the lowest price fix'd in each book, on
Thursday, May 7, 1747.' The list is in many respects very curious, not
the least of which is that not one of the items offered is priced. One
of the facts which strike one most forcibly in this connection is the
large capitals which must have been sunk in books even at this early
period. Davis, like all the other booksellers--notably Tonson and
Lintot--of that period, was a bookseller as well as publisher.

[Illustration: _Interior of Darton's Shop, Holborn Hill._]

Moving further westward, we find records of bookselling for just a
couple of centuries back. Robert Kettlewell was established at the Hand
and Sceptre, King's Street, Bloomsbury, whence he issued his kinsman's
apparently useful, and certainly very dull, pamphlet, entitled 'Death
Made Comfortable; or, The Way to Die Well,' and sold a variety of other
books besides. Making a leap of nearly a century, we meet with Samuel
Hayes, of Oxford Street, and evidently a relative of John Hayes, to whom
we have already referred. Samuel Hayes--when not in a French prison, for
he was actually incarcerated by Napoleon when on a visit to France--was
at this place of business for sixteen years, 1779 to 1795, and published
several catalogues. Isaac Herbert, nephew of the editor of Ames'
'Typographical Antiquities,' was selling books in Great Russell Street
in and about 1795; Joseph Bell was established as a bookseller in Oxford
Street in the earlier part of the present century; Shepperson and
Reynolds were in the same thoroughfare from 1784 to 1793, and sold
several very good libraries within the period indicated. Writing in
1790, Pennant mentions that the chapel of Southampton, or Bedford House,
Bloomsbury, was at that time rented by Lockyer Davis as a magazine of
books. How long it had been in Davis's tenancy is not certain, but he
died in 1791. William Davis, the author of several interesting
bibliographical books, including two 'Journeys Round the Library of a
Bibliomaniac,' was at the Bedford Library, Southampton Row, Holborn,
during the early part of the century. Name after name might be quoted if
any useful purpose would be served.

[Illustration: _James Westell's, 114, Oxford Street._]

There are many links which still connect the Holborn of to-day with the
Holborn and immediate district of the past. Three have, however, passed
away within recent years. Edward W. Stibbs, whose death occurred in the
spring of 1891, at the age o