Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/463

423 CHARLES EDWARD MUD IE. 423 erroneously, the credit of the innovation has been very generally attributed. As late, however, as 1770, there were only four real circulating libraries in the capital. The practice soon spread through the country. Shortly after Wright's death, Hatton established a circulating library at Birmingham. In 1745, Watts introduced a circulating library into Cambridge, greatly extended afterwards by John Nicholson, known by the sobriquet of " Maps," who used to carry a sack of books to each undergraduate's rooms, in case they felt a sudden inclination for reading something newer than Homer, Xenophon, or Euclid. By the year 1755 we find that circulating libraries had extended to the extreme north of England, for New- castle then boasted the possession of two. Though the custom was rapidly obtaining in town and country, the books lent out to read were generally very similar in title to those in the famous list in the " Rivals," which caused Sir Anthony Absolute's con- demnation " A circulating library in a town is an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge ; it blossoms throughout the year. And depend on it, that they who are so fond of handling the leaves will long for the fruit at last." We have still only to go to our little country towns and petty watering-places few now, fortunately, still beyond the arm of " Smith " or "Mudie" to see the circulating library in its pristine form. At first the benefits that must inevitably accrue from the movement to the publishers as well as to the public were by no means recognized. Lackington tells us that " when the circulating libraries were first opened the booksellers were most alarmed, but