Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/44

28 can prompt his tongue." And yet, almost at this period, we find Dryden writing, "I am much ashamed of myself that I am so much behindhand with you in kindness."

Dryden's translations of the classics had been most successful in selling off the "Miscellanies" very rapidly, and Tonson now induced the author, by the offer of very liberal terms, to commence a translation of Virgil. As usual, the preliminary terms were to be settled in a tavern—a custom between authors and booksellers that seems to have been universal. "Be ready," writes Dryden, "with the price of paper, and of the books. No matter for any dinner; for that is a charge to you, and I care not for it. Mr. Congreve may be with us as a common friend." There were two classes of subscribers, the first of whom paid five guineas each, and were individually honoured with the dedication of a plate, with their arms engraved underneath; the second class paid two guineas only. The first class numbered 101, and the second 250, and the money thus received, minus the expense of the engravings, was handed over to Dryden, who received in addition from Tonson fifty guineas a book for the Georgics and Æneid, and probably the same for the Pastorals collectively. But the price actually charged to the subscribers of the second class appears to have been exorbitant, and reduced the amount of Dryden's profits to about twelve or thirteen hundred pounds—still a very large sum in those days. Frequent, however, were the disputes between them during the progress of the work. The currency at this time was terribly deteriorated, In October, 1695, the poet writes, "I expect fifty pounds in good silver: not such as I have had formerly. I am not