Dibdin proves that this charge of over-pricing is quite unjust. He writes: “Whoever inspects Osborne’s Catalogue of 1748 (four years after the Harleian sale) will find in it many of the most valuable of Lord Oxford’s books; and among them a copy of the Aldine Plato of 1513 struck off upon vellum, marked at £21 only—for this identical copy Lord Oxford gave 100 guineas, as Dr. Mead informed Dr. Askew; from the latter of whose collections it was purchased by Dr. Hunter, and is now in the Hunter Museum. There will be found in Osborne’s Catalogues of 1748 and 1753 some of the scarcest books in English literature marked at 2 or 3 or 4s. for which three times the number of pounds is now given.”9 Dibdin has given a useful analysis of the contents of the Harleian Library in his Bibliomania. Osborne published a large number of catalogues full of literary curiosities, and with interesting notes and prefaces. In Mr. Thorpe’s Catalogue of 1851 there is a notice of a set of Osborne’s Catalogues from 1729 to 1768, in forty-three volumes octavo. This famous bookseller died on 27th August 1767, and he is said to have left behind him some forty thousand pounds.
No bookseller has ever been held in higher esteem than Thomas Payne, who was honourably known as “honest Tom Payne.” Payne’s shop at the Mews Gate, where the National Gallery now stands, was for years the great afternoon resort of the chief book collectors. Here met such men as Cracherode, George Steevens, Malone, Lord Spencer, Grenville, Bishop Dampier, Towneley, and Colonel Stanley. Payne lived at the Mews Gate for forty years, having commenced business as an assistant to his elder brother, Oliver Payne. Thomas’s first catalogue, when he set up for himself, is dated 1740. He removed to Pall Mall, and retired from business in 1790. He died in 1799, at the age of eighty-two. He was succeeded by his son, who, in partnership with Henry Foss, carried on a first-rate bookselling business in Pall Mall for many years. The catalogue of the Grenville Library was made and published by them.
George Nicol, styled by Beloe in his Sexagenarian “a superb bookseller,” was a man of great influence in his day. He was largely instrumental in