From John Dunton, the bookseller, we get the following description:--“He was bookseller to the famous Dryden, and is himself a very good judge of persons and authors; and, as there is nobody more competently qualified to give their opinion upon another, so there is none who does it with a more severe exactness, or with less partiality; for, to do Mr. Tonson justice, he speaks his mind upon all occasions, and will flatter nobody.” Not only did Tonson first make “Paradise Lost” popular, but some years afterwards he was the first bookseller to throw Shakespeare open to a reading public. Then, as now, however, the works in most urgent demand were “novelties,” and with these Dryden supplied his publisher as fast almost as pen could drive upon paper. From the correspondence between Dryden and Tonson, printed in Scott’s edition of the poet’s works, they seem to have been privately on very friendly terms, falling out only when agreements were to be signed or payments to be made. Tonson was at this time publishing what are sometimes known as _Tonson’s_, sometimes as _Dryden’s_, _Miscellany Poems_, written, so the title-pages averred, by the “most eminent hands.” _Apropos_ of this, Pope writes, “Jacob creates poets as kings create knights, not for their honour, but for their money. I can be satisfied with a bare saving gain without being thought an eminent hand.” The first volume of the “Miscellany” was published in 1684, and the second in the following year, and of this second, Dryden writes, after thanking the bookseller for two melons--“since we are to have nothing but new, I am resolved we shall have nothing but good, whomever we disoblige.” The third “Miscellany” was published in 1693, and Tonson sends an earnest letter of remonstrance anent the amount of “copy” received of the translation of Ovid:--“You may please, sir, to remember that upon my first proposal about the third ‘Miscellany,’ I offered fifty pounds, and talked of several authors without naming Ovid. You asked if it should not be guineas, and said I should not repent it; upon which I immediately complied, and left it wholly to you what, and for the quantity too; and I declare it was the furthest in the world from my thoughts that by leaving it to you I should have the less.” He proceeds to show that Dryden had sold a previous, though recent translation to another bookseller at the rate of 1518 lines for forty guineas, while he adds, “all that I have for fifty guineas are but 1446; so that if I have no more, I pay ten guineas above forty, and have 72 lines less for fifty in proportion. I own, if you don’t think fit to add something more, I must submit; ’tis wholly at your choice, for I left it entirely to you; but I believe you cannot imagine I expected so little; for you were pleased to use me much kindlier in Juvenal, which is not reckoned so easy to translate as Ovid. Sir, I humbly beg your pardon for this long letter, and, upon my word, I had rather have your good will than any