One of the most celebrated booksellers of this neighbourhood during the last half of the eighteenth century was Tom Davies, who sported his rubric posts[237:A] in Russell Street, Covent Garden, and who was driven from his position as actor in Garrick's company by Churchill's killing satire:
'He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.'
In spite of satirists, the verdict of his contemporaries is ratified, so to speak, in voting Tom Davies a good fellow. Dr. John Campbell described him as 'not a bookseller, but a gentleman dealing in books'; and the Rev. P. Stockdale described him as 'the most gentleman-like person of that trade whom I ever knew.' Dr. Johnson said he was 'learned enough for a clergyman,' which was an equivocal compliment, for the clergymen of the period were not, as a rule, learned. Davies was generally talkative, but at times quite the reverse, and sometimes uttered pious ejaculations. Between 1764 and 1776 Davies sold a number of interesting and valuable libraries—those, for example, of William Shenstone and William Oldys. Davies, like many other contemporary booksellers, was fond of scribbling, and was the author of 'Memoirs of Garrick,' and other books.
Probably the most famous bookseller of the Strand is Thomas Payne, who for over half a century (1740-1794) was selling books in this locality. 'Honest Tom Payne' started business in or about 1740, for in February of that year he issued a catalogue of 'curious books in divinity, history, classics, medicine, voyages, natural history,' etc., from the 'Round Court,[237:B] in the Strand, opposite York Buildings.' About ten years later (January, 1750) he had removed to the Mews Gate to a shop shaped like the letter L, which became one of the most famous literary resorts of the period. Just before leaving Round Court, Tom Payne issued a sort of clearance catalogue, comprising 10,000 volumes, 'which will be sold very cheap.' The Mews Gate was near St. Martin's Church, and probably close to the bottom of the new thoroughfare, Charing Cross Road. It was at this shop that all the book-collectors of the day most congregated, for it was to Tom Payne's that the majority of libraries were consigned—e.g., those of Ralph Thoresby, Sir John Barnard, Francis Grose, Rev. S. Whisson, and many others whose names are now nothing but names, but who were at the time well-known collectors. Tom Payne's customers included all the bibliophiles of the period. 'Must I,' asks Mathias in the 'Pursuits of Literature'—
'Must I, as a wit with learned air,
Like Doctor Dewlap, to Tom Payne's repair,
Meet Cyril Jackson and mild Cracherode,
'Mid literary gods myself a god?
There make folks wonder at th' extent of genius
In the Greek Aldus or the Dutch Frobenius,