from its virulent abuse of the opposite party, was extremely popular among the Tories." Tonson being secretary to the Kitcat club, which was entirely composed of the most distinguished Whigs, could not escape the notice of a Tory satirist, who gave vent to his spleen against him in the following lines; by which he has preserved a description that Dryden probably never intended to be transmitted to posterity:

"Now the Assembly to adjourn prepar'd,
When Bibliopolo from behind appear'd,
As well described by th' old satiric Bard;
With leering look, bull-fac'd, and freckled fair;
With two left legs*, with Judas-coloured hair,
And frowzy pores, that taint the ambient air;
Sweating and puffing for a while he stood,
And then broke forth in this insulting mood:
"I am the touchstone of all modern wit;
Without my stamp in vain your poets write;
Those only purchase ever-living fame,
That in my Miscellany plant their name.
Nor therefore think that I can bring no aid,
Because I follow a mechanic trade ;—

I'll print your pamphlets, and your rumours spread.
I am the founder of your lov'd Kit-cat,

A club that gave direction to the state:
'Twas there we first instructed all our youth,
To talk profane, and laugh at sacred truth:
We taught them how to toast, and rhyme, and bite,
To sleep away the day, and drink away the night."-
Some this fantastic speech approv'd, some sneer'd;
The wight grew choleric, and disappear'd."

}

The Kit-cat club, which consisted of the most distinguished wits and statesmen among the Whigs, was remarkable for the strictest zeal towards the House of Hanover. They met at a house in Shire-lane; and took their title from the name of Christopher Cat, a pastry-cook, who excelled in making mutton-pies, which were regularly part of the entertainment-

Immortal made, as Kit-cat by his pies."

Jacob Tonson, however lain in his appearance, of which the above satirical description may be supposed to have been a caricature, was certainly a worthy man, and was not only respected as an honest and opulent trader, but, after Dryden's death, lived in familiar intimacy with some of the most considerable persons of the early part of the last century. John Dunton says, "He was himself a very good judge of persons and authors: and as there is nobody more competently qualified to give their opinion of another, so there is none who does it with more severe exactness, or with less partiality; for, to do Mr. Tonson justice, he speaks his mind upon all occasions, and will flatter nobody." He used to say, that "Dryden was jealous of rivals.".

This epithet arose from an aukwardness of gait in Mr. Tonson; whom Pope also notices in the Dunciad, as "left-legg'd Jacob."

Speaking

Speaking of Tonson's "Miscellany Poems," in a letter dated May 20, 1709, Mr. Pope says, "I shall be satisfied if I can lose my time agreeably this way, without losing my reputation. I can be content with a bare saving game, without being thought an eminent hand (with which little Jacob has graciously dignified his adventurers and volunteers in poetry). Jacob creates Poets, as Kings do Knights; not for their honour, but for their money. Certainly he ought to be esteemed a worker of miracles, who is grown rich by poetry." Mr. Wycherley in reply, with an inde cent allusion to Scripture, observes, "You will make Jacob's ladder raise you to immortality."-Again, in a letter to Steele, Pope says, "I should myself be much better pleased, if I were told you called me your little friend, than if you complimented me with the title of a great genius, or an eminent hand, as Jacob does all his writers."-By his success in trade, Mr. Tonson had acquired a sufficient sum to purchase an estate near Ledbury in Herefordshire. In the year 1703 he went to Holland, for the purpose of procuring paper and getting engravings made for the splendid edition of Caesar's Commentaries, which he published, under the care of Dr. Clarke, in 1712 perhaps the most magnificent work that has been issued from the English press.' Before he went abroad, he had acquired a villa at Barn-elms, in Surrey, about six miles from London; which he adorned with the portraits of the Kit-cat club, painted by Kneller, on canvas somewhat larger than a three quarters, and less than a half-length: a size which has ever since been denominated a Kit-cat from this circumstance. The room where these portraits were originally intended to be hung (in which the Club often dined), not being sufficiently lofty for half-length pictures, that circumstance is said to have been the occasion of a shorter canvas being used, which is now denominated a Kit-cat, and is sufficiently long to admit a hand. The canvas for a Kit-cat is 36 inches: long, and 28 wide.-A splendid volume under the title of "The Kit-cat club, done from the original Paintings of Sir Godfrey Kneller by Mr. Faber, sold by J. Tonson in the Strand, and T. Faber at the Golden Head in Bloomsbury-square," was published in 1735; containing an engraved title-page and dedication; and 43 portraits, beginning with Sir Godfrey Kneller, and ending with Mr. Tonson's; who is represented in a gown and cap, holding in his right hand a volume lettered Paradise Lost." Faber began the plates, which are all dated in 1732; and the volume is dedicated to the Duke of Somerset ; whose liberality the Collection of Prints owed its very being, in setting the example to the other members of the Kit-cat club of honouring Mr. Tonson with these portraits;" and who was "ever eminently distinguished by that noble principle, for the support of which that Association was known to have been formed, the love of their country and its constitutional liberties." It appears from the will of the younger Jacob Tonson, which was made August 16, and proved Dec. 6, 1735, that he was then, by the grant and assignment of his uncle, entitled to this Collection

" to

of

of Pictures, after his uncle's death; and that the testator had not long before erected a new room at Barn-elms, in which the Kit-cat portraits were then hung. In 1719 Mr. Tonson made an excursion to Paris, where he spent several months, and was fortunate enough to gain a considerable sum by adventuring in the Mississipi scheme. In consequence of his attachment to the Whigs, he obtained in 1719-20, probably by the patronage of the Duke of Newcastle and Secretary Craggs, a grant to himself and his nephew, Jacob Tonson junior (who was the son of his elder brother, Richard), of the office of Stationer, Bookbinder, Bookseller, and Printer, to some of the principal public Boards and great Offices, for the term of forty years; and not long afterwards, (1722) he assigned and made over the whole benefit of this grant to his nephew; who, in 1733, obtained from Sir Robert Walpole a farther grant of the same employment for forty years more, to commence at the expiration of the former term. a very lucrative appointment, which was enjoyed by the Tonson family, or their assigns, till the month of January 1800. From about the year 1720, the elder Tonson seems to have transferred his business to his nephew; and lived principally on his estate in Herefordshire, till 1736, when he died, probably about eighty years old. From his will, which was made. Dec. 2, 1735, and proved April 9, 1736, it appears that he had estates in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. On his death-bed he is reported to have said, "I wish I had the world to begin again;" and having been asked-why he expressed such a wish, replied, " because then I should have died worth a hundred thousand pounds; whereas now I die worth only eighty thousand pounds:" but the circumstances in which he died, and the situation of his family, render this anecdote extremely improbable, and worthy of little credit. Only four months before, his nephew had died; and even he, of whom perhaps this story was originally told, had no occasion to wish for rejuveniscence, to obtain the sum which is here stated as the completion of human felicity; for, according to the printed accounts of that period, he was, at the time of his death, worth an hundred thousand pounds, His will, which filled 27 pages, and was all written by himself, shows him not only to have abounded in wealth, but to have been a prudent, just, and worthy man. He is therefore very unlikely to have expressed any such wish as that above mentioned. After having devised his estates in Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and Worcestershire, and bequeathed no less a sum than 34,000l. to his three daughters and his younger son Samuel, and disposed of his patent; he mentions his uncle, old Jacob Tonson, to whom he leaves fifty guineas for mourning; but, knowing his love of quiet and retirement, he says, he would not burthen him with the office of executor of his will. He however recommends his family to his uncle's care, and exhorts all his children to remember their duty to their superiours and their inferiours; tenderly adding-" And so God bless you all!" This is not the language of a man whose heart was inordinately set on gain.

The

The following epitaph, written by a young gentleman of Eton, is copied from the Gentleman's Magazine for 1736, vol. VI. p. 106. "Vitæ volumine peracto,

Hic finis JACOBI TONSON,
perpoliti sociorum principis:
qui velut obstetrix Musarum
in lucem edidit

fœlices scriptorum chorus,
et frangite calamos !

ille vester margine erasus deletur ;
sed hæc postrema inscriptio
huic primæ mortis pagina,
imprimatur,

ne prelo sepulchri commissus
ipse editor careat titulo:
hic jacet Bibliopola,
folio vitæ dilapso,
expectans novam editionem

auctiorem et emendatiorem."

It appears from his will, that he was a bookseller, bookbinder, and stationer, all which businesses were carried-on in his house; and that he was also a printer, in partnership with John Watts. The elder Jacob probably also carried on all these several occupations. For what purpose then could the elder Tonson wish for any additional wealth? He had no children of his own; and the children of his nephew were all most amply provided for by their father's will. Seventeen days after the death of that nephew (Dec. 2, 1735), old Jacob Tonson made his will; in which he confirmed a settlement that he had made on him (probably at the time of his marriage) and appointed his greatnephew, Jacob Tonson, the eldest son of the former Jacob, his executor and residuary legatee. This must have been an immense accession to what he already had derived from his father who devised ali his estates in Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and Worcestershire, in what is called strict settlement, to his sons, Jacob, Richard, and Samuel, successively; and the whole benefit of his patent between the two elder, whom he also made his residuary legatees.

;

Jacob Tonson, the third bookseller of the name (who is called by Dr. Johnson "the late amiable Mr. Tonson") served the office of high sheriff for the county of Surrey in 1750; and in 1759 paid the customary fine for being excused serving the same important office for the city of London and county of Middlesex (his father and great-uncle having both paid the same fine in the year 1734). He carried on his trade, with great liberality, and credit to himself, for above thirty years, in the same shop which had been possessed by his father and great uncle, opposite Catharine-street in the Strand; but, some years before his death, removed to a new house on the other side of the way, near Catharine-street, where he died, without issue, March 31, 1767. And Mr. Steevens afterwards, in a Prefatory Advertisement to the edition

edition of Shakespeare in 1778, honoured his memory with the following characteristic eulogium.

To those who have advanced the reputation of our Poet, it has been endeavoured, by Dr. Johnson, in the foregoing preface, impartially to allot their dividend of fame; and it is with great regret that we now add to the catalogue, another, the consequence of whose death will perhaps affcct, not only the works of Shakespeare, but of many other writers. Soon after the first appearance of this edition, a disease, rapid in its progress, deprived the world of Mr. Jacob Tonson; a man, whose zeal for the improvement of English literature, and whose liberality to men of learning, gave him a just title to all the honours which men of learning can bestow. To suppose that a person employed in an extensive trade lived in a state of indifference to loss and gain, would be to conceive a character incredible and romantic; but it may be justly said of Mr. Tonson, that he had enlarged his mind beyond solicitude about petty losses, and refined it from the desire of unreasonable profit. He was willing to admit those with whom he contracted, to the just advantage of their own labours; and had never learned to consider the author as an under-agent to the bookseller. The wealth which he inherited or acquired, he enjoyed like a man conscious of the dignity of a profession subservient to learning. His domestic life was elegant, and his charity was liberal. His manners were soft, and his conversation delicate: nor is, perhaps, any quality in him more to be censured, than that reserve which confined his acquaintance to a small number, and made his example less useful, as it was less extensive. He was the last commercial name of a family which will be long remembered; and if Horace thought it not improper to convey the Sosii to posterity; if rhetoric suffered no dishonour from Quintilian's dedication to Trypho; let it not be thought that we disgrace Shakespeare, by appending to his works the name of Tonson."

Though his younger brother, Richard, survived him a few years, he interfered but little with the concerns of the trade. Bv his father's will, the estate at Water-Oakley, in the parish of Bray, near Windsor, was directed to be sold, and the produce to be considered as part of his personal property; but, either by agreement with his family or by purchase, it came into the hands of the second son, Richard; who, though a partner with his elder brother, lived principally at Water-Oakley; where he was so much beloved and respected, that the electors of New Windsor almost compelled him to represent them in parliament; an honour which he enjoyed at the time of his death. In this delightful retreat, where his benevolence and hospitality are still recollected, he built a room lighted at the top by a dome, and an anti-chamber for the reception of the celebrated Kit-cat portraits, which had descended to him on the death of his brother Jacob. They were ranged on each side the room in two rows, and in the following order: Over the Chimney: the Duke of Newcastle and Henry Earl of Lincoln, in one picture. In the First Row: 1. Charles Sey

mour,