The Book-Hunter in London: Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and CollectingRoberts, W. (William)
History
The Book-Hunter in London: Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting
Roberts, W. (William)
Bibliomania; Book collecting; Booksellers and bookselling -- England -- London
Another famous Little Britain bookseller was Robert Scott whose sister
was the Hon. and Rev. Dr. John North's 'grandmother's woman.' Scott was
a man of 'good parts,' and was in his time, says Roger North, the
'greatest librarian in Europe; for besides his stock in England, he had
warehouses at Frankfort, Paris, and other places, and dealt by factors.'
When an old man, Scott 'contracted with one Mills, of St. Paul's
Churchyard, near L10,000 deep, and articled not to open his shop any
more. But Mills, with his auctioneering, atlases, and projects, failed,
whereby poor Scott lost above half his means. . . . He was not only an
expert bookseller, but a very conscientious, good man, and when he threw
up his trade, Europe had no small loss of him.'
The most celebrated family of booksellers, perhaps, who lived in Little
Britain, was that of Ballard, or Bullard, as the original name appears
by the auction catalogues. The family were connected with the trade for
over a century, and were noted, says Nichols, 'for the soundness of
their principles in Church and State.' One Henry Ballard lived at the
sign of the Bear without Temple Bar, over against St. Clement's Church,
in 1597, but whether he was an ancestor of the family in question is not
certain. Thomas Ballard, the founder of the bookselling branch, was
described by Dunton, in 1705, as 'a young bookseller in Little Britain,
but grown man in body now, but more in mind:
'His looks are in his mother's beauty drest,
And all the Father has inform'd the rest.'
Samuel Ballard, for many years Deputy of the Ward of Aldersgate Within,
died August 27, 1761, and his only son, Edward, January 2, 1796, aged
eighty-eight, in the same house in which he was born, having outlived
his mental faculties. He was the last of the profession in Little
Britain.
Among the scores of Little Britain men who combined publishing with
second-hand bookselling, one of the more interesting is William Newton,
who resided there during the earlier years of the last century. In 1712
he published Quincy's 'Medicina Statica,' at the end of which is this
curious 'Advertisement' (minus the superfluity of capitals): 'Those
persons who have any Librarys (_sic_) or small parcels of old books to
dispose of, either in town or countrey, may have ready money for them of
Will. Newton, Bookseller in Little Britain, London. Also all gentlemen,
and schoolmasters, may be furnished with all sorts of classics, in usum
Delphi, Variorum, etc. Likewise, he will exchange with any person, for
any books they have read and done with.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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