ealer in remainders.

[Illustration: _Mr. William D. Reeves, Bookseller._]

The most famous bookselling locality in this district is Holywell
Street, or, as it is now generally called, Booksellers' Row. This street
has always been afflicted with a questionable repute, not without cause,
and much of the ill-odour of its past career still clings to it. Even
second-hand bookselling has not purged it entirely. Half a century ago
its shops were almost entirely taken up with the vendors of second-hand
clothes, and the offals of several other more or less disreputable
trades. Above these shops resided the Grub Street gentry of the period.
'It was,' says one who knew it well, 'famous for its houses of call for
reporters, editors and literary adventurers generally, all of whom
formed a large army of needy, clever disciples of the pen, who lived by
their wits, if they had any, and in lieu of those estimable
qualifications, by cool assurance, impudence, and the gift of their
mother tongue in spontaneous and frothy eloquence.' It was also a famous
and convenient place 'for literary gentlemen and others, who were
desirous of evading bailiffs and sheriffs' officers who might be anxious
of making their acquaintance,' for even if they were traced to the
Holywell Street entrance of any particular house, they could easily
escape into Wych Street, and so slip the myrmidons of the law. It next
became the emporium of indecent literature (from which charge it is not
yet quite free), but much of this peculiar trade was suppressed by Lord
Campbell's Act. For nearly half a century the place has been growing in
popularity as a _locus standi_ of the reputable second-hand book trade.
Every book-hunter of note has known, or knows, of its many shops.
Macaulay, for example, obtained many of his books from Holywell Street.
The late Mr. Thoms related, in the _Nineteenth Century_, a very curious
incident which put the great historian in possession of some French
_memoires_ of which he had long been endeavouring to secure a copy.
Macaulay was once strolling down this street, when he saw in a
bookseller's window a volume of Muggletonian tracts. 'Having gone in,
examined the volume, and agreed to buy it, he tendered a sovereign in
payment. The bookseller had not change, but said if he (Macaulay) would
just keep an eye on the shop, he would step out and get it. His name, I
think, was Hearle, and he had some relatives of the same name who had
shops in the s