History of Civilization in England, Vol. 1 of 3

by Henry Thomas Buckle

[765] In 1746, Gent, the well-known printer, wrote his own life. In this curious work, he states, that in 1714 there were ‘few printers in England, except London, at that time; none then, I am sure, at Chester, Liverpool, Whitehaven, Preston, Manchester, Kendal, and Leeds, as for the most part now abound.’ Life of Thomas Gent, pp. 20, 21. (Compare a list of country printing-houses, in 1724, in Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. i. p. 289.) How this state of things was remedied, is a most important inquiry for the historian; but in this note I can only give a few illustrations of the condition of different districts. The first printing-office in Rochester was established by Fisher, who died in 1786 (Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. iii. p. 675); the first in Whitby, was in 1770 (Illustrations, vol. iii. p. 787); and Richard Greene, who died in 1793, ‘was the first who brought a printing-press to Lichfield’ (Ibid. vol. vi. p. 320). In the reign of Anne, there was not a single bookseller in Birmingham (Southey's Commonplace Book, 1st series, 1849, p. 568); but, in 1749, we find a printer established there (Hull's Letters, Lond. 1778, vol. i. p. 92); and, in 1774, there was a printer even in Falkirk (Parl. Hist. vol. xvii. p. 1099). In other parts the movement was slower; and we are told that, about 1780, ‘there was scarcely a bookseller in Cornwall.’ Life of Samuel Drew, by his Son, 1834, pp. 40, 41.

[766] Desaguliers and Hill were the two first writers who gave themselves up to popularizing physical truths. At the beginning of the reign of George I. Desaguliers was ‘the first who read lectures in London on experimental philosophy.’ Southey's Commonplace Book, 3d series, 1850, p. 77. See also Penny Cyclopædia, vol. viii. p. 430; and, on his elementary works, compare Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. vi. p. 81. As to Hill, he is said to have set the example of publishing popular scientific works in numbers; a plan so well suited to that inquisitive age, that, if we believe Horace Walpole, he ‘earned fifteen guineas a week.’ Letter to Henry Zouch, January 3rd, 1761, in Walpole's Letters, vol. iv. p. 117, edit. 1840.

In the latter half of the eighteenth century, the demand for books on the natural sciences rapidly increased (see, among many other instances which might be quoted, a note in Pulteney's Hist. of Botany, vol. ii. p. 180); and, early in the reign of George III., Priestley began to write popularly on physical subjects. (Memoirs of Priestley, vol. i. pp. 288, 289.) Goldsmith did something in the same direction (Prior's Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. pp. 414, 469, vol. ii. p. 198); and Pennant, whose earliest work appeared in 1766, was ‘the first who treated the natural history of Britain in a popular and interesting style.’ Swainson on the Study of Natural History, p. 50. In the reign of George II., publishers began to encourage elementary works on chemistry. Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. ix. p. 763.

[767] In 1704, 1708, and 1710, Harris published his Dictionary of Arts and Sciences; and from this, according to Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. ix. pp. 770, 771, has ‘originated all the other dictionaries and cyclopædias that have since appeared.’ Compare vol. v. p. 659; and Bogue and Bennett's Hist. of the Dissenters, vol. iv. p. 500.

[768] Late in the seventeenth century, an attempt was first made in England to establish literary journals. Hallam's Lit. of Europe, vol. iii. p. 539; and Dibdin's Bibliomania, 1842, p. 16. But reviews, as we now understand the word, meaning a critical publication, were unknown before the accession of George II.; but, about the middle of his reign, they began to increase. Compare Wright's England under the House of Hanover, 1848, vol. i. p. 304, with Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. iii. pp. 507, 508. At an earlier period, the functions of reviews were performed, as Monk says, by pamphlets. Monk's Life of Bentley, vol. i. p. 112.

[769] As we find from many casual notices of book clubs and book societies. See, for example, Doddridge's Correspond. vol. ii. pp. 57, 119; Jesse's Life of Selwyn, vol. ii. p. 23; Nichols's Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century, vol. v. pp. 184, 824, 825; Wakefield's Life of Himself, vol. i. p. 528; Memoirs of Sir J. E. Smith, vol. i. p. 8; Life of Roscoe, by his Son, vol. i. p. 228 (though this last was perhaps a circulating library).

[770] ‘Numerous associations or clubs, composed principally of reading men of the lower ranks.’ Life of Dr. Currie, by his Son, vol. i. p. 175.

[771] Of which the most remarkable was that called the Robin-Hood Society; respecting which the reader should compare Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, vol. vi. p. 373; Grosley's London, vol. i. p. 150; Parl. Hist. vol. xvii. p. 301; Southey's Commonplace Book, 4th series, p. 339; Forster's Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. p. 310; Prior's Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. pp. 419, 420; Prior's Life of Burke, p. 75; Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. iii. p. 154.

[772] ‘From the summer of 1769 is to be dated the first establishment of public meetings in England.’ Albemarle's Mem. of Rockingham, vol. ii. p. 93. ‘Public meetings, … through which the people might declare their newly-acquired consciousness of power, … cannot be distinctly traced higher than the year 1769; but they were now (i.e. in 1770) of daily occurrence.’ Cooke's Hist. of Party, vol. iii. p. 187. See also Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. ii. p. 420.

[773] The most interesting trials were first noticed in newspapers towards the end of the reign of George II. Campbell's Chancellors, vol. v. p. 52, vol. vi. p. 54.