Manchester. Among them are many very beautiful bindings, as well as the large-paper copy of Potter's translation of ‘Æschylus,’ printed at Glasgow in 1795, in which are contained Flaxman's original drawings, bound in blue morocco. This is thought by some to be Roger Payne's masterpiece. The same collection includes also the Aldine edition of Homer's ‘Iliad,’ printed on vellum in 1504, on which he was at work at the time of his death. The Cracherode collection, now in the British Museum, likewise contains many excellent examples of his work, among which may especially be noted Cicero's ‘De Oratore,’ printed at Rome by Ulrich Han in 1468, bound in red morocco; the ‘Historia’ of Justinus, printed at Venice by Jenson in 1470, in blue morocco; Cicero's ‘De Finibus,’ Venice, 1471, in red morocco, with blind tooling on the outside; Cicero's ‘Epistolæ ad Familiares,’ printed by Jenson at Venice in 1475, in red morocco; the ‘Erotemata’ of Lascaris, Venice, 1495, in olive-brown morocco; the Cambridge edition of Euripides, 1694, in blue morocco; and the Aldine Virgil of 1505, in blue morocco, with a cameo inserted in each cover. The British Museum also possesses, in the Grenville collection, two good specimens: East's undated edition of the ‘Storye of Kynge Arthur,’ bound in red morocco; and the Genoa edition of Tasso's ‘Gierusalemme Liberata,’ 1590, in olive morocco. A copy of the first folio Shakespeare, 1623, bound in russia, is in the library of Mr. Christie-Miller at Britwell Court, Buckinghamshire.
[Gent. Mag. 1797, ii. 1070, notice by John Nichols; Dibdin's Bibliographical Decameron, 1817, ii. 506–18; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. vi. 131; Andrews's Roger Payne and his Art, New York, 1892; Miss Prideaux's Historical Sketch of Bookbinding, 1893; Portfolio, 1893, p. 101; Horne's Binding of Books, 1894, pp. 199–205.]
PAYNE, THOMAS (1719–1799), bookseller, son of Oliver and Martha Payne of Brackley, Northamptonshire, was baptised at Brackley 26 May 1719. His elder brother, Oliver Payne, established himself as a bookseller at Round Court in the Strand, London, which was opposite York Buildings, but has been effaced by the Charing Cross Hospital, and originated the practice of printing lists of the books for sale at his shop. Thomas Payne was at first his assistant, and afterwards his successor in the business. About 1745 he married Elizabeth Taylor, and succeeded her brother, who was also a bookseller, in his house and shop in Castle Street, next the Mewsgate, the entrance by St. Martin's Church to the King's Mews. In 1750 he rebuilt the premises and constructed the shop in the shape of the letter L. The convenience of the situation made it the favourite place of resort for the literati of the day, and it became known as the Literary Coffee-house. Among the frequenters of the sale-room were Cracherode, Gough, Porson, Burney, Thomas Grenville, George Stevens, Cyril Jackson, Lord Spencer, Malone, and Windham. Mathias refers to it in the first dialogue of the ‘Pursuits of Literature’ (ll. 190–4) with the question:
Must I as a wit with learned air,
Like Doctor Dewlap, to Tom Payne's repair,
Meet Cyril Jackson, and mild Cracherode
'Mid literary gods, myself a god?
and in a note calls Payne ‘one of the best and honestest men living. … I mention this Trypho Emeritus with great satisfaction.’
The first of his book-lists was issued on 29 Feb. 1740–1, and for thirty-five years, beginning with 1755, a new catalogue, usually of not less than two hundred pages, was issued each year, most of which are at the British Museum. A list of them is printed in Nichols's ‘Literary Anecdotes’ (iii. 655–60), and among the collections which passed through his hands were those of Francis Peck, Ralph Thoresby, Dr. Kennicott, Francis Grose, Cornwall the speaker, and the Bishops Beauclerk and Newton. One of his assistants was John Hatchard, the founder of the bookselling firm in Piccadilly.
Payne continued in business with increasing success until 1790, when he retired in favour of his son Thomas (1752–1831) [q. v.], who had been his partner for more than twenty years. He died on 2 Feb. 1799, and was buried on 9 Feb. at Finchley, near his wife, who had died many years previously, and brother. A poetical epitaph was written for him by Hayley (Nichols, Lit. Anecdotes, ix. 666). His children were two sons and two daughters, who were described in 1775 as ‘pretty and motherless.’ Sally married, on 6 Sept. 1785, Admiral James Burney [q. v.], and their daughter Sarah married John Payne, of the firm of Payne & Foss.
Payne was ‘warm in his friendships and politics, a convivial, cheerful companion, and unalterable in the cut and colour of his coat,’ and was universally known as ‘honest Tom Payne.’ All the copperplates in Gough's edition of Camden's ‘Britannia’ were engraved at his expense, and Gough gave him in return the whole of the printed copies, with the exception of about fifteen impressions, and left him a legacy of 500l. Roger Payne [q. v.], the bookbinder, was for
