Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/108

78 78 THE BOOKSELLERS OF OLDEN TIMES. first Charles to Mary and William, was as famous for books as Paternoster Row afterwards became. But, even in 1731, a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine says, " The race of booksellers in Little Britain is now almost extinct; honest Ballard, well known for his curi- ous divinity catalogues (he was said to have been the first to print a catalogue), being then the only genuine representative ... it was, in the middle of the last century, a plentiful and learned emporium of learned authors, and nten went thither as to a market. This drew to the place a mighty trade, the rather because the shops were spacious and the learned gladly re- sorted to them, where they seldom failed to meet with agreeable conversations." The son of this Ballard died in 1796, and was by far the best of the Little Britain booksellers. When the "trade" deserted Little Britain, about the reign of Queen Anne, they took up their abode in Paternoster Row, then princi- pally in the hands of mercers, haberdashers, and lace- men a periodical in 1705 mentioning even the " semptresses of Paternoster Row ;" for the old manu- script venders, who had christened the whole neigh- bourhood, had died out centuries before. It now be- came the headquarters of publishers and more especially of old booksellers, but with the introduction of magazines and " copy " books, that latter portion of the trade migrated elsewhere, and the street as- sumed its present appearance of wholesale warehouses, and general and periodical publishing houses. It was not long indeed before the tide of fashion carried many of the eminent firms westward, and the move- ment in that direction is still apparent.