University of Virginia Library

LETTER XIX.
The London Booksellers—Etymology of
the term Yankey.

THE booksellers' shops, with some
exceptions, are not so splendid and spacious
as I expected. An old celebrated
stand, for any kind of business, is sought
after with avidity, and rents high in proportion
to these advantages. Thus, spaciousness
and splendour are sacrificed to
profit. The books are, however, handsomely
arranged, and seats provided for
customers, which are, perhaps, too often
occupied by the literary lounger, to the
annoyance of the trade. The shelves display

specimens of works most in repute,
whilst the main stock is preserved in
chambers and warehouses.

The booksellers in London are the real
patrons of the learned: not that they reward
merit like Pollio and Mecænas—
they do not give villas at Tusculum, nor
preserve the poets' native fields from the
devastation of the soldiery—but they foster
the young author by displaying his works,
beautified with all the elegances of the
typographical art; and, by puffs, advertisements,
and their numerous correspondence,
they force a sale; and instances
have not been unfrequent when the demand
for a book, which they owned by
unconditional purchase of the copy-right,
has been greater than was primarily expected,
that they have gratuitously shared
the extra profit with the author.

To a union of the London booksellers
the English are indebted for many of their
great and valuable works. Several of
these booksellers are authors themselves,

and therefore “touch'd with their infirmities.”
Their advice is always ready, and
generally correct. Those of them who are
advanced in business entertain the poor
children of literature at their tables. At
these repasts I have acquired many amusing,
and some valuable and instructive
acquaintance. In their shops they are extremely
civil, as, indeed, every citizen of
London is, when he has any thing to sell;
when he comes to purchase, that is another
affair. The Englishman always conceives
that he who buys confers a favour. Soon
after my arrival I went to several bookstores,
and as I intimated my design to
spend between two and three thousand
dollars, for the purchase of a public library,
I was very respectfully received. In one
shop, as I found the master very generally
acquainted with the belles-lettres; I chatted
very volubly, and quoted the classics
with my usual freedom as when among
my college friends. He listened with such
apparent and earnest attention, and spoke,
at times, with so much knowledge, chastened
with such modesty, that, finding
him pleased with me, I was charmed with
him. When I informed him that I came
from the United States he seemed surprised,
and confessed he had not imagined
that the infant seminaries of the new world
could have effected such an education;
but, after a pause of recollection, he added,
“Ah, sir, I ought to have known that
“the country of Franklin, Adams, and
“Jefferson, must produce scientific men.
“Sir, you were born in a new world;
“every thing there evinces the vigour of
“youth: Europe, sir, I fear, is in her
“dotage.—You have withstood our arms,
“and, I fear, will soon rival us in the arts
“and sciences.”—At the word dotage, to
be sure, I ought to have recollected the
cosmogony of the rogue who cheated
Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, but I
was so pleased with my country's praise,
and perhaps with my own, that I was ready
to expend all my purchase-money with
this lubricious bookseller; however, as
my money was in trust, I resolved to be
wary, and repeat my visits before I closed
the bargain. Whenever I came, the business
of the shop was left to the shopman,
while I engrossed entirely the attention of
its master. An accident happily saved me
from his toils. The last time I was there,
I observed a man of rather ordinary appearance,
but very grave and formal in
his carriage, cheapening books. He inquired
for De Laune's Plea for the Nonconformists,
Flavel's Token for Mourners,
and Richard Baxter's Saint's Rest, and
some other polemical and pious books.
After asking the price, he observed, that
he was grieved it was so exorbitant, as he
intended to lay out about thirty pounds in
books, for a dissenting society in Broomsgrove,
and found most of the works he
wanted there. At mention of the thirty
pounds, the bookseller (who had been
deeply engaged with me in illustrating a
passage in an idyl of Theocritus by a
quotation from the Noctes Atticæ of
Aulus Gellius) suddenly quitted me and
advanced toward the stranger, with the
same insinuating air with which he at first
accosted me, and assured him that when
he sold to a society, especially a religious
society, it was always at a reduced price.
The stranger took up a pamphlet and inquired
its price. “That excellent trea
“tise is inestimable: it was written by
“the great and pious Mr. —, (some
“body, I did not distinctly hear the name,)
“against occasional conformity: he left a
“few copies with me, with directions to
“present them to the most eminent of
“the dissenting clergy;—sir, I have but
“two left, one I propose sending to Dr.
“Priestley, in America—will you do me
“the honour to accept the other, (bowing
“very low,) as I perceive you are of that
“learned and exemplary denomination of
“Christians.” The strangeracknowledged
he was—his features relaxed—and the
wily bookseller secured the thirty pounds
without further haggling about the price.
As I now discovered that the classical
bookseller dealt largely in Sterne's “de
“licious essence,” of which I had taken
sufficient, I retired.

I learned afterwards that this bookseller
was considered, by the respectable
part of the trade, as the mere Curll of his
day—ever prepared to flatter, and ever
ready to defraud. A friend, to whom I
related this anecdote, said, “sir, did you
“not know he was from Yorkshire?”
It seems they consider the Yorkshiremen
as very subtle, if not dishonest. I was
rather chagrined at this opprobium, because,
you know, Governor Endicott,
with most of our English ancestors, came
from that respectable county. The term
Yankey is but a corruption of Yorkshire,
being simply the Indian pronunciation.
The natives of the country hearing the
white men, during their early habitancy,
frequently speaking of Yorkshire, styled
them Yankeys. To be satisfied of this,

I once requested a Cognawagha Indian to
pronounce Yorkshire: he immediately
replied—“oh, Ya-ankah, you—you be
“Ya-ankah.” So that you perceive, if
the Yorkshire bookseller had attempted
again to flatter me into a bad bargain, I
could, with great propriety, have exclaimed
with Sam, in the farce of Raising
the Wind, “aye, and you see I come fra
“Yorkshire too.”

Believe me, my friend, no blandishments
will ever seduce me to forget my
native country. I can parodize Horace, and
exclaim, with more than poetic ardour,