Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/38

24 The first "eminent man of letters" was Dryden, who serves us as a connecting link between those who earned their livelihood by writing for the stage and those who earned it by working for the booksellers, and the first "eminent publisher" was Jacob Tonson, his bookseller. Dryden, like his predecessors, commenced life as a dramatist, but in his times plays acquired a marketable value elsewhere than on the stage. Before Tonson started, Dryden's works—almost entirely plays—were sold by Herringman, the chief bookseller in London, says Mr. Peter Cunningham, before Tonson's time; but now only remembered because Dryden lodged at his house, taking his money out in kind, as authors then often did.

Jacob Tonson, born in 1656, was the son of a barber-surgeon in Holborn, who died when his two sons were both very young, leaving them each a hundred pounds to be paid them on their coming of age. The two lads resolved to become printers and booksellers, and, at fourteen, Jacob was apprenticed to Thomas Barnet. After serving the usual term of seven years he was admitted to the freedom of the Stationers' Company, and immediately commenced business with his small capital at the Judge's House, in Chancery Lane, close to the corner of Fleet Street. Like many other publishers he began trade by selling second-hand books and those produced by other firms, but he soon issued plays on his own account; finding, however, that the works of Otway and Tate, which were among his first attempts, had no very extensive sale, he boldly made a bid for Dryden's next play, but the twenty pounds required by the author was too great a venture for his small capital, so "Troilus and Cressida; or Truth found too Late," was published conjointly by