d Henry Foss, who retired from the trade in 1850, when
their stock came under the hammer at Sotheby's. In the preface to his
'Library Companion,' 1825, Dibdin speaks very highly of the catalogue of
Payne and Foss: 'Since the commencement of this work, Messrs. Payne and
Foss have published a catalogue of 10,051 articles. I have smiled, in
common with many friends, to observe rare and curious volumes selling
for large sums at auctions, when sometimes _better_ copies of them may
be obtained in that incomparable repository in Pall Mall at two-thirds
of the price. Whoever wants a _classical fitting out_ must betake
themselves to this repository.'

The bibliopolic history of the Mews Gate did not terminate with the
younger Tom Payne. When he removed to a more aristocratic quarter, the
shop passed into the occupation of William Sancho, the negro bookseller,
whose father, Ignatius, was born in 1729 on board a ship in the slave
trade soon after it had quitted the coast of Guinea. William Sancho died
before 1817, and was succeeded at the Mews Gate by James Bain, who
afterwards removed to No. 1, Haymarket, where the business is still
carried on, 'in accordance with the best bookselling traditions, by his
younger son, the second James Bain having died early in 1894.' The Mews
was taken down in 1830, and was used in its latter days to shelter
Cross's Menagerie from Exeter 'Change.

One of the oldest firms of Strand booksellers was that started in 1686
by Paul Vaillant, who, at the time of the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes, escaped to England. His shop was opposite Southampton Street,
and his chief dealings were in foreign books. He was succeeded by his
sons Paul and Isaac, and then by his grandson, Paul III., the son of
Paul II. The second Paul purchased a quantity of books at Freebairn's
sale for the Earl of Sunderland, and his joy at securing the copy of
Virgil's 'Opera,' printed 'per Zarothum,' 1472, is duly chronicled by
Nichols; he was one of the booksellers employed by the Society for the
Encouragement of Learning. He died in 1802, aged eighty-seven, and as
both of his two sons had elected to follow other occupations, the
business passed into the hands of Peter Elmsley, the great friend and
companion of Gibbon, whose 'Decline and Fall,' however, he did not see
his way to publish; he was a great linguist, and possessed 'an amount of
general knowledge that fitted him for conversation and correspondence
upon a familiar and e