class" promoted our author from one thing to another, until, as Granger had hoped he would do, "he found himself sung into a throne," a reward quite as much to his mind, no doubt, as anything Dodsley could have arranged.

It is only fair to say that few authors of the period were better served by their publisher than Percy was by his in the matter of typography. The ornament used is also especially good. A frontispiece to the first volume, surmounted by the inscription, "Non Omnis Moriar," and representing a harper delighting an audience, is signed by Samuel Wale, who was chiefly employed in designing vignettes and illustrations for books. He had studied with Francis Hayman, a printer and maker of illustrations, who, with N. Blakey, was employed by Messrs. Knapton and Dodsley to execute the first series of historical prints designed by Englishmen. The plate was engraved by Charles Grignion, or Grignon, a pupil of Gravelot and Le Bas, who, like Wale, was much employed by publishers. Together they illustrated a large number of books; but the charm of their work seems to be chiefly due to Grignion. The vignettes, with the motto "Durat Opus Vatum" on the title-pages and the head- and tail-pieces, though unsigned, were evidently designed and engraved by the same hands.

There are three parts to each volume, and each part begins and ends with a copper-plate engraving illustrative of a ballad. The head-pieces refer to the first ballad in the book, but the tail-pieces have legends showing where the poem is found. On page 24 of the second volume, the following note is attached to the poem "For the Victory of Agincourt": "This ſong or hymn is given meerly as a curioſity, and is printed from a MS copy in the Pepys collection, vol. I. folio. It is there accompanied with the muſical notes, which are copied in a ſmall plate at the end of this volume."

A table of "Errata" for all three volumes, an "Advertisement," and a note "To the Binder" are found at the end of the first volume. The Advertisement reads: "The Editor's diſtance from the preſs has occaſioned ſome miſtakes and confuſion in the Numbers of the ſeveral Poems, and in the References from one Volume to another: the latter will be ſet right by the Table of Errata, and the former by the Tables of Contents. In the Second Volume, page 129 follows page 112: this was merely an overſight in the Printer; nothing is there omitted."

The binder finds this caution addressed to him: "The Binder is deſired to take Notice that the marginal Numbers of the 1ſt and 3^d Volumes are wrong: that the Sheets marked Vol. i. are to be bound up as Volume The Third: and that thoſe noted Vol. III. as Volume The First." Neither author nor printer thought to tell us of the addition of "George Barnwell" in eight leaves, at page 224 of Volume III; but perhaps the inclusion was decided upon too late for the crowding in of another note.

The notes are interesting, and are quoted here as showing that Percy made many changes in the work even after it was ready to be sewed, perhaps after some copies had been issued. For instance, there seems to be no reason to doubt that he changed the order of the volumes after they were all printed, making the first last, in order to bring the ballads of "Chevy Chase" and the Robin Hood cycle at the beginning. Two volumes of the Reliques without imprints, preserved in the Douce collection of the Bodleian Library, are interesting in this connection since they contain many pieces not in the published edition. A note by Furnivall, added to Rev. J. Pickford's Life of Percy which prefaced the Hales and Furnivall Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript, 1867, gives the omission and changes in detail. We quote only the following: "... and the engraving at the end of Douce's volume ii., instead of being the published rustic sketch, is a coat of arms, with a lion and unicorn at the side with the Percy motto 'Esperance en Dieu.' This was wisely cancelled, no doubt, as the Countess of Northumberland might not then have appreciated the compliment of the grocer's son claiming kinship with her."

Octavo.

Collation: Three volumes.

WILLIAM COLLINS
(1721-1759)

Collins and his friend Joseph Warton, the critic, both at the time unknown, proposed to issue a volume of poems together: "Collins met me in Surrey, at Guildford races, when I wrote out for him my odes, and he likewise communicated some of his to me; and being both in very high spirits, we took courage, and resolved to join our forces, and to publish them immediately." The plan, however, fell through and they finally published separately, though almost simultaneously. This work, though dated 1747, really appeared in December, 1746. Warton's Odes on various Subjects, London, 1746, reached a second edition, but Collins's book was not a success, and it is said that, in disgust, he burned the larger part of the unsold edition.

"Each," wrote Gray, "is the half of a considerable man, and one the counterpart of the other. The first [i.e. Warton] has but little invention, very poetical choice of expression, and a good ear. The second [i.e. Collins] a fine fancy, modelled upon the antique, a bad ear, great variety of words, and images with no choice at all. They both deserve to last some years, but will not." Time has set Collins right.

The vignette on the title-page, representing a pan-pipe and harp surrounded by a wreath of fruit, laurel, oak, and palm, with heads of Pan and Apollo at the top, is by Gerard (?) Van der Gucht. Thin woodcut head-bands at the beginning of some of the odes, and a tail-piece after the first one, furnish all the ornament for this pathetic volume.

Octavo.

Collation: 2 ll., 52 pp.

SAMUEL RICHARDSON
(1689-1761)

Pamela was written at the suggestion of two booksellers, Rivington and Osborne, who published it in four volumes in 1741-42; and as it proved a great success its "Editor" followed it with Clarissa. Only the last five volumes appeared in 1748, the first two having come out the previous year.

In connection with the mistaken idea, which has existed, that there were eight volumes in the first edition, Mr. Dobson, in his life of Richardson, gives us these quotations from the author himself:

"There were in fact, in the first edition, not eight volumes but seven. "I take the liberty to join the 4 Vols. you have of Clarissa, by two more," says Richardson to Hill in an unpublished letter of November 7, 1748. "The Whole will make Seven; that is, one more to attend these two. Eight crowded into Seven by a smaller Type. Ashamed as I am of the Prolixity, I thought I owed the Public Eight Vols. in Quantity for the Price of Seven"; and he adds a later footnote to explain that the 12mo book "was at first published in Seven Vols. [and] Afterwards by deferred Restorations made Eight as now."" Then Mr. Dobson goes on to add the following:

"Of the seven volumes constituting the first edition, two were issued in November, 1747; two more in April, 1748 (making "the 4 Vols. you have," above referred to); and the remaining three, which, according to Mr. Urban's advertisement, "compleats the whole," in December, 1748."

The second and succeeding volumes have the line, And Sold by John Osborn, in Pater-noſter-Row, added to the imprint, after Richardson's name.

Bishop Warburton presented the author with a preface in which he pointed out the variety of the characters in the book, and commended the moral tendency of the work. This, by the way, serves to remind us that he afterward quarrelled with Richardson because the novelist ventured to censure Pope's sentiment, "Every woman is at heart a rake."

In a catalogue like this, no name has more interest than that of Samuel Richardson, "The Father of the English Novel," and a printer and publisher of distinction. At the age of seventeen he chose the profession of printer, because he thought that in it he would be able to satisfy his craving for reading. After a diligent apprenticeship to John Wilde, whose daughter was his first wife, he gradually won his way until he became one of the leading printers of his time. He issued twenty-six volumes of Journals of the House of Commons, though he found the position more honorable than lucrative; he was the printer of the Daily Journal from 1736 to 1737, and of the Daily Gazetteer in 1738; he was chosen printer to an interesting Society for the Encouragement of Learning, for whom he printed and edited their first and only volume, The Negociations of Sir Thomas Roe in his Embassy to the Ottoman Porte from the year 1621 to 1628 inclusive. He also printed, among other books, an edition of Æsop's Fables, De Foe's Tour through Great Britain, Young's Night Thoughts, and the second volume of De Thou's Historia Sui Temporis, 1733. He became a member of the Stationers' Company in 1689, and its master in 1754.

Duodecimo.

Collation: Seven volumes.

HENRY FIELDING
(1707-1754)

The announcement of the appearance of the work in the General Advertizer for February 28, 1749, reads as follows:

"This day is published, in six vols., 12mo, The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling.—Mores hominum multorum vidit. By Henry Fielding Esq.

"It being impossible to get sets bound fast enough to answer the demand for them, such Gentlemen and Ladies as please may have them served in Blue Paper and Boards, at the price of 16s. a set, of A. Millar, over against Catharine Street, in the Strand."

The sale was really enormous for those days, and Millar, the successful publisher, could afford to be generous to Fielding, as he had been to others, thus winning for himself the position of a patron as well as publisher. Johnson called him "the Mæcenas of literature." "I respect Millar, sir;" said he, "he has raised the price of literature."

Horace Walpole gives us an account of the dealing of this remarkable man in this case. He says, in a letter to George Montagu: "Millar, the bookseller, has done very generously by him [Fielding]; finding 'Tom Jones' for which he gave him £600. sell so greatly, he has since given him another £100."

A second edition in four volumes was issued the same year, and a third, also in four volumes, the year following. The book has been translated into French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, and Swedish. It was frequently dramatized, and was also turned into a comic opera.

An original document in the possession of the owner of the book from which the facsimile was made shows that the value of Tom Jones had not decreased with successive editions, or else the various partners, whose well-known names are signed to it, would not have thought it worth their while to prosecute.

"Memorandum July, 24. 1770.

"At the Chapter Coffee-house, it is agreed by the Partners in Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones, to prosecute Alexander Donaldson, Bookseller in the Strand, for printing the above Books, in the Court of Chancery, and do agree to pay our respective Shares of the Expence of the Proscecution.

Will: Strahan
Tho^s. Longman
W. Johnston
Robert Horsfield
Tho: Cadell
T Becket
Robinſon & Roberts
Hawes, Clarke & Collins
Stanley Crowdon
Edm^d. & Ch^s Dilly
Wm. & J. Richardſon
Tho^s. Lowndes
Thomas Caslon"

Duodecimo.

Collation: Six volumes.

THOMAS GRAY
(1716-1771)

In 1750 Gray finished a poem which he had begun eight years before, and it was circulated freely, in manuscript, among his delighted friends. One of them, Horace Walpole, received the following communication from the author, dated at Cambridge, February 11, 1751:

"As you have brought me into a little sort of distress, you must assist me, I believe, to get out of it as well as I can.

"Yesterday I had the misfortune of receiving a letter from certain gentlemen (as their bookseller expresses it), who have taken the Magazine of Magazines into their hands. They tell me that an ingenious Poem, called reflections in a Country Church-yard has been communicated to them, which they are printing forthwith; that they are informed that the excellent author of it is I by name, and that they beg not only his indulgence, but the honour of his correspondence. As I am not at all disposed to be either so indulgent or so correspondent as they desire, I have but one bad way left to escape the honour they would inflict upon me; and therefore am obliged to desire you would make Dodsley print it immediately (which may be done in less than a week's time) from your copy, but without my name, in what form is most convenient for him, but on his best paper and character; he must correct the press himself, and print it without any interval between the stanzas, because the sense is in some places continued beyond them; and the title must be,—Elegy, written in a Country Church-yard. If he would add a line or two to say it came into his hands by accident, I should like it better. If you behold the Magazine of Magazines in the light that I do, you will not refuse to give yourself this trouble on my account, which you have taken of your own accord before now. If Dodsley do not do this immediately, he may as well let it alone."

"You have indeed, conducted with great decency my little misfortune:" (this was written to Walpole on Ash-Wednesday, after the book was published): "you have taken a paternal care of it, and expressed much more kindness than could have been expressed from so near a relation. But we are all frail; and I hope to do as much for you another time.

"Nurse Dodsley has given it a pinch or two in the cradle, that (I doubt) it will bear the marks of as long as it lives. But no matter: we have ourselves suffered under her hands before now; and besides it will only look the more careless and by accident as it were. I thank you for your advertisement [the preface, signed 'The Editor'], which saves my honour, and in a manner bien flatteuse pour moi, who should be put to it even to make myself a compliment in good English."

Dodsley's promptness was noteworthy; on February 16 the book was issued, having been six days, at most, in the printer's hands. The author, even if he had desired, could hardly have complained about the ornaments on the title-page, since he had given Dodsley a free hand. It would be pleasant to see in the woodcuts, with their death's-heads, spades, cross-bones, hour-glasses, pickaxes and crowns, an argument for a sense of decoration, or even of a sense of humour, rather than the evidences of a habit of the use of such things for funeral sermons.

Speaking of Nurse Dodsley's "pinches," the following extract from a letter to Walpole, dated March 3, 1751, proves of additional interest: "I do not expect any more editions; as I have appeared in more magazines than one. The chief errata were sacred bower for secret; hidden for kindred (in spite of dukes and classics); and "frowning as in scorn" for smiling. I humbly propose, for the benefit of Mr. Dodsley and his matrons, that take awake for a verb, that they should read asleep, and all will be right."

The two versions of the poem probably appeared on the same day.

The Magazine of Magazines Compiled from Original Pieces, With Extracts from the moſt celebrated Books And Periodical Compoſitions Publiſhed in Europe, was issued by William Owen, maker of mineral water, at Homer's Head, near Temple Bar. Owen's compositor, having had more time, avoided some of the errors of the printers of the book, but he fell into others of his own; and he completely frustrated Gray's desire to be anonymous. The poem is introduced, amidst a running fire of talk, in this way: "Gentlemen, ſaid Hilario, give me leave to ſooth my own melancholy, and amuſe you in a moſt noble manner, with a fine copy of verſes by the very ingenious Mr. Gray, of Peterhouſe, Cambridge.—They are—"Stanza's written in a Country Church-yard.""

The book proved immensely popular. Gray himself received no pecuniary reward from it, having given the copyright to Dodsley in accordance with a notion, very common in the preceding century but seeming quixotic now, that it was beneath a gentleman to receive money from a bookseller, a view in which, we are told, Dodsley warmly concurred. Later, Mason, Gray's friend, attempted to regain possession of the copyright by means of litigation.

We are indebted to our Author for the following bibliographical note: "Publish'd in Feb^ry, 1751, by Dodsley, & went thro' four editions, in two months; and afterwards a fifth, 6th, 7th, & 8th, 9th, & 10th, & 11th; printed also in 1753 with Mr. Bentley's Designs, of w^ch there is a 2d Edition, & again by Dodsley in his Miscellany, Vol. 7th & in a Scotch Collection call'd the Union; translated into Latin by Ch^r Anstey, Esq., and the Rev^d. Mr. Roberts, & published in 1762, & again in the same year by Rob. Lloyd, M.A."

Dodsley figures so prominently in the publication of the Elegy that we are reminded that he was himself a poet and also a dramatist. His epitaph in the churchyard of Durham cathedral lays stress on this point:

"If you have any respect

for uncommon industry and merit,

regard this place,

in which are deposited the remains of

Mr. Robert Dodsley;

who, as an Authour, raised himself

much above what could have been expected

from one in his rank in life,

and without a learned education;

. . .. . . . . .. . ."

Quarto.

Collation: 11 pp.

SAMUEL JOHNSON
(1709-1784)

Robert Dodsley first suggested to Johnson that a dictionary of the English language would take well with the public; though Johnson afterward told Boswell that he had long thought of it himself. But it was Dodsley who, in accordance with the custom of the time of placing books under the patronage of an influential person, suggested the Earl of Chesterfield as patron for the work; and Johnson addressed him as such in The Plan Of A Dictionary Of The English Language; Addreſſed to the Right Honourable Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield: ... London, 1747, a pamphlet of thirty-four pages.

This step eventually led to the letter called by Carlyle "the far famed blast of doom proclaiming into the ears of Lord Chesterfield, and through him to the listening world, that patronage should be no more." For the Earl was tardy in acknowledging the inscription (his commendatory letters did not appear until the November and December issues of The World, 1754), and did little to encourage the enterprise; "Upon which," said the irritated author, "I wrote him a letter expressed in civil terms, but such as might show him that I did not mind what he said or wrote, and I had done with him." It was dated February 7, 1755, and ends with the famous words: "Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern upon a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help?"

Johnson undertook his great work single-handed, expecting to finish it in three years; but the labor was enormous, and eight years were consumed (the work appeared on February 20, 1755), though not all of the time was spent upon the Dictionary, for he was editor of The Rambler, also, at this period. In this connection his own words written at the end of the Preface are: "I have protracted my work till moſt of thoſe whom I wiſhed to pleaſe have ſunk into the grave, and ſucceſs and miſcarriage are empty ſounds: I therefore diſmiſs it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from cenſure or from praiſe."

The A.M. after the author's name was procured for him at Oxford through the good offices of his friend, the poet-laureate, Thomas Warton, since it "was thought desirable that these letters should appear on the title-page of the dictionary for the credit both of himself and the university."

The publishers whose names are given in the imprint were joint proprietors of the work, having paid Johnson 1575l. for the copyright. "The payment included the whole work of preparing for the press; and Johnson lost 20l. on one occasion for a transcription of some leaves which had been written on both sides. He employed six amanuenses, five of whom, as Boswell is glad to record, were Scotsmen ... they received 23s. a week, which he agreed to raise to 2l. 2s., not, it is to be hoped, out of the 1,575l." Boswell would lead us to think that even if these extras did come out of Johnson's pocket, he was not dissatisfied. "I once said to him, "I am sorry, sir, you did not get more for your Dictionary." His answer was "I am sorry too. But it was very well. The booksellers are generous liberal-minded men.""

To Andrew Millar fell the responsibility of seeing the book through the press; and his patience, we are told, was sorely tried by Johnson's dilatoriness. When the last sheet was brought to him, he exclaimed: "Thank God I have done with him!" This was repeated to Johnson, who said, with a smile: "I am glad that he thanks God for anything."

Folio.

Collation: Two volumes. Without pagination.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
(1706-1790)

Franklin says in his Autobiography:

"In 1732 I first publish'd my Almanack, under the name of Richard Saunders; it was continu'd by me about twenty-five years, commonly call'd Poor Richard's Almanac. I endeavor'd to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in such demand, that I reap'd considerable profit from it, vending annually near ten thousand...." The price was five pence. So great was its popularity that it was found necessary to issue three editions in the first month. In 1747 we are told in a note, "This Almanack us'd to contain but 24 Pages, and now has 36; yet the Price is very little advanc'd," and to fit the new conditions the title was changed to Poor Richard Improved.

The Almanac, whose title-page is here facsimiled, was the last of the series edited by Franklin. A collection of the proverbial sentences which had "filled all the little spaces that occur'd between the remarkable days in the calendar" in former issues, were collected into one speech, supposed to be delivered by an old man, named Father Abraham, to the people at an auction sale. "The bringing all these scatter'd counsells thus into a focus enabled them to make a greater impression." The discourse was quickly reprinted, and is famous now under various titles, The Speech of Father Abraham; The Way to Wealth, and La science du bonhomme Richard. It has been translated and reprinted oftener "than any other work from an American pen." "Seventy editions of it," says Mr. Paul L. Ford, "have been printed in English, fifty-six in French, eleven in German, and nine in Italian. It has been translated into Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Welsh, Polish, Gaelic, Russian, Bohemian, Dutch, Catalan, Chinese, Modern Greek and Phonetic writing. It has been printed at least four hundred times, and is to-day as popular as ever."

Franklin borrowed for his pseudonym the name of an English "philomath" of the seventeenth century, because, as he says, he knew "that his name would hardly give it [the Almanack] currency among readers who still looked upon it as dealing in magic, witchcraft and astrology."

In 1747 or 1748 our author-printer entered into partnership with David Hall, who took the sole management of the business until 1766, when the firm was dissolved.

Octavo.

Collation: 36 pp.

SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE
(1723-1780)

The story of the publication of Blackstone's lectures, as Professor of Law at Oxford, reminds us of Bacon's "orchard ill-neighbored." The author relates the circumstances in his preface: "For the truth is, that the preſent publication is as much the effect of neceſſity, as it is of choice. The notes which were taken by his hearers, haue by ſome of them (too partial to his favour) been thought worth reuiſing and tranſcribing, and theſe tranſcripts haue been frequently lent to others. Hence copies haue been multiplied, in their nature imperfect, if not erroneous; ſome of which haue fallen into mercenary hands, and become the object of clandeſtine ſale. Having therefore ſo much reaſon to apprehend a ſurreptitious impreſſion, he choſe rather to ſubmit his own errors to the world, than to ſeem anſwerable for thoſe of other men."

The volumes were not all issued at once, but followed one another at different times during a period of four years. They were printed at the Clarendon Press, which Blackstone, when appointed a delegate in 1755, had "found languishing in a lazy obscurity," and whose quickening was in no small measure due to his "repeated conferences with the most eminent masters, in London and other places, with regard to the mechanical part of printing," his recommendations, and to his own examples of good typography supplied in the Magna Charta, published in 1759, and in this his magnum opus.

The wonderful success of the work is attested by the number of its editions. A second was issued in 1768, and six more appeared before the author's death. From then until now, it has been frequently reprinted. Blackstone is reputed to have received from the sale of the Commentaries, and from his lectures, about £14,000.

Quarto.

Collation: Four volumes.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH
(1728—1774)

Boswell, Mrs. Piozzi, Sir John Hawkins and others have given slightly different versions of the well-known story of the sale of the manuscript of the Vicar; but aside from throwing light on the character of Goldsmith, none of them have helped us to a definite understanding of the transaction. The earliest account was written by Mrs. Piozzi in 1786, under the title of Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D., during the last Twenty Years of his Life. At pp. 119-120 she says:

"I have forgotten the year, but it could scarcely I think be later than 1765 or 1766, that he [Johnson] was called abruptly from our house after dinner, and returning in about three hours, ſaid, he had been with an enraged author, whose landlady pressed him for payment within doors, while the bailiffs beset him without; that he was drinking himself drunk with Madeira to drown care, and fretting over a novel which when finished was to be his whole fortune; but he could not get it done for distraction, nor could he step out of doors to offer it to sale. Mr. Johnson therefore set away the bottle, and went to the bookseller, recommending the performance, and desiring some immediate relief, which when he brought back to the writer, he called the woman of the house directly to partake of punch, and pass the time in merriment."

Boswell adds, in his account, that Johnson sold the novel for £60. There seems to be no evidence to prove this, nor yet to show who bought it. It has generally been supposed that the publisher, "F. Newbery," or his uncle, John Newbery, with whom he was inseparably connected, was the purchaser, until Mr. Charles Welsh made the discovery which he relates in his A Bookseller of the Last Century. He says:

"In a book marked 'Account of copies, their cost and value, 1764,' I find the following entry:—"'Vicar of Wakefield,' 2 vols. 12mo., ⅓ rd. B. Collins, Salisbury, bought of Dr. Goldsmith, the author, October 28, 1762, £21.""

From this entry of Collins, the Salisbury printer, we may conclude that the amount Johnson is said to have received for the distressed author (from Newbery, perhaps) was an advance on the unfinished story; and that Collins bought his third interest some time afterward. In 1785, when Collins sold out his interest, Mr. Strahan owned one third, and Carnan and Newbery the other third.

There are several circumstances, besides the date given by Collins, which show that the Vicar was sold, in whole or in part, at least four years before it was published, and not a few months before, as Mrs. Piozzi thought. The occasion for the delay has been explained in various ways. One explanation is that it was held back until the Traveller, which came out in 1765, should have increased the author's reputation. It may have been, as Johnson told Boswell, that the publishers were afraid that the book would not sell. Certainly the results would seem to bear them out in any doubts they may have had of its financial success. Mr. Welsh says:

"All the writers who have spoken of the "Vicar of Wakefield" have jumped to the conclusion that it brought a golden harvest to its publishers ... The first three editions ... resulted in a loss, and the fourth, which was not issued until eight years after the first, started with a balance against it of £2 16s. 6d., and it was not until the fourth edition had been sold that the balance came out on the right side."

After being three months in the press, the book appeared March 27, 1766. The advertisement in the Public Advertiser reads: "This Day is publiſhed, In two Volumes in Twelves, Price 6s. bound, or 5s. ſewed, The Vicar of Wakefield, A Tale. Supposed to be written by Himself. 'Seperate [ſic] miſere cavete fœlices.' Printed for F. Newbery, at the Crown in Pater-Noſter Row, of whom may be had, Price 1s. 6d. The Traveller, or, a Proſpect of Society, a Poem. By Dr. Goldsmith." The author's name was signed to the preface, or "Advertisement" of the book, so it was not really anonymous, as the title-page and newspaper advertisement would lead us to think. If it was not a financial success the tale seems to have met with popular favor. The second edition, bearing the imprint London: Printed for F. Newbery, in Pater-Noster-Row, MDCCLXVI., was issued May 31, and the third on August 29. Ninety-six editions were issued before 1886, and there are translations in every European language.

This Francis Newbery, as we have said, was nephew and successor to John Newbery. The elder man combined a successful business in the publishing of books with the sale of quack medicines,—not an unusual thing in those days. His list of nostrums contained over thirty medicines, among them being Dr. James's Fever Powder, Dr. Steer's Oil for Convulsions, Dr. Harper's Female Pills, and a certain Cordial Cephalic Snuff. His book-selling ventures demand more than passing mention, since he really introduced "the regular system of a Juvenile Library, and gave children books in a more permanent form than the popular chap-books of the period,"—delightful books of which more than one writer has spoken with affection. The general character of the stories, splendidly bound in flowered and gilt Dutch papers, may be gathered from a few of their titles: The History of Little Goody Two Shoes, The Renowned History of Giles Gingerbread, and Blossoms of Morality.

Newbery's publishing ventures were not confined to children's books, by any means; his name gains additional luster by appearing on the title-pages of several of Goldsmith's works. Francis was mostly a reflection of his enterprising uncle, but his connection with the Vicar of Wakefield will ever cause him to be remembered.

Duodecimo.

Collation: Two volumes. Volume I: 2 ll., 214 pp. Volume II: 1 l., 223 pp.

LAURENCE STERNE
(1713—1768)

The real journey immortalized in the story was made in October, 1765; in December, 1767, two volumes were completed, and on February 27, the work was published at five shillings for the two volumes. On the eighteenth of March, Sterne died.

Yorick, in Tristram Shandy, was represented as an Englishman, descended from the Yorick of Shakespeare, "a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy." Sterne also used the pseudonym in his Sermons by Mr. Yorick, published in 1760, so that the authorship of this book was probably never in doubt. "The lively, witty, sensitive and heedless parson," was, as Sir Walter Scott says, "the well-known personification of Sterne himself."

Fitzgerald tells us in his biography of Sterne, that it was the author's first thought to have the volume a stately quarto with handsome margins, costing a half-guinea, but that he finally decided to use the Shandy size, which had become a favorite with the public. The book, which is without ornament, except for an engraving on copper of a coat of arms (Sterne's book-plate), in the second volume, is a good specimen of the best typography of the period. Large paper copies also were issued. The first volume begins with a long list of "Subscribers," the names starred being down for "Imperial Paper."

Thomas Becket lived to be ninety-three years old, long enough, as Charles Knight remarks, to see many revolutions in literary taste; long enough, in fact, to see Sterne, his most successful author, go out of fashion. He was an assistant to Andrew Millar, before he became De Hondt's partner. It was he who published the famous anonymous book, The Pursuits of Literature by Mathias, which had the distinction of running into fourteen editions.

Duodecimo.

Collation: Two volumes. Volume I, xx, 203 pp. Volume II, 2 ll., 208 pp.

THE SPECTATOR

DANIEL DEFOE(1661?-1731)

JONATHAN SWIFT(1667-1745)

ALEXANDER POPE(1688-1744)

JOSEPH BUTLERBISHOP OF DURHAM(1692-1752)

THOMAS PERCYBISHOP OF DROMORE(1729-1811)

WILLIAM COLLINS(1721-1759)

SAMUEL RICHARDSON(1689-1761)

HENRY FIELDING(1707-1754)

THOMAS GRAY(1716-1771)

SAMUEL JOHNSON(1709-1784)

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN(1706-1790)

SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE(1723-1780)

OLIVER GOLDSMITH(1728—1774)

LAURENCE STERNE(1713—1768)

DANIEL DEFOE
(1661?-1731)

JONATHAN SWIFT
(1667-1745)

ALEXANDER POPE
(1688-1744)

JOSEPH BUTLER
BISHOP OF DURHAM
(1692-1752)

THOMAS PERCY
BISHOP OF DROMORE
(1729-1811)

WILLIAM COLLINS
(1721-1759)

SAMUEL RICHARDSON
(1689-1761)

HENRY FIELDING
(1707-1754)

THOMAS GRAY
(1716-1771)

SAMUEL JOHNSON
(1709-1784)

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
(1706-1790)

SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE
(1723-1780)

OLIVER GOLDSMITH
(1728—1774)

LAURENCE STERNE
(1713—1768)