EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
665
doubtedly conc^rad a very ill impression of his quondam bookseller, and vented his indignation without mercy in the Duneiad. His principal delinquency, however, seems to have been, that he was a stout man, clumsily made, not a very considerable scholar, and that he filled his shop with rubric poitt. Agidnst his benevolence and general moral character there is not even an in- sinuation. In the first book, he is thus ungra- ciously introduced —
" Hence Mlscellaniea BprtnK, the weekly boait Of CiuU's choice press, and lintot's labile poat."
On which the learned annotator remarks, that " the former was fined by the court of king's bench for publishing obscene books ; the latter vtvally adorned hu thop with titUt m red letter: In the race described in the second book of the Duneiad, in honour of the goddess of Dulness, Lintot and Curll are entered as rival candidates :
" Bat loftr Untot in the ebde lOM : "lUa prize Is mine I who tempt it are my foe* i WiUt me began this genlos, and shall end.* He spoke i and who with Untot shall contend ) Fear hdd him mat& Alone, ontanght to fear. Stood danntlessCaill! ' behold that rival here ! The lace by vigonr, not by vaonts, is won g Bo take the hindmost, heUI' (he said) and mn. Swift as a bant the bailiff leaves behind. He left huge Lintot, and ont-stiipp'd the wind. As when a dab-chick waddles through the copse On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops j So labMng on, wlUi shoulders, bands, and head. Wide as a windmill all his figure spread. With aims expanded Bernard rows bis state, And t^ft-ltgfi Jacot* seems to emulate."
Bernard Lintot appears to have soon after re- linquished his business to his son Henry, and to have retired to Horsham, in Sussex ; for which county he was nominated high sherifi" in Novem- ber, 1735, an honour which he did not live to enjoy. He died at the age of sixty-one years. In the newspapers of the day he was styled " Bernard Lintot, esq., of the Middle Temple, late an eminent bookseller in Fleet-street."
1736. Proceedings in the tiibmiuitm betwixt W. R. Freehaim, hi* majeity'i printer, and Mr. J. Blair, of Anlblair, and Mr. J. Nmm, of Greenyards, aspirituj to be King'i Printert. Edinburgh, 1736, folio.
1736. Died, Thom.\s James, letterfounder in Bartholomew close, London. He was the son of the rev. John James, vicar of Basingstoke, and served his apprenticeship with Mr. Robert An- drews. In 1710 he went to Holland for the Eurpose of purchasing a set of matrices, and on is return commencedbusinessin Aldermanbury, from thence he removed to Town-ditch, and at leng^ settled in St. Bartholomew close. He was connected with Ged in prosecuting the de- sign of stereotype printing, in which he expended much of his fortune, and suffered in his proper business ; " for the printers," say Rowe Mores, " would not employ him, because the block- printing, had it succeeded, would have been
- Jacob Tonsoa the elder.— This epHhet areas fTom an
•wkwardneu of gait.
prejudicial to theirs." Upon the death of Mr. James, the following circular was issued through the trade : — Advertitement. The death of Mr. Thomas James, of Bartholomew-close, letter- founder, having been industriously published in the newspapers, without the least mention of any person to succeed in his business, it is become necessary for the widow James to give as public notice, that she carries on the business of lettei- foundmg, to as great exactness as formerly, by her son John James, who had managed it during his father's long illness ; the letter this advertisement is printed on being his perform- ance : And he casts all other sorts, from the largest to the smallest size; also the Saxon, Greek, Hebrew, and all the oriental types of various sizes.
1736, AprU2. Died, Jacob ToNSON,the elder, the most celebrated bookseller that this country ever produced. He was the son of a barber- surgeon of the same name in Holboro, who died in 1668. He was apprenticed June 0, 1670, to Thomas Basset,* bookseller, and having been admitted a freeman of the company of stationers, Dec. 20, 1677, commenced business on his own account. At this period his finances could not have been very flourishing; for it is recorded that he was unable to pay twenty pounds for the first play of Dryden's, the Spanish Friar, 1681, and was accordingly compelled to admit another bookseller to share in the transaction. To this circumstance, added to the lucky bargain with the possessor of the copyright of Paradise Lost,f may be referred most ot his subsequent popularity and good fortune.
Sir Walter Scott (says our author) has pre- sented the several unedited letters between the poet and his publisher, which throws a good deal of light upon the history of both. The earliest of these was in 1684, preparatory to the printing of the second volume of Miscellaneous Poems^ equally known by the name of Dryden or of Tonson, and is written in terms of great fami- liarity, with thanks for "two melons." Tonson's reply is perfectly the tradesman's; satisfied with the translations of Ovid, which he had received for his third Miscellany, but objecting, as usual.
- Dunton chaiacteiizes a Mr. R. Basset, in Fleet-street.
" I shaU not speak of the wit and parts of this young man ; but that remarkable fntitnde that shines so hiisht in his countenance. It Is true, fighting is not his trade ; yet he can wear his courage upon occasion as handsomely as a gentleman does leaniing ; for he knows how to ap- prove both his loyalty and valour ; and I leally believe would be as literal ot his blood as his money, for the preservation of our dear-booKht new-ieooveied Ubeitlca.
t Barbazon Allmer, the assignee of Samuel Simmons, disposes of one half of bis rleht in Paradiu Last, to Jacob Tonson, August 17, lOSS : the other half at «• adtmux, Mareh S4, IWO.
t Speaking of Tonson's Miaeettanf Poems, in a letter dated Mar SO, 1709, Pope says, "I shallbesatisfled if 1 can lose my tune agreeably this way, wlthoat losing my repu- tation . I can be content with a bare saving game, without being thought sa emhuiU kami (with which lUUe Jaeot gradonsly dignified his adventurers and volunteers in poetry.) Jscob creates poets, as kings do knights ; not for their honour, but for their money. Certainly he onght to be esteemed a worker of miracles, who is grown rich by poetry." Wycherly, In reply, with an indecent allnsion to scriptoie, obaerres, "You will make Jaeoi's taMtr raise you to immortality."
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