Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/72

52 V THE BOOKSELLERS OF OLDEN TIMES. printing six hundred books, of which he repented only of seven, and these he recommends all who possess to burn forthwith. Somewhat erratic in his habits he went to America to recover a debt of 500, consoling his wife, " dear Iris," through whom he became con- nected with Wesley's father, by sending her sixty letters in one ship. Here he stayed for nearly a twelvemonth, pleasantly viewing the country at his leisure, and cultivating a platonic friendship with maids and widows. At his return he found his business disordered, and sought to make amends by another voyage to Holland. By this "time he had pretty nearly dissipated his capital, but luckily came " into possession of a considerable estate " through the death of a cousin. " The vorld," he says, " now smiled on me, and I have humble servants enough among the stationers, booksellers, printers, and binders." Of all his publications, the only one that attained any fame was the " Athenian Mercury," which reached twenty volumes. His three literary associates in this work were Samuel Wesley, Richard Sault, and Dr. John Norris, and with his aid they resolved all " nice and curious questions in prose and verse," concerning physic, philosophy, love, &c. They were afterwards reprinted in four volumes, under the title of the Athenian Oracle, and form a curious picture of the wants, manners, and opinions of the age ; but the work is, perhaps, chiefly to be remembered as one of the earliest periodicals not professing to contain " news." Dunton now, finding that he did not make much money by bookselling in London, went over to Dublin for six months with a cargo of books and