Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/462

422 422 CHARLES EDWARD MUD1E. Caesarea about the year 309 A.D., by St. Pamphilus, who united in his character the best attributes of the Christian and the philosopher. In a few years the library contained upwards of 30,000 volumes, an enormous number, considering the age at which it existed. The collection was, however, intended only for religious purposes, and the loan of the books was distinctly confined to "religiously disposed persons." At Paris and elsewhere traces of this collection are still said to exist. In the middle ages, the practice of lending out books, or exchanging them between monastery and monastery, was not uncommon, and by the early stationers of Paris the manuscripts were cut up into small portions (much as the present librarian's novel requires to be divided into three volumes), to the greater profit of the lenders ; but we come to very modern times before we find that circulating libraries, in the modern acceptation of the term, were estab- lished. The first circulating library in London was founded by Wright, a bookseller of 132, Strand, about the year 1730. Franklin, writing of a time some five years previous to this, says : " While I lodged in Little Britain, I formed an acquaintance with a bookseller of the name of Wilcox, whose shop was next door to me. Circulating libraries were not tJien in use. We agreed that for a reasonable retribution, of which I have forgotten the price, I should have free access to his library, and take what books I pleased, which I was to return when I had read them." Among Wright's earliest rivals were the Nobles, John Bell (the cheap publisher), Thomas Lowndes, and notably Samuel Bathoe, who died in 1768, and to whom,