It is not easy to a passenger sauntering or hurrying down the Strand at this day, admiring the facade of Somerset House, glancing into the windows of rich shops, elbowing his way through an eager and bustling crowd, and having his ears stunned by the thundering rumble of cabs, busses, and wagons, to fancy it once a sandy and marshy road, and the footpath very disagreeable to the feet, and interfered with by bushes and thickets. Three water-courses from the northern fields found their way across it to the river, and these were spanned by three bridges. The building of Westminster Abbey encouraged the erection of the first houses along the River-side-way, but the bad state of the road made a subject for a petition so late as the reign of Edward II.
PUBLISHING IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
Of the coffee-houses in the neighborhood of the Strand and Fleet street frequented by the witty and the learned from the restoration to the close of last century, we shall gladly speak if our limits permit. Meanwhile, being on a literary subject, we must not omit to mention that the father of [{840}] Mudie's and all other circulating libraries in London, was established at 132 Strand, in 1740, by a bookseller named Bathoe.
Had there been such establishments in Pepys' time, they would have saved him some money and some trouble. Witness his disappointment about "Hudibras:"
"26th of September, 1662. To the Wardrobe. Hither come Mr. Battersby, and we falling into discourse of a new book of drollery in use, called 'Hudibras,' I would needs go find it out, and met with it at the Temple; cost me 2s. 6d. But when I come to read it, it is so silly an abuse of the presbyter-knight going to the wars, that I am ashamed at it, and meeting at Mr. Townsend's at dinner, I sold it him for 18d." (The new book of drollery continuing to be the rage), "February 6th, 1663. To a bookseller's in the Strand, and there bought 'Hudibras' again. I am resolved once more to read him, and see whether I can find him an example of wit or no." (Success very doubtful.) "28th November. To Paul's Church-yard, and there looked upon the second part of 'Hudibras,' which I buy not, but borrow to read." (He bought it a few days after, however.) "The world hath mightily cried up this book, though it hath not a good liking in me, though I had tried but (by?) two or three times reading to bring myself to think it witty."
We find him a few days after these researches purchasing "Fuller's Worthies," the "Cabbala, or Collection of Letters of State," "Les Delices de Holland," and "Hudibras" again, "now in great fashion for drollery, though I cannot, I confess, see enough where the wit lies."
Pepys' great acquaintances seem to have discovered this sore spot in his mental configuration, and to have angered it oftentimes by quoting "Hudibras" at him, and chuckling over the fun, which, alas, was the reverse of fun to him.
It was long after the introduction of printing into the country that bookseller's shops became an institution. At and before the time of the great fire, St. Paul's Church-yard was the chief bookselling mart. On the 31st November, 1660, Pepys bought a copy of the play of Henry IV. in that place, "and so went to the new theatre, and saw it acted, but my expectation being too great, it did not please me as otherwise I believe it would, and my having a book did, I believe, spoil it a little."
Poor Pepys! A leaf out of the scandalous chronicle of the court would have interested him more than all the wit and wisdom of Shakespeare. He tells us in his diary how his wife and he laughed a whole evening over a pamphlet written about the queen.
The fire destroyed thousands of fine works in the Church-yard; and so much was the value of books increased, that Ricaut's "Turkey," 8s. before the fire, could not be got under 55s. after it.