The Turk’s Head Coffee-house stood on the site of No. 142 Strand. Dr. Johnson used to sup at this house to encourage the hostess, who was a good civil woman, and had not too much business. July 28, 1763, Boswell mentions supping there with Dr. Johnson; and again, on August 3, in the same year, just before he set out for his wildgoose chase in Corsica.[93] No. 132 was the shop of a bookseller named Bathoe. The first circulating library in London was established here in 1740. Jacob Tonson, Dryden’s grinding publisher and bookseller, lived at the Shakspere’s Head, over against Catherine Street, now No. 141 Strand, from about 1712 till he died, in 1735-6. Tonson seems to have been rough, hard, and penurious. The poet and publisher were perpetually squabbling, and Dryden was especially vexed at his trying to force him to dedicate his translation of Virgil to King William, and when he refused, making the engraver of the frontispiece aggravate the nose of Æneas till it became “a hooked promontory,” like that of the Protestant king. It was to Tonson’s shop at Gray’s Inn, however, that Dryden, on being refused money, probably sent that terrible triplet to the obdurate bibliopole:-- “With leering looks, bull-faced, and freckled fair, With two left legs, and Judas-colour’d hair, And frowsy pores that taint the ambient air.”[94] “Tell the dog,” said Dryden to his messenger, “that he who wrote those can write more.” But Tonson was perfectly satisfied with this first shot, and surrendered at discretion. The irascible poet afterwards accused him of intercepting his letters to his sons at Rome, and he confessed to Bolingbroke on one occasion that he was afraid of Tonson’s tongue.[95] Tonson’s house, since rebuilt, was afterwards occupied by Andrew Millar, the publisher and friend of Thomson, Fielding, Hume, and Robertson, and after his death by Thomas Cadell, his apprentice, and the friend and publisher of Gibbon the historian. The _Seasons_, _Tom Jones_, and the Histories of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon were first published at this house. Millar was a Scotchman, and distinguished his shop by the sign of Buchanan’s Head, afterwards the badge of Messrs. Blackwood. The _Illustrated London News_, whose office is near Somerset House, was started in 1842 by Mr. Herbert Ingram, originally a humble newsvendor at Northampton; an industrious man, who would run five miles with a newspaper to oblige an old customer. In the first year he sold a million copies; in the second, two; and in 1848, three millions. Dr. Mackay, the song-writer, wrote leaders; Mr. Mark Lemon aided him; Mr. Peter Cunningham collected his column of weekly chat; Thomas Miller, the basket-maker poet, was also on his staff. Mr. Ingram obtained a seat in Parliament, and was eventually drowned in a steamboat collision on Lake Michigan. [Illustration: PENN’S HOUSE, NORFOLK STREET, 1749.] [Illustration: SOMERSET HOUSE FROM THE RIVER, 1746.] CHAPTER IV. SOMERSET HOUSE.