John Payne (d. 1787; fl. 1744–1787)

PAYNE (JOHN), bookseller and publisher in London, (1) Pope's Head, Paternoster Row, (2) The Feathers, Paternoster Row. 1745–87. It is not known if any relationship existed between this bookseller and those of the Brackley family. He appears to have set up about 1740, and was a member of the club which met in Ivy Lane of which Dr. Johnson was the founder in 1749; in March 1750 appeared the first number of the periodical called The Rambler, John Payne having agreed to give Johnson two guineas for each paper as it appeared and to give him also a share of the profits. He also published The Adventurer, No. xvili of which he was selling on January 6th, 1753 [Public Advertiser], also the early numbers of The Universal Chronicle, No. 5 of which (May 6th, 1758) is entitled Payne's Universal Chronicle. Johnson's Idler first appeared in No. 2. In 1765 there is an advertisement of the sale of the Universal Museum, printed for J. Payne, The Feathers, Paternoster Row. [Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, July Ist, 1765] In 1744 John Payne had entered the service of the Bank of England, and from 1780 to 1785 was accountant-general.

PAYNE, JOHN (d. 1787), publisher, whose brother Henry was a bookseller in Pall Mall, established himself in Paternoster Row, at first by himself, but afterwards in partnership with Joseph Bouquet (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. ix. 668). He became intimate with Dr. Johnson, and was elected a member of the Rambler Club in Ivy Lane, which was formed by Johnson in the winter of 1749 (ib. ix. 502, 779). When Johnson started the ‘Rambler,’ in March 1750, Payne agreed to give him two guineas for each paper as it appeared, and to admit him to a share of the profits arising from the sale of the collected work (Timperley, Encyclopædia, 2nd edit. p. 678). The bargain proved profitable.

Meanwhile Payne had been admitted to the service of the Bank of England on 7 March 1744. In 1769 he was a chief clerk, in 1773 deputy accountant-general, and in 1780 accountant-general, a post which he held until 1785 (Royal Kalendars).

But through life Payne retained an interest in the publishing business (cf. Nichols, iii. 223). In 1785 he arranged to print an English translation of Thomas à Kempis's ‘Imitatio.’ He wrote and published: 1. ‘New Tables of Interest,’ oblong 16mo, London, 1758, a useful compilation, for which Johnson wrote a preface. 2. ‘A Letter occasioned by the Lord Bishop of Gloucester's [Warburton] “Doctrine of Grace,”’ 8vo, London, 1763 (ib. v. 620). An anonymous ‘Letter to a modern Defender of Christianity,’ 12mo, London, 1771, attributed to a John Payne in Halkett and Laing's ‘Dictionary,’ p. 1373, may be by the accountant-general. His letters to Dr. Thomas Birch, extending from 1752 to 1754, are in Additional MS. 4316 in the British Museum. He died unmarried at Lympston, near Exeter, on 10 March 1787 (Probate Act Book, P.C.C. 1787; will registered in P.C.C. 142, Major; information from the Bank of England).

Payne has been confused with another John Payne (fl. 1800), compiler, who also began his career as a publisher in Paternoster Row. After 1760 he entered into partnership with Joseph Johnson [q. v.], and continued with him until 1770, when nearly the whole of their property was consumed by fire (Timperley, pp. 836, 838 n.) Payne then betook himself to Marsham Street, Westminster, and turned author. He is described as an ‘indefatigable manufacturer’ of books, issued in weekly numbers under the high-sounding names of ‘George Augustus Hervey,’ ‘William Frederick Melmoth,’ &c. (Dict. of Living Authors, 1816, p. 265). Under the former pseudonym he issued a creditable ‘Naval, Commercial, and General History of Great Britain, from the earliest time to the rupture with Spain in 1779,’ in 5 vols. 8vo (Rivers, Literary Memoirs of Living Authors, ii. 117). His own avowed compilations, the first two of which were published by Johnson, are: 1. ‘Universal Geography,’ 2 vols. fol. London, 1791, with maps and copperplates, a work which occupied him eight years. 2. ‘An Epitome of History,’ 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1794–5 (a second edition of vol. i. appeared in 1795). 3. ‘Geographical Extracts,’ 8vo, London, 1796. 4. ‘A concise History of Greece,’ 8vo, London, 1800, of which the first volume only was issued (Reuss, Reg. of Authors, 1790–1803, ii. 177).

[Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. Croker, 1848, pp. 58 n., 78, 79; authorities cited in the text.]

G. G.