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prices to the extension of the market. They also, in many cases, lessened their risk by publishing by subscription--a practice now almost gone out of use from the change of fashion, but possessing great advantages for the production of costly books. This was in many respects the golden age for publishers, when large and certain fortunes were made. Perhaps much of this proceeded from the publishers aiming less to produce novelty than excellence

there were three daily papers, six weekly, and ten three times a week. Provincial newspapers had already been established in several places. In 1731, Cave, at his own risk, produced the first Magazine printed in England-the Gentleman's.' Its success was so great, that in the following year the booksellers, who could not understand Cave's project till they knew its value by experiment, set up a rival magazine, The London.' In 1749 the first Review, The Monthly,' was-selling large impressions of few books, and started; and in a few years was followed by 'The Critical.'

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The periodical literature of this period greatly reduced the number of merely temporary books; and it had thus the advantage of imparting to our literature a more solid character. Making a proportionate deduction for the pamphlets inserted in the catalogues already referred to, it still appears that the great influx of periodical literature, although constituting a most important branch of literary commerce, had in some degree the effect of narrowing the publication of new books; and perhaps wholesomely so. It appears from a Complete Catalogue of Modern Books published from the beginning of the century to 1756;'-from which "all pamphlets and other tracts" are excluded, that in these fifty-seven years 5280 new works appeared, which exhibits only an average of ninety-three new works each year. It seems probable that the numbers of an edition printed had been increased; for, however strange it may appear, the general prices of the works in this catalogue are as low, if not lower, than in a priced catalogue which we also have of books printed in the years 1702 and 1703. A quarto published in the first half of the last century seems to have averaged from 10s. to 128. per volume; an octavo, from 5s. to 6s.; and a duodecimo from 2s. 6d. to 3s. In the earlier catalogue we have mentioned, pretty much the same prices exist: and yet an excise had been laid upon paper; and the prices of authorship, even for the humblest labours, were raised. We can only account for this upon the principle, that the publishers of the first half of the eighteenth century knew their trade, and, printing larger numbers, adapted their

not distracting the public with their noisy competition in the manufacture of new wares for the market of the hour. Publishers thus grew into higher influence in society. They had long ceased to carry their books to Bristol or Stourbridge fairs, or to hawk them about the country in auctions. The trade of books had gone into regular commercial channels.

IV. The period from the accession of George III. to the close of the eighteenth century, is marked by the rapid increase of the demand for popular literature, rather than by any prominent features of orginality in literary production. Periodical literature spread on every side; newspapers, magazines, reviews, were multiplied; and the old system of selling books by hawkers was extended to the rural districts and small provincial towns. of the number-books thus produced, the quality was indifferent, with a few exceptions; and the cost of these works was considerable. The principle, however, was then first developed, of extending the market by coming into it at regular intervals with fractions of a book, so that the humblest customer might lay by each week in a savings-bank of knowledge. This was an important step, which has produced great effects, but which is even now capable of a much more universal application than it has ever yet received. Smollett's 'History of England' was one of the most successful number-books; it sold to the extent of 20,000 copies.

The rapid growth of the publication of new books is best shown by examining the catalogues of the latter part of the eighteenth century, passing over the ear lier years of the reign of George III. In the Modern Catalogue of Books,' from 1792 to the end of 1802, eleven

years, we find that 4096 new works were published, exclusive of reprints not altered in price, and also exclusive of pamphlets: deducting one-fifth for reprints, we have an average of 372 new books per year. This is a prodigious stride beyond the average of 93 per year of the previous period. From some cause or other, the selling-price of books had increased, in most cases 50 per cent., in others 100 per cent. The 2s. 6d. duodecimo had become 4s.; the 6s. octavo, 10s. 6d.; and the 12s. quarto, 11. 1s. It would appear from this that the exclusive market was principally sought for new books; that the publishers of novelties did not rely upon the increasing number of readers; and that the periodical works constituted the principal supply of the many. The aggregate increase of the commerce in books must, however, have become enormous, when compared with the previous fifty years.

V. Of the last period-the most remarkable for the great extension of the commerce in books-we shall present the accounts of the first 27 years collectively, and of the last 16 years in detail.

The number of new publications issued from 1800 to 1827, including reprints altered in size and price, but excluding pamphlets, was, according to the London catalogue, 19,860. Deducting one-fifth for the reprints, we have 15,888 new books in 27 years; showing an average of 588 new books per year, being an increase of 216 per year over the last 11 years of the previous century. Books, however, were still rising in price. The 4s. duodecimo of the former period became 68., or was converted into a small octavo at 10s. 6d. ; the 10s. 6d. octavo became 128. or 148., and the guinea quarto very commonly two guineas. The demand for new books, even at the very high cost of those days, was principally maintained by Reading Societies and Circulating Libraries. When these new modes of diffusing knowledge were first established, it was predicted that they would destroy the trade of publishing. But the Reading Societies and the Circulating Libraries, by enabling many to read new books at a small expense, created a much larger market than the de

sires of individual purchasers for ephe meral works could have formed; and a very large class of books was expressly produced for this market.

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But a much larger class of book-buyers had sprung up, principally out of the middle ranks. For these a new species of literature had to be produced,—that of books conveying sterling information in a popular form, and published at a very cheap rate. In the year 1827 Constable's Miscellany' led the way in this novel attempt; in the same year the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, which had been formed in No vember, 1826, commenced its operations, and several publishers of eminence soon directed their capital into the same channels. Subsequently editions of our great writers have been multiplied at very reasonable prices; and many a tradesman's and mechanic's house now contains a well selected stock of books, which, through an annual expenditure of 21. or 3l., has brought the means of intellectual improvement, and all the tranquil enjoyment that attends the practice of family reading, home to a man's own fireside.

The increasing desire for knowledge among the masses of the people was, however, not yet supplied. In 1832 the

Penny Magazine' of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and Chambers's Journal' commenced to be published; and subsequently the Saturday Magazine.' The 'Penny Sheet' of the reign of Queen Anne was revived in the reign of William IV., with a much wider range of usefulness. It was said by some that the trade in books would be destroyed. They asserted also that the rewards of authorship would be destroyed, necessarily, at the same time. The Penny Cyclopædia' of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge was deemed the most daring attempt at this double destruction. That work has returned about 150,000l. to the commerce of lite rature, and 40,000l. have been distributed amongst the authors and artists engaged in its production, of which sum more than three-fourths have been laboriously earned by the diligence of the writers.

There is a mode, however, of testing

whether cheap literature has destroyed | if they were sold at their publication the publication of new books, without in- price, would be 708,4981. 8s. 9d., and cluding reprints and pamphlets. We that of the new editions and reprints, take the four years from 1829 to 1832, as 231,2187. 15s. We believe, however, that computed by ourselves, from the London if we estimate the price at which the Catalogues; and the four years from 1839 entire impressions of both descriptions of to 1842, as computed by Mr. M'Culloch works actually sells at 4s. a volume, we in the last edition of his Commercial shall not be far from the mark; and if Dictionary:so, the real value of the books annually produced will be 435,600l. a year."

NEW WORKS, 1829 to 1832.

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But the most remarkable characteristic of the press of this country is its periodical literature. It might be asserted, without exaggeration, that the periodical works issued in Great Britain during one year comprise more sheets than all the books printed in Europe from the period of Gutenberg to the year 1500.

The number of weekly periodical works (not newspapers) issued in London on Saturday, May 4, 1844, was about sixty. Of these the weekly sale of the more important amounts to little less than 300.000 copies, or about fifteen millions annually. The greater number of these are devoted to the supply of persons who have only a very small sum to expend weekly upon their home reading.

ent of the sale of many of them in Of the weekly publications, independthat the annual returns are little short monthly parts, we may fairly estimate of 100,000l.

The monthly issue of periodical literature from London is unequalled by any similar commercial operation in Europe. 227 monthly periodical works were sent out on the last day of May, 1844, to every corner of the United Kingdom, from Paternoster Row. There are also 38

periodical works published quarterly: making a total of 265.

A bookseller, who has been many years conversant with the industry of the great literary hive of London on Magazine-day, has favoured us with the following computations, which we have every reason to believe perfectly accu

Mr. M'Culloch adds: "From inquiries we have made with much care and labour, we find that, at an average of the four years ending with 1842, 2149 volumes of new works, and 755 volumes of new editions and reprints (exclusive of pamphlets and periodical publications), were annually published in Great Britain; and we have further ascertained that the publication price of the former was 8s. 94d., and of the latter 8s. 2d. a volume. Hence, if we suppose the average impression of each work to have been 750 copies, it will be seen that the total value of the new works annually produced, | 25,0007.

rate:

The periodical works sold on the last day of the month amount to 500,000 copies.

The amount of cash expended in the purchase of these 500,000 copies is

The annual returns of periodical works, according to our estimate, amount to 300,000l. Mr. McCulloch estimates them at 264,000l.

The parcels dispatched into the country, | What has multiplied them twenty-fold? of which very few remain over the day, Is it the contraction or the widening of are 2000. the market-the exclusion or the diffusion of knowledge? The whole course of our literature has been that of a gradual and certain spread from the few to the many-from a luxury to a necessary-as much so as the spread of the cotton or the silk trade. Henry VIII. paid 12s. a yard for a silk gown for Anne Boleyn—a sum equal to five guineas a yard of our day. Upon whom do the silk-mercers now rely upon the few Anne Boleyns, or the thousands who can buy a silk gown at half-a-crown a yard? The printing-machine has done for the commerce of literature what the mule and the Jacquard-loom have done for the commerce of silk. It has made literature accessible to all.

The number of newspapers published in the United Kingdom, in the year 1843, the returns of which can be obtained with the greatest accuracy through the Stamp Office, was 447. The stamps consumed by them in that year were 60,592,001. Their proportions are as follows:

1843.

:

79 London newspapers. 31,692,092 212 English provincial

8 Welsh

69 Scotch

79 Irish

447

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17,058,056
339,500
5,027,589

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6,474,764

60,592,001

The average price of these papers is, as near as may be, fivepence; so that the sum annually expended in newspapers is about 1,250,000l. The quantity of paper required for the annual supply of these newspapers is 121,184 reams, some of which paper is of an enormous size. In a petition to the pope in 1471, from Sweynheim and Pannartz, printers at Rome, they bitterly complain of the want of demand for their books, their stock amounting to 12,000 volumes; and they say, "You will admire how and where we could procure a sufficient quantity of paper, or even rags, for such a number of volumes." About 1200 reams of paper would have produced all the poor printers' stock. Such are the changes of four centuries.

BOOTY. [ADMIRALTY COURTS, p. 29.] BORDA'RII, one of the classes of agricultural occupiers of land mentioned in the Domesday Survey, and, with the exception of the villani, the largest. The origin of their name, and the exact nature of their tenure, are doubtful. Coke (Inst. lib. i. § i. fol. 5 b, edit. 1628) calls them "boors holding a little house with some land of husbandry, bigger than a cottage." Nichols, in his 'Introduction to the History of Leicestershire,' p. xlv., considers them as cottagers, and that they took their name from living on the borders of a village or manor; but this is sufficiently refuted by Domesday itself, where we find them not only mentioned generally among the agricultural occupiers of land, but in one instance as "circa aulam manentes," dwelling near the manor-house; and even residing in some of the larger towns. In two quarters of the town of Huntingdon, at the time of forming the Survey, as well as in King Edward the Confessor's time, there were 116 burgesses, and subordinate to them 100 bordarii, who aided 100,000 them in the payment of the geld or tax. 300,000 (Domesd. Book. tom. i. fol. 203.) In Nor1,250,000 wich there were 420 bordarii: and 20 are mentioned as living in Thetford (Ibid. tom. ii. fol. 116 b, 173.)

We recapitulate these estimated annual
returns of the commerce of the press :-
New books and reprints
Weekly publications, not news-
papers

Monthly publications
Newspapers

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£435,600

£2,085,600 The literary returns of the United Kingdom, in 1743, were unquestionably little more than 100,000l. per annum.

Bishop Kennett states that, "The bor darii often mentioned in the Domesday Inquisition were distinct from the servi

and villani, and seem to be those of a less servile condition, who had a board or cottage with a small parcel of land allowed to them, on condition they should supply the lord with poultry and eggs and other small provisions for his board and entertainment." (Gloss. Paroch. Antiq.) Such also is the interpretation given by Bloomfield in his History of Norfolk.' Brady affirms "they were drudges, and performed vile services, which were reserved by the lord upon a poor little house and a small parcel of land, and might perhaps be domestic works, such as grinding, threshing, drawing water, cutting wood, &c." (Pref. p. 56.)

Bord, as Bishop Kennett has already noticed, was a cottage. Bordarii, it should seem, were cottagers merely. In one of the Ely Registers we find Bordarii, where the breviate of the same entry in Domesday itself reads cotarii. Their condition was probably different on different manors. In some entries in the Domesday Survey, the expression "bordarii arantes" occurs. At Evesham, on the abbey demesne, 27 bordarii are described as "servientes-curiæ."(Domesd. tom. i. fol. 175 b.)

On the demesne appertaining to the castle of Ewias there were 12 bordarii, who are described as performing personal labour on one day in every week. (Ibid. fol. 186.) At St. Edmondsbury in Suffolk, the abbot had 118 homagers, and under them 52 bordarii. The total number of bordarii noticed in the different counties of England in Domesday Book is 82,634. (Ellis's General Introd. to Domesday Book, edit. 1833, vol. i. p. 82: ii. p. 511; Haywood's Dissert. upon the Ranks of the People under the Anglo-Saxon Governments, pp. 303, 305.)

BOROUGH-ENGLISH is a peculiar custom by which lands and tenements held in ancient burgage descend to the youngest son instead of to the eldest, wherever such custom obtains. It still exists in many cities and ancient boroughs, and in the adjoining districts. The land is held in socage, but descends to the youngest son in exclusion of all the other children. In some places this peculiar rule of descent is confined to the

case of children; in others the custom extends to brothers and other male collateral relations. The same custom also governs the descent of copyhold land in various manors.

The custom is alluded to by Glanville and by Littleton, of whom the latter thus explains it :-" Also for the greater part such boroughes have divers customes and usages, which be not had in other towns. For some boroughes have such a custome, that if a man have issue many sonnes and dyeth, the youngest son shall inherit all the tenements which were his father's within the same borough, as heire unto his father by force of the custome; the which is called Borough-English" (s. 165).

The origin of this custom is referred to the time of the Anglo-Saxons; and it does not appear to have been known by its present name until some time after the Conquest; for the Normans, having no experience of any such custom in their own country, distinguished it as "the custom of the Saxon towns." In the reign of Edward III. the term boroughEnglish was used in contrast with the Norman law: thus it was said that in Nottingham there were two tenures"burgh-Engloyes" and "burgh-Fraunçoyes," the usages of which tenures are such that all the tenements whereof the ancestor dies seised in "burgh-Engloyes" ought to descend to the youngest son, and all the tenements in "burgh-Frauncoyes" to the eldest son, as at common law. (1 Edward III. 12 a.)

Primogeniture was the rule of descent in England at common law; but in the case of socage lands all the sons inherited equally until long after the Conquest, wherever it appeared that such lands had, by custom, been anciently divisible. But this general rule of descent was often governed by peculiar customs, and in some places the eldest son succeeded his father by special custom, while in others (viz. those subject to borough-English) the youngest son alone inherited. (Glanville, lib. vii. c. 3, and notes by Beames.)

"This custome" (of borough-English), says Littleton, "also stands with some certaine reason, because that the younger son (if he lacke father and mother), he

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