informs us, that he never was seen to laugh. In this respect he differed widely from Dryden, who has himself told us, that "the merry philosopher was more to his humour than the melancholick." To this natural cheerfulness we may ascribe that vivacity which is found in all his writings, and displayed itself even when he was most depressed. This happy disposition of mind was, however, sometimes disturbed and ruffled by the importunity of his bookseller; on whom, during the latter period of his life, he depended for a considerable part of his subsistence, and whose demands for what, in the technical language of the printinghouse, is called Copy, he was not always able to satisfy. His bookseller, soon after he settled in London, was Henry Herringman; of whom I know no more, than that he was the principal dealer in poetry at that time, and that he continued to issue out Dryden's plays and other compositions till the year 1679. It has been said, that when Jacob Tonson purchased the copy of the first play of Dryden that he published, he was so poor, that he was obliged to borrow the purchasemoney, which was twenty pounds, from Abel Swalle, another bookseller of that day, who advanced that sum on being admitted to a moiety of the profits; and that the play having a successful

author's baldness, and his increasing reputation to the latest period of his life, he happily observes, that the falling off of his hair only showed his laurels the more. ? ANECDOTES.

Vol. ii. p. 200.

sale, Tonson was thus enabled to purchase the copies of our author's other works on his own account. The play alluded to was TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, which was published in 1679, for Tonson and Swalle. To this anecdote, for which no authority has been given, I know not what credit is due. Tonson, before he published Troilus AND CRESSIDA, was sufficiently rich to purchase some of the plays of Otway and Tate. He was the second son of Jacob Tonson, chirurgeon, and citizen of London, who died in the year 1668, By his father's last will, which was made July 10, in that year, and proved in the following November, he and his elder brother Richard,' (as well as their three sisters,) were, each, entitled to a sum of one hundred pounds, to be paid in Gray's-Inn Hall, on their arriving at the age of twenty-one. With this capital (which may be estimated as equal to £.300. at this day,) he commenced book

PREROG. OFF. Hene, qu. 147.

› Richard Tonson had a shop within Gray's-Inn Gate, in Gray's-Inn Lanc. Jacob Tonson's shop for many years was distinguished by the sign of the Judge's Head, and was situated in Chancery Lane, very near Flectstreet. About the year 1697 he removed to Gray's Inn where he remained (probably in consequence of his brother's death, and during the minority of his nephew,) till about 1712, when he again removed to a house opposite Catharine-street, in the Strand: and on his coming nearer the region of wit, he exchanged his old sign for that of the head of Shakspeare, whose plays he had pub. Jished in 1709, and who was then at length become ex, tremely popular.

seller, being admitted a freeman of the Stationers' Company on the 20th of December, 1677. His brother, Richard, engaged in the same business. in the preceding year.

From the letters which passed between Tonson and Dryden, we find that they had occasionally some slight bickerings; which, however, do not seem to have produced any lasting ill will on either side. Booksellers, as the subordinate agents of literature, might be expected to possess some of that softness of manners which letters generally impart to those who cultivate the liberal arts; but by him who is to live by the sale of books, I fear, a book is considered merely as an article of trade; and the most learned or ingenious treatise ever written, when viewed in a commercial light, too often appears only a volume consisting of a certain number of sheets of paper, by the sale of which a profit is to be made. I may. add, that the conduct of traders in general, in the last century, was less liberal, and their manners more rugged, than at present; and hence we find Dryden sometimes speaking of Tonson with a degree of asperity that confirms an anecdote communicated to Dr. Johnson by Dr. King of Oxford; to whom Lord Bolingbroke related, "that one day, when he visited Dryden, they heard, as they were conversing,

Lord Bolingbroke had early commenced a poet; having, in 1697, when he was Mr. St. John, furnished Granville with a Prologue to his HEROICK LOVE. In the same year he wrote some encomiastick verses on Dryden, which were prefixed to his translation of Virgil:

another person entering the house.

This,' said

Dryden, is Tonson: you will take care not to depart before he goes away: for I have not completed the sheet which I promised. him; and if you leave me unprotected, I shall suffer all the rudeness to which his resentment can prompt his tongue."

On another occasion, Tonson having refused to advance him a sum of money for a work on which he was employed, he sent a second messenger to the bookseller, with a very satirical triplet; adding, "Tell the dog, that he who wrote these lines, can write more." These descriptive verses, which had the desired effect, by some means got abroad in manuscript; and, not long after Dryden's death, were inserted in FACTION DISPLAYED, a satirical poem, supposed to have been written by William Shippen, (whom Pope has transmitted to posterity under the appellation of-downright Shippen,) which, from its virulent abuse of the opposite party, was extremely popular among the Tories. About the year 1700 was formed the KIT-KAT CLUB, which seems to have grown out of another

6

and soon afterwards he published a long Ode of little merit, entitled ALMAHIDE.

This Society is said to have first met at an obscure house in Shire-Lane, and consisted of thirty-nine distinguished noblemen and gentlemen, zealously attached to the protestant succession in the House of Hanover: among whom were the Dukes of Somerset, Richmond, Grafton, Devonshire, and Marlborough, and (after the

convivial society called THE KNIGHTS OF THE TOAST, of whom some account will be given in a subsequent page.' Tonson being Secretary to the Kit-Kat Club, which was entirely composed of

accession of George I.) the Duke of Newcastle; the Earls of Dorset, Sunderland, Manchester, Wharton, and King. ston; Lords Halifax and Somers; Sir Robert Walpole, Vanbrugh, Congreve, Granville, Addison, Garth, Maynwaring, Stepney, and Walsh. The Club is supposed to have derived its name from Christopher Katt, a pastry. cook, who kept the house where they dined, and excelled in making mutton-pyes, which always formed a part of their bill of fare. In the SPECTATOR, No. 9, they are said to have derived their title, not from the maker of the pye, but the pye itself. The fact is, that on account of its excellence, it was called a Kit-Kat, as we now say a Sandwich. So, in the Prologue to the REFORMED WIFE, a comedy, 1700:

Often, for change, the meanest things are good: "Thus, though the town all delicates afford, "A Kit-Kat is a supper for a lord."

}

The custom of toasting ladies in regular succession after dinner, had commenced not long before. On the toast. ing-glasses of this Club verses were inscribed, written in 1703, by Lord Halifax, Congreve, Granville, Addison, Garth, and other members, in praise of the most admired beauties of that day; many of which are preserved in Dryden's Miscellanies, (vol. v. edit. 1716.) and in other collections. This circumstance gave rise to an Epigram, the author of which, (perhaps Arbuthnot,) not having quite so much respect for the ladies thus celebrated as their panegyrists, rejected the etymology already men tioned, and that given by Edward Ward,(that the So ciety derived its appellation from a person of the Christian