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. [Illustration: Jacob Tonson. 1656-1736. (_From the Portrait by Kneller._)] 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 Tonson and Levalle in 1679. This connection with Dryden, which lasted till the poet’s death, was of only less importance to the furtherance of Tonson’s fortune than a bargain concluded four years later with Brabazon Aylmer for one-half of his interest in the “Paradise Lost,” which Dryden told him was one of the greatest poems England had ever produced. Still he waited four years before he ventured to publish, and then only by the safe method of subscription, and in 1788 the folio edition came out, and by the sale of this and future editions Tonson was, according to Disraeli, enabled to keep his carriage. The other moiety of the copyright was subsequently purchased. There is a pleasant description of Tonson, in these early days, in a short poem by Rowe:-- “While in your early days of reputation You for blue garter had not such a passion, While yet you did not live, as now your trade is, To drink with noble lords and toast their ladies, Thou Jacob Tonson, wert, to my conceiving, The cheerfullest, best honest fellow living.”