2"^ S. YIII. Sept. 3. '69.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



183 



none will prove more curious, or elucidative of 

 the doubts and difficulties which beset the by- 

 ways of Hterai-y history, than the lives of the 

 old-fashioned country booksellers. There arc the 

 cheap publishers of old London Bridge, with their 

 ballads, and chap-books, and horn-books, and 

 medicine from the Indies, and printed charms to 

 drive away all the wicked devils that were so 

 very troublesome in those days ; — these worthies 

 we hear of in DnntovUs Life and Errors, and in a 

 few other odd old books. But of the old country 

 publishers and booksellers we know nothing, and 

 can learn but little from direct sources. On a 

 Civil War tract occasionally we find the name of 

 a local dealer who was sufficiently loyal or re- 

 publican to thunder forth another political mani- 

 festo ; but with the event his courage or his 

 capital appears generally to have been exhausted, 

 and we hear nothing more of him until, perhaps, 

 in the gay days of the restored Charles, we find 

 his name once more appended to a funeral ser- 

 mon or a judge's charge to a jury. 



Singular lives these bookish old fellows must 

 have passed in the quiet country towns. Their 

 parcels of new books would probably reach them 

 twice or four times a-year, by lumbering waggons 

 a month or more on the road. Their shops must 

 have created but little excitement in the matter 

 of window display, a few sermons or political 

 pamphlets, probably, alone adorning the small 

 green glass lattice openings. I imagine these, 

 because I find their titles more frequently soiled 

 than other old printed pieces. What a sensation 

 a New Academy of Complements, or Wits' Recre- 

 ation, or a volume of Merrie Jests, must have 

 created when the window should receive one of 

 these ! What disputations between the village 

 schoolmaster and the dry old bookseller there 

 must have been ! But the chyrurgeon of the 

 neighbourhood, and^the clergyman, and the grey- 

 bearded, blear-eyed old alchymist — the doubt 

 and fear of the villagers, and the subject of occas- 

 sional prayer to the parson — would all hold 

 friendly chats with him, and would often drop in, 

 even as they do to this day, to learn if he had 

 anythingyV-es/j. 



Of such an order, although with a larger 

 audience for his customers, was William London, 

 bookseller of Newcastle-upon- T^ne, in the days of 

 the Commonwealth. 



Your correspondent N. T. (2"'^ S. viii. 105.), 

 under the heading of " Solution of a Biblio- 

 graphical Puzzle," mentions this trade-worthy in 

 connection with — 



"The First Catalogue of the most Vendible Books in 

 England, Orderly and Alphabetically digested, the like 

 Work never yet performed by any. London, 1658. 4to." 



and states, as is well known to those who are 

 accustomed to examine bibliographical books, that 

 the authorship of this interesting work has long 



been a difficulty to the explorer in literary his- 

 tory. N. T. meets with a small work, Hoole's 

 Phraseologia Anglo-Latina, 1656, bearing at the 

 foot of the title the names of the well-known 

 pamphlet and ballad printer in the time of Crom- 

 well and Charles IL, E. Coles, and the less known 

 bookseller, William London, of Newcastle. Dib- 

 din, Aikin, Darling, and other gentlemen in- 

 terested in this first bibliographical guide * in the 

 choice of books, have each assigned it to a pro- 

 bable compiler ; but N. T. now comes forward 

 with a " solution to the puzzle " in the person of 

 the Newcastle bookseller, and I am delighted to 

 be able to confirm his discovery, and place, with- 

 out the least chance of success attending any 

 other claimant, the laurel of authorship upon the 

 brow of the right man. 



William Lee, " at the Turk's Head in Fleete 

 Street over against Fetter Lane," as he styles his 

 residence, published books as early as 1640. 

 Like London of the Tyne, and Nath. Crouch of 

 the Poultry, he occasionally took pen in hand and 

 turned author. Three- and- twenty years after the 

 date just mentioned, he informs us in the Preface, 

 he was prevailed upon by Dr. Hawkins to bring 

 out another edition of his — 



" Youths' Behaviour, or Decencie in Conversation 

 amongst Men, as also a Discourse upon some Innovations 

 of Habits and Dressings; against powdring of Hair, 

 Naked Brests, Black Spots, and other unseemly Cus- 

 tomes. Lond. 1663." 



This contains, he assures us, many passages 

 not given in the earlier editions. Perhaps the 

 following, from the Table of Words of Sciences, 

 was a late addition ; at all events it settles the 

 dispute about Wm. London and the authorship 

 of the Catalogue : — 



" Catalogue, a roule of names, or Register, a Cataloging 

 of Books, which Mr. London, Bookseller of Newcastle, 

 hath published." 



Contemporary writers of dignity and name were 

 above noting the labours of a literary tradesman, 

 and it remained for a friendly London bookseller 

 to point out who this Wm. London was, although 

 years afterwards, so highly was the performance 

 thought of, that it was accredited to an arch- 

 bishop. 



Dibdin has already told us that the author of 



* I say the first Guide, although it was not the first 

 Catalogue. In the year 1631, appeared " A Catalogue 

 of certaine Bookes which have been published, and (by 

 authoritie) printed in England, both in Latine and Eng- 

 lish, since the year 1626, vntil November, 1631." 4to. 

 nine leaves. This Catalogue was probably continued for 

 some years. Then in 1655, there was published " A 

 Catalogue of the most approved Divinity-Books which 

 have been printed or reprinted about twenty Yeares past, 

 and continued down to 1655, Mensis Martii 26. Lond. 

 12mo." And there may have been others, long since 

 wasted, as catalogues generally are, by the generation in 

 whose time they happen to appear. 



