[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 _mémoires_ 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 same street. This shop was at the west end of the street, and backed on to Wych Street; and at the back was a small recess, lighted by a few panes of glass, generally somewhat obscured by the dust of ages. While Macaulay was looking round the shop, a ray of sunshine fell through this little window on four little duodecimo volumes bound in vellum. He pulled out one of these to see what the work was, and great was his surprise and delight at finding these were the very French _mémoires_ of which he had been in search for many years.'