ship, toiled for seven more years as a journeyman, is, in 1754, Master of the Stationers' Company. As the shy lad did not like play, the nervous man shrinks from turtle. His correspondent, Mr. Edwards, author of Canons of Criticism,' writes:-"The Company cannot have a better Master, excepting for one part of the duty, and that is the feasting part: and I cannot but figure to myself the miserable example you will set at the head of their loaded tables, unless you have two stout jaw-workers for your wardens, and a good hungry Court of Assistants."

Although Richardson, as a printer and bookseller, was at this period carrying on his business on a large scale to justify his promotion to this distinction amongst his brethren, I catch glimpses of the internal economy of the printing-office in Salisbury Square, to show me how really trifling were his operations compared with the grand arrangements of our modern era, when a daily newspaper contains almost as many types as a volume of Sir Charles Grandison;' when a Parliamentary Report of one thousand pages can be set up and printed off in a week; and when a fashionable publisher thinks it slow work if a new edition of his last sensation novel cannot be produced in a day. The Rev. Philip Skelton, an Irish clergyman, of eccentric manners but of great benevolence, was one of Richardson's employers. On the 17th of March, the candid printer writes to him, "By the beginning of May you expect

*Correspondence,' vol. iii. p. 97.

copies of perfect books. Upwards of sixty close sheets to be done in so few weeks. Dear sir, what an expectation!" The impatient author replies, “I care not how my work looks; expedition and correctness are all I desire." His complaints of delay fret the busy printer. "What did I not do to serve you to the utmost of my power? I parted with three pieces of work; I put out to several printers the new edition of my 'Grandison;' took in help to the first edition of the seventh volume; I refused Dr. Leland's last piece. But yet with all this, let me tell you, my dear friend, that two such large volumes as yours could not possibly be finished so soon as you expected, from the time they came into my hands, by any one printer." *

At this period Richardson was moved to come before the public with a statement of his own grievances. On September 14, 1753, he issued, 'The Case of Samuel Richardson, of London, Printer, on the invasion of his Property in the History of Sir Charles Grandison,' before publication, by certain Booksellers in Dublin." It appears from Richardson's statement that he had intended to send the volumes of his last novel, as he did those of 'Clarissa Harlowe,' to be printed in Ireland, before he published them himself in London. But he was anticipated. The sheets were stolen from his warehouse, and three Irish booksellers each published cheap editions of nearly half the book before a volume

*Correspondence,' vol. v. p. 238.

appeared in England. He had heard an Irish bookseller boast some years before, that he could procure, from any printing-office in London, sheets of any books printed in it, and while it was going on. Richardson concludes his circumstantial narrative with this remark: "At present the English writers may be said, from the attempts and practices of the Irish booksellers and printers, to live in an age of liberty, but not of property." This occurrence excited naturally the indignant denunciation of the English press. The Gray's Inn Journal,' in relating the case of Mr. Richardson, observed that "a greater degree of probity might be expected from booksellers on account of their occupation in life, and connections with the learned. What, then, should be said of Messrs. Exshaw, Wilson, and Saunders, booksellers in Dublin, and perpetrators of this vile act of piracy? They should all be expelled from the Republic of Letters as literary Goths and Vandals, who are ready to invade the property of every man of genius. Had the Sosii, who were booksellers in Rome, been guilty of such sordid dealings, I am persuaded they would have been mentioned with infamy by Horace; and it is recent in everybody's memory that Curl underwent many severe corrections for conduct of the same nature."

His second

Samuel Richardson died in 1761, at the age of seventy-two. He was twice married. wife survived him about a year. His will singular example of the ruling passion. numerous friends, male and female, the

presents a He left to customary

tribute of a mourning ring. He adds to these bequests, "Had I given rings to all the ladies who have honoured me with their correspondence, and whom I sincerely venerate for their amiable qualities, it would, even in this last solemn act, appear like ostentation." He was of a far higher cast of character than the diverting coxcomb Master Robert Laneham, Gentleman Usher to Queen Elizabeth, but he might say with him, "Always among the Gentlewomen by my good will; Oh, you know, that comes always of a gentle spirit."

S

CHAPTER VII.

WILLIAM HUTTON.

OUTHEY, in his 'Commonplace Book,' writing of manners and literature in the time of Queen Anne, says, "Booksellers' shops in the provincial towns of England were very rare." I have already pointed out some indications of this fact, illustrated in the Life of Thomas Gent. Southey's statement is made upon the authority of Boswell, in reference to the dealings of the father of Samuel Johnson. The passages

referred to are as follows: "His father was Michael Johnson, a native of Derbyshire, of obscure extraction, who settled in Lichfield as a bookseller and stationer.

Michael was forced by the narrowness of his circumstances to be very diligent in business, not only in his shop but by continually resorting to several towns in the neighbourhood, many of which were a considerable distance from Lichfield." As an instance of the rarity of the shops of country booksellers, Boswell goes on to say, "There was not one even in Birmingham, in which poor old Mr. Johnson used to open a shop every market day." There is a touching passage in a letter written in his 76th year by the son of the old bookseller, which shows how habitual was this practice in his father's time, and