Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/39

 9th S. IV. July 8, '99. ] 23 NOTES AND QUERIES. BIBLIOGRAPHY: JOHN SELLER. (See 1" S. x. 509 ; 7th S. xii. 515.) The Library of the Corporation of the City of London contains a curious and rare, if not unique book, to which I had occasion to refer in the columns of ' N. & Q.' twelve years ago (7th S. iv. 342, on p. 343). The particulars were recapitulated by me in 7th S. xi. 502, on pp. 503, 504, in 1891, when discussing the grim question of 'Drawing, Hanging, and Quartering,' above the pseudonym of Nemo, which I, until lately, adopted. The work is descril>ed in the official Catalogue of the Guildhall Library, on p. 830, as " Seller (John) A booke of the punishments of the common laws of England [1678?] Til plates representing the punishments inflicted for various crimes] ob : 4" London [1678 ?]." The query mark is significant, as will be seen later. There is no copy of this work in the British Museum Library, but it is noticed by Lowndes (' Biblio. Man.,' vol. iv. p. 2239), who seems to intimate that at the date of the publication of the edition of the ' Manual' I have referred to (1864) a copy might be purchased for 5/. 5s. ; but he does not indicate where it could be obtained. It has occurred to me that as one at least of the engravings of which it consists (there is no text except that descriptive of the plates) appears to have a bearing upon a question not infrequently discussed in the pages of ' N. & Q.,' even at the present day, a some- what detailed account of the thin little volume might not be unacceptable to readers. The following exposition, nowever, will be better understood if I am allowed to preface my remarks with an allusion to a personal experience. I find that I examined the work so far back as the year 1885, and I then made a loose MS. note, to which I called the attention of the librarian at the time. On ray visit to Guildhall recently I saw that my commentary had been adopted by my note being pasted in on the cover, facing an entry on the fly- leaf, presumably in the handwriting of a possessor of the book, probably a former librarian, when the volume was acquired by the Corporation. The title of the work, which is an oblong quarto (about 4 in. by 9 in.), runs :— " A Booke | of the Punishments of the | Common Laws of | England | Invented Designed and Printed by John Seller and are [sic] sold by him at the Hermitage in Wapping." This description is incorporated with a very elaborately engraved frontispiece—an alle- gorical illustration presenting in the centre a figure of Justice, sword (blade curved and flamboyant) in right, and scales in left, hand, seated against a background of tapestry dis- playing the royal arms. This figure is sup- ported on the right by a partially draped skeleton, which I take to be meant to typify death. A draped figure, also seated, on the left of Justice, bearing the fasces and an axe, may be meant for a lictor. This figure also dangles chains and other implements of coercion. The four corners of the oblong are occupied by several allegorical groups of sprawling and flying furies, narpies, &c, and one nondescript creature is crouching at the feet of Justice. On a scroll-like shield above the principal character, centre chief of this elaborate display, the main title of the work is engraved, not printed from type, but as a part of the plate, as is the author and pub- lisher's description, in italics running along the foot of the page. An account of this author and publisher (his attribution to himself of the character of designer must be qualified somewhat, as I shall proceed to demonstrate) has already appeared in the columns of ' N. & Q.' (see the reference at the head of this note). He was a map publisher and bookseller at Wapping during the reigns of Charles II., James II., William and Mary, and William III. His main establishment was at Wapping, at the address I have quoted from the title-page; and the memory of the ascribed locality is preserved to this day in Great Hermitage Street and Hermitage Wharf. He had also a branch shop in Exchange Alley, in the City of London to the west (see the ' Dictionary of National Biography,' vol. li. p. 227). There is also extant in the neighbourhood a tradi- tion that he kept a stall on the not remote Tower Hill, about midway between his chief and branch establishments, then a great naval and mercantile marine resort—a tradition for which I vouch the late Mr. George Offor (' Dictionary of National Biography,' vol. xlii. p. 6), a noted bibliographer, biographer, col- lector, and editor, a frequent contributor to the early volumes of ' N. it Q.,' who himself commenced business and literary life by keeping a second-hand bookstall, afterwards developing into an important shop, on that historical eminence; and, strange to say, this very shop was the successor in a long series of booksellers' shops in Postern Row, Tower Hill, of the one that the subject of this paper founded in substitution for his original trading branch there, viz., a book- stall.* Mr. Offor communicated this detail of
 * 'N. &Q.,'7,hS, xi. 504.