esting; we have only seen half a dozen of them, and these are in
the British Museum. A somewhat similar effort to give an extra interest
to catalogues was made a few years ago by J. W. Jarvis and Son, of King
William Street, and also by Pickering and Chatto, the Haymarket; but the
experiment apparently did not succeed.

[Illustration: _Middle Row, Holborn, 1865._]

Apart from Holborn, properly so called, Middle Row, an insulated row of
houses, abutting upon Holborn Bars, and nearly opposite Gray's Inn
Road, claims a notice here, for it was long a book-hunting locality, and
two bookshops, at least, existed there until the place was demolished in
August, 1867. Perhaps its most famous bookseller was John Cuthell, who
came to London from Scotland in 1771, and became assistant to Drew, of
Middle Row, whom he succeeded. He was publishing catalogues here from
1787, and did a very large export business with America. He was noted
for his stock of medical and scientific books. He was still at Middle
Row in 1813, when John Nichols published his 'Literary Anecdotes,' to
which he was a subscriber. Cuthell died at Turnham Green in 1828, aged
eighty-five. He was succeeded by Francis Macpherson, who issued the
thirtieth number of his catalogue in April, 1840, from No. 4, Middle
Row. The works offered comprised a selection of theological, classical,
and historical books. One of the most curious entries relates to an
extensive collection of books and pamphlets by and concerning the famous
Dr. Richard Bentley, five volumes in quarto, and thirty-one more in
octavo and duodecimo; the set (now, we believe, in the British Museum),
doubtless the most complete ever offered for sale, was priced at L25,
and was probably utilized in Dyce's editions of Bentley's
'Dissertations,' and in an edition of Bentley's 'Sermons at Boyle's
Lecture,' both of which Macpherson published. This catalogue is
interesting from the number of illustrations which it affords of the
transition period of English book-collecting; the various editions of
the classics are priced at very moderate figures, whilst English
classics are offered at comparatively 'fancy' sums. For example, a very
neat copy of the first edition of 'Tom Jones' is offered at 18s., and a
fine copy of John Bale's 'Image of Both Churches,' without date, but
printed by East at the latter part of the sixteenth century, at L1 7s.
J. Coxhead is another Holborn bookseller who may be regarded as a link
between