Note 764 — Chapter VII · (continued 2)

When Franklin came to London, in 1725, there was not a single circulating library in the metropolis. See Franklin's Life of Himself, vol. i. p. 64; and, in 1697, ‘the only library in London which approached the nature of a public library was that of Sion College, belonging to the London clergy.’ Ellis's Letters of Literary Men, p. 245. The exact date of the earliest circulating library I have not yet ascertained; but, according to Southey (The Doctor, edit. Warter, 1848, p. 271), the first set up in London was about the middle of the eighteenth century, by Samuel Fancourt. Hutton (Life of Himself, p. 279) says, ‘I was the first who opened a circulating library in Birmingham, in 1751.’ Other notices of them, during the latter half of the century, will be found in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, vol. ii. p. 329, edit. 1847; Leigh Hunt's Autobiography, vol. i. p. 260; Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. iii. pp. 648, 682; Nichols's Illustrations, vol. i. p. 424; Whewell's Hist. of Moral Philosophy, p. 190; Sinclair's Correspond. vol. i. p. 143. Indeed, they increased so rapidly, that some wise men proposed to tax them, ‘by a licence, at the rate of 2s. 6d. per 100 volumes per annum.’ Sinclair's Hist. of the Revenue, vol. iii. p. 268.