Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/49

Rh "many of the quality grew fond of sharing the everlasting honour that was likely to crown the poetical society." Sir Godfrey Kneller, himself a member, painted portraits of all the members, commencing with the Duke of Somerset, and these were hung round the club-room at Tonson's country house at Water Oakeley, where the members of the club were in after-times wont to meet. The tone of the clubroom became decidedly political, and interesting as it is, our space forbids us to do more than give the following lines from "Faction Displayed" (1705), which, by-the-way, quotes Dryden's threatening triplet, already alluded to:—

I am the Touchstone of all modern wit; Without my stump, in vain you poets writ. Those only purchase everlasting fame That in my 'Miscellany' plant their name. I am the founder of your loved Kit-Kat, A Club that gave direction to the state. 'Twas here 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."

By this time Tonson had taken his nephew into partnership, had left his old shop in Chancery Lane, and changed his sign from the "Judge's Head" to the "Shakespeare's Head;" and he and his descendants had certainly a right to the latter symbol, for the editions of Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Warburton, Samuel Johnson, and Capell, were all associated with their name. The following schedule of the prices paid to the various editors possesses some bibliographical interest:—