Queen Anne, by patent in 1713, constituted Benjamin Tooke, of Fleet Street, and John Barber (afterwards Alderman Barber), Queen's printers for thirty years. This Barber, a high Tory and suspected Jacobite, was Swift's printer and warm friend. A remarkable story is told of Barber's dexterity in his profession. Being threatened with a prosecution by the House of Lords, for an offensive paragraph in a pamphlet which he had printed, and being warned of his danger by Lord Bolingbroke, he called in all the copies from the publishers, cancelled the leaf which contained the obnoxious passage, and returned them to the booksellers with a new paragraph supplied by Lord Bolingbroke; so that when the pamphlet was produced before the House, and the passage referred to, it was found unexceptionable. He added greatly to his wealth by the South Sea Scheme, which he had prudence enough to secure in time, and purchased an estate at East Sheen with part of his gain. In principles he was a Jacobite; and in his travels to Italy, whither he went for the recovery of his health, he was introduced to the Pretender, which exposed him to some danger on his return to England; for, immediately on his arrival, he was taken into custody by a King's messenger, but was released without punishment. After his success in the South Sea Scheme, he was elected Alderman of Castle Baynard Ward, 1722; sheriff, 1730; and, in 1732-3, Lord Mayor of London.
John Baskett subsequently purchased both shares of the patent, but his printing-offices in Blackfriars (now Printing House Square) were soon afterwards destroyed by fire. In 1739 George II. granted a fresh patent to Baskett for sixty years, with the privilege of supplying Parliament with stationery. Half this lease Baskett sold to Charles Eyre, who eventually appointed William Strahan his printer. Strahan soon after brought in Mr. Eyre, and in 1770 erected extensive premises in Printer Street, New Street Square, between Gough Square and Fetter Lane, near the present offices of Mr. Spottiswoode, one of whose family married Mr. Strahan's daughter. Strahan died a year after his old friend, Dr. Johnson, at his house in New Street, leaving £1,000 to the Stationers' Company, which his son Andrew augmented with £2,000 more. This son died in 1831, aged eighty-three.
William Strahan, the son of a Scotch Customhouse officer, had come up to London a poor printers' boy, and worked his way to wealth and social distinction. He was associated with Cadell in the purchase of copyrights, on the death of Cadell's partner and former master, Andrew Millar, who died circa 1768. The names of Strahan and Cadell appeared on the title-pages of the great works of Gibbon, Robertson, Adam Smith, and Blackstone. In 1776 Hume wrote to Strahan, "There will be no books of reputation now to be printed in London, but through your hands and Mr. Cadell's." Gibbon's history was a vast success. The first edition of 1,000 went off in a few days. This produced £490, of which Gibbon received £326 13s. 4d. The great history was finished in 1788, by the publication of the fourth quarto volume. It appeared on the author's fifty-first birthday, and the double festival was celebrated by a dinner at Mr. Cadell's, when complimentary verses from that wretched poet, Hayley, made the great man with the button-hole mouth blush or feign to blush. That was a proud day for Gibbon, and a proud day for Messrs. Cadell and Strahan.
The first Strahan, Johnson's friend, was M.P. for Malmesbury and Wootton Bassett (1775-84), and his taking to a carriage was the subject of a recorded conversation between Boswell and Johnson, who gloried in his friend's success. It was Strahan who, with Johnston and Dodsley, purchased, in 1759, for £100, the first edition of Johnson's "Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia," that sententious story, which Johnson wrote in a week, to defray the expenses of his mother's funeral.
Boswell has recorded several conversations between Dr. Johnson and Strahan. Strahan, at the doctor's return from the Hebrides, asked him, with a firm tone of voice, what he thought of his country. "That it is a very vile country, to be sure, sir," returned for answer Dr. Johnson. "Well, sir," replied the other, somewhat mortified, "God made it." "Certainly he did," answered Dr. Johnson again; "but we must always remember that he made it for Scotchmen, and—comparisons are odious, Mr. Strahan—but God made hell."
Boswell has also a pretty anecdote relating to one of the doctor's visits to Strahan's printing-office, which shows the "Great Bear" in a very amiable light, and the scene altogether is not unworthy of the artist's pencil.
"Mr. Strahan," says Boswell, "had taken a poor boy from the country as an apprentice, upon Johnson's recommendation. Johnson having inquired after him, said, 'Mr. Strahan, let me have five guineas on account, and I'll give this boy one. Nay, if a man recommends a boy, and does nothing for him, it is a sad work. Call him down.' I followed him into the courtyard, behind Mr. Strahan's house, and there I had a proof of what I heard him profess—that he talked alike to all. 'Some people will tell you that they let themselves down to the capacity of their hearers. I never do that. I speak uniformly in as intelligible a manner as I can.' 'Well, my boy, how do you go on?' 'Pretty well, sir; but they are afraid I'm not strong enough for some parts of the business.' Johnson: 'Why, I shall be sorry for it; for when you consider with how little mental power and corporal labour a printer can get a guinea a week, it is a very desirable occupation for you. Do you hear? Take all the pains you can; and if this does not do, we must think of some other way of life for you. There's a guinea.' Here was one of the many instances of his active benevolence. At the same time the slow and sonorous solemnity with which, while he bent himself down, he addressed a little thick, short-legged boy, contrasted with the boy's awkwardness and awe, could not but excite some ludicrous emotions."
In Ireland Yard, on the west side of St. Andrew's Hill, and in the parish of St. Anne, Blackfriars, stood the house which Shakespeare bought, in the year 1612, and which he bequeathed by will to his daughter, Susanna Hall. In the deed of conveyance to the poet, the house is described as "abutting upon a street leading down to Puddle Wharf, and now or late in the tenure or occupation of one William Ireland" (hence, we suppose, Ireland Yard), "part of which said tenement is erected over a great gate leading to a capital messuage, which some time was in the tenure of William Blackwell, Esq., deceased, and since that in the tenure or occupation of the Right Honourable Henry, now Earl of Northumberland." The original deed of conveyance is shown in the City of London Library, at Guildhall, under a handsome glass case.
The street leading down to Puddle Wharf is called St. Andrew's Hill, from the Church of St. Andrew's-in-the-Wardrobe. The proper name (says Cunningham) is Puddle Dock Hill.