Under his management the old traditions were kept up—more copyrights of standard books were purchased, the country trade extended, and more than this the business relations of the house were very vastly increased in the American colonies. One of Osborn’s earliest books, by-the-way, had been entered at Stationers’ Hall in 1712 as Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs of the Old and New Testament. For the edification and comfort of the Saints in Public and Private, more especially in New England. The nephew probably followed up the colonial trade of his uncle and master, for at the first commencement of hostilities in that country he had a very large sum engaged in that particular business, and, to the honour of the succeeding colonists, several of his correspondents behaved very handsomely in liquidating their debts in full, even subsequent to amicable arrangements and to the peace of 1783.
As in the case of the founder of the house, the folio Cyclopædia, still the only one in the field, occupied the chief attention of the firm. Already in 1746 it had reached a fifth edition; “and whilst,” adds Alexander Chalmers, “a sixth edition was in question the proprietors thought that the work might admit of a supplement in two additional folio volumes. This supplement, which was published in the joint names of Mr. Scott and Dr. Hill, though containing a number of valuable articles, was far from being uniformly conspicuous for its exact judgment and due selection, a small part of it only being executed by Mr. Scott, Dr. Hill’s task having been discharged with his usual rapidity.” There the matter stood for some years, when the proprietors determined to convert the whole into one work. Several editions were tried and found wanting, and finally Dr. John Calder, the friend of Dr. Percy, was engaged, but provisionally only, for the duty. He drew up an elaborate programme, containing no less than twenty-six propositions. The agreement, as it illustrates, in some degree, the relative positions of authors and publishers, may be quoted. Dr. Calder agreed to prepare a new edition of Chambers’s Cyclopædia to be completed in two years. He received £50 as a retaining fee upon signing the agreement, and £50 a quarter until the work was finally out of the printer’s hands. In spite of this retaining fee the proprietors appear to have been smitten with fear, perhaps dreading a repetition of Dr. Hill’s inaccuracies, and sent round a specimen sheet to the eminent literati of the day, asking their opinions upon the matter and the style. All the verdicts were unfavourable, one contemptuous critic complaining that the author had twice referred favourably to the Encyclopædia Britannica, “a Scots rival publication in little esteem.” Dr. Johnson cut away a large portion of his sheet as worthless; but, at poor Calder’s request, who began to be perplexedly alarmed by all these adverse reviews, explained this superfluity as arising simply from trôp de zèle. “I consider the residuum which I lopped away, not as the consequence of negligence or inability, but as the result of superfluous business, naturally exerted in the first article. He that does too much soon learns to do less.” Then apologizing for Calder’s turbulence and impatience, the kindly doctor prays “that he may stand where he stood before, and be permitted to proceed with the work with which he is engaged. Do not refuse this request, sir, to your most humble servant, Samuel Johnson.” Again and again the doctor interposed his influence, but in vain, and Abraham Rees, a young professor in a dissenting college near town, was engaged, and a new issue of the Cyclopædia (still Chambers’s), in weekly parts, was commenced in 1778, running on till 1786, attaining a circulation of four or five thousand, then a large one, for each number; and Longman, as chief proprietor, must have profited exceedingly by the work.
In the books of the Stationers’ Company we find repeated entry of Longman as publisher or shareholder in such miscellaneous works as Gil Blas, Humphrey Clinker, and Rasselas; and, true to the old traditions of the firm, educational works were by no means neglected. Among others we note a record of Cocker’s Arithmetic, since proverbially and bibliographically famous.
Cocker was an unruly master of St. Paul’s School, twice deposed for his extreme opinions, but twice restored for his marvellous talents of teaching. “He was the first to reduce arithmetic to a purely mechanical art.” The first edition, however, was published only after his death by his friend “John Hawkins, writing master”—a copy sold by Puttick and Simpson, in 1851, realized £8 10s. The fifty-second edition was published in 1748, and the last reprint, though at that time the work was in Longman’s hands, bears “Glasgow, 1777,” on the title-page.
“Ingenious Cocker now to rest thou’rt gone,
No art can show thee fully, but thy own,
Thy rare arithmetic alone can show
The vast sums of thanks we for thy labour owe.”
In those days the publishers clave together in a manner undreamt of in these latter times of keener competition. Nichols, in speaking of James Robson (a Bond-street bookseller), and a literary club of booksellers, observes that Mr. Longman, with the late Alderman Cadell, James Dodsley, Lockyer, Davies, Peter Elmsley, Honest Tom Payne of the Mew’s Gate, and Thomas Evans of the Strand, were all members of this society. They met first at the “Devil’s Tavern,” Temple-bar, then moved to the “Grecian,” and finally from a weekly gathering, became a monthly meeting at the “Shakspeare.” Here was originated the germ of many a valuable production. Under their auspices Davies (in whose shop Boswell first met Johnson) produced his only valuable work, the Life of Garrick. Poor Davies had been an actor till Churchill’s satire drove him off the stage—
“He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.”
From this he fled to the refuge of a bookselling shop in Russell-street, Covent-garden. He is described variously as “not a bookseller, but a gentleman dealing in books,” and as “learned enough for a clergyman.” Here he strived indifferently well till we come upon his epitaph—
“Here lies the author, actor Thomas Davies,
Living he shone a very rara avis;
The scenes he played life’s audience must commend—
He honour’d Garrick, Johnson was his friend.”
At this club meeting, too, Johnson’s Lives of the Poets were first resolved on, and by the club clique the work was ultimately produced.