CHAPTER XII.

THE CHAPTER COFFEE-HOUSE.

WO Undergraduates of Oxford, George Colman and Bonnel Thornton, commenced their literary career in 1754,

with the periodical paper, 'The Connoisseur.' The experience of these youths, who had been the Westminster schoolfellows of Cowper, Lloyd, and Churchill, scarcely justified them in assuming the dignity of "Mr. Town, Critic and Censor-General." Yet their liveliness contrasted agreeably with the solemnity of the 'Rambler,' which had come to a close in 1752; nor were they ignoble rivals of Hawkesworth, in his 'Adventurer,' commenced in that year. Colman and Thornton were the Beaumont and Fletcher of essayists, and in their concluding number, they declared that almost every single paper was the joint production of both. They had both looked upon London with the quick observation of youth, and were probably better qualified to describe some of its lighter aspects than those who desired "to point a moral" in the office of "Critic and Censor-General." They certainly have not described at hap-hazard the famous coffee-house in Paternoster Row, where booksellers "most do congregate." Alas! I am using a wrong tense; the

Chapter gradually fell into decay, and within a few years has ceased to exist. But in connection with the Old Booksellers, its memory will survive as long as that of the Mermaid or the Devil Tavern. Thus writes Mr. Town: "My publisher would not forgive me, was I to leave the neighbourhood without taking notice of the Chapter coffee-house, which is frequented by those encouragers of literature, and (as they are styled by an eminent critic) 'not the worst judges of merit, the booksellers.' The conversation here naturally turns upon the newest publications; but their criticisms are somewhat singular. When they say a good book, they do not mean to praise the style or sentiment, but the quick and extensive sale of it. That book, in the phrase of the Conger, is best which sells most; and if the demand for Quarles should be greater than for Pope, he would have the highest place on the rubric-post. There are also many parts of every work liable to their remarks, which fall not within the notice of less accurate observers. A few nights ago, I saw one of these gentlemen take up a sermon, and after seeming to peruse it for some time with great attention, he declared it was very good English.' The reader will judge whether I was most surprised or diverted, when I discovered that he was not commending the purity and elegance of the diction, but the beauty of the type, which, it seems, is known among the printers by that appellation. We must not, however, think the members of the Conger strangers to the deeper parts of literature; for as carpenters, smiths, masons, and all mechanics smell of the trade they

labour at, booksellers take a peculiar turn from their connexions with books and authors. The character of the bookseller is commonly formed on the writers in his service. Thus one is a politician, or a deist; another affects humour, or aims at turns of wit and repartee; while a third perhaps is grave, moral, and sententious."

The members of "The Conger" were a select band, who, in the middle of the last century, had a common interest in the copyright of certain books, whether copyright by law or by usage. It appears that in 1719 five booksellers united themselves under the name of the Printing Conger. In 1736, this limited partnership still went on, with the addition of new names. In that year, a correspondent of Mr. Bowyer speaks of the Society for Encouraging Learning as "a downright trading society, a mere Conger;" adding, "Forgive me if I misspell so mysterious a word." About the same period, a second partnership of the same kind was formed, calling themselves the New Conger. Mr. Nichols, who records these particulars, says, "the term Conger was supposed to have been at first applied to them invidiously, alluding to the Conger Eel, which is said to swallow the smaller fry; or it may possibly have been taken from Congeries." Whether the "smaller fry" were the minnows of bookselling or of authorship, Mr. Nichols does not explain. The Conger, new and old, died out. The practice of diminishing the individual risk of publication gradually extended in the division of a book into shares, varying in amount, each partner being liable for his portion of the cost. The arrangements

of the shareholders were generally made at the Chapter coffee-house, and thus, in process of time, the publications of associated booksellers came to be called Chapter books. The name is now almost obsolete. That system of publication has nearly come to an end. The co-operative system of bookselling, in which there was really a great deal of good, mixed however with some evil, has yielded to a system of the keenest competition. It was at its height in the year 1777, when there was a great day at the Chapter. Wordsworth's pastoral scene in the Lake country lingers in my memory, and suggests a town parallel:

"The green field sleeps in the sun :

The cattle are grazing,

Their heads never raising:

There are forty feeding like one!"

Edward Dilly, a leading spirit in the trade, has described, in a letter to Boswell, how "a meeting was held, consisting of about forty of the most respectable booksellers of London." The green pasture upon which the forty came to feed "like one," was "an elegant and accurate edition of all the English poets."

The shadows of some of the finest and fattest of the herd rise up before me. Mr. EDWARD DILLY claims precedence as the historiographer of the day. He says, "The first cause that gave rise to this undertaking, I believe, was owing to the little trifling edition of 'The Poets,' printing by the Martins, at Edinburgh, and to be sold by Bell in London. ***

Accordingly, a select number of the most respectable booksellers met on the occasion, and, on consulting together, agreed that all the proprietors of copyright in the various poets should be summoned together, and when their opinions were given, to proceed immediately on the business." Mr. Dilly, I may imagine, duly expatiated at the meeting-as he set forth to Mr. Boswell-how "the little trifling edition” was not only printed in unreadable type, and was very inaccurate, but was an invasion of "what we call our literary property." This bookseller occupies too large a space in the scanty annals of the trade to be abruptly. dismissed. He is the great dinner-giver of the latter time of Dr. Johnson.

Coleridge has a wicked Note on that profane poem, 'The Devil's Thoughts,' which I have indiscreetly quoted, wherein he says that "a young retailer in the hosiery line, on hearing a description of the net profits, dinner parties, country houses, &c., of the trade, exclaimed, 'Ay! that's what I call Life, now."" (I will not interrupt my narrative to enquire whether this young hosier were not Richard Phillips, or Philip Richards, of Leicester, who, having seen something of the Life of the trade in Leicester gaol for selling Paine's Rights of Man,' came to London, and in due time, "on the tree of Life sat like a cormorant.") The young hosier's notion of Life was fully carried out by Edward and Charles Dilly. Boswell is ever full of "my worthy booksellers and friends, Messrs. Dilly, in the Poultry, at whose hospitable and well covered table I have seen a greater number of literary men than at any other, except that of Sir