providence, meet with a wife of a considerable estate, you may, by her portion, set up your trade without mortgaging of your land." John Dunton had thus some present command of capital, which he was in a fair way to improve into a fortune, or, more probably, to dissipate. "Printing," he says, 66 was now the uppermost in my thoughts, and hackney authors began to ply me with specimens as earnestly, and with as much passion and concern, as the watermen do passengers with oars and scullers." He was, however, for a time, prudent; confined his business of publishing to the works of Nonconformist ministers, to whom his name was a recommendation.

His first

venture was a work by the Reverend Thomas Doolittle. His mode of managing this volume shows how in the primitive days, when there was little ready money, and credit was not easily attainable for a beginner, there was a good understanding amongst booksellers, which had much of the simplicity of barter. "This book fully answered my end; for, exchanging it through the whole trade, it furnished my shop with all sorts of books saleable at that time." He says, "I would endeavour to penetrate, as far as possible, into the mysteries of my trade." Some of the publishing mysteries of that time he seems to have eschewed. "A man should be furnished with an honest policy, if he intends to set out in the world now-a-days. And this is no less necessary in a bookseller, than in any other tradesman, for in that way there are plots and counterplots, and a whole army of hackney authors, that keep their grinders moving by the travail of their

pens. These gormandisers will eat you the very life out of a copy so soon as ever it appears; for, as the times go, original and abridgment are almost reckoned as necessary as man and wife; so that I am really afraid a bookseller and a good conscience will shortly grow some strange thing in the earth." Dunton, I trust, was preserved from some of the dangers of his susceptible nature, as well as from the temptations of commercial life, by marrying into a religious family. He fell in love at church with Elizabeth Annesley, the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Annesley, an eminent preacher amongst the Nonconformists. By marrying this lady he became the brother-in-law of Samuel Wesley, the father of the famous John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. The courtship appears to have been conducted on Dunton's part with as much poetical as religious fervour. Plain Elizabeth was not sufficiently lofty for his impassioned letters. His mistress was the "lovely Iris," and he, "poor languishing Philarete." In spite of these affectations they were united in 1682, and Dr. Annesley preached the marriage sermon. "Dear Iris" gave an early specimen of her prudence and diligence. She was "bookseller and cash-keeper" at Dunton's shop, the Black Raven, in Gracechurch-street, and he honestly admits, "managed all my affairs for me, and left me entirely to my own rambling and scribbling humours." He soon found, or made, an occasion for the indulgence of his vagrant humour. "There came an universal damp upon trade by the defeat of Monmouth in the West; and at this time, having 5007.

owing to me in New England, I began to think it worth my while to make a voyage of it thither." Landing at Boston, after a voyage of four months, he consoled dear Iris by sending her sixty letters by one ship. Half of his venture in books had been cast away in the Downs. He was away nearly a year, trafficking without much profit, for he says of the inhabitants of Boston," he that trades with them may get promises enough, but their payments come late." He has more to tell about his platonic friendships with maids and widows, than of his dealings with the four booksellers of Boston, to whom he was

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as welcome as sour ale in summer." On his return to England he found his affairs in a bad condition, and sought to mend them by a voyage to Holland.

At this period the young bookseller's capital was evidently much wasted already, by improvident speculations, by his unstable habits, and by becoming surety for summer friends. Yet, he boasts that of the six hundred books he printed during his career, he had only to repent of seven. One project was a decided success, and has associated his name with the discovery of the power of periodical publication, as applied to other subjects than news. Of 'The Athenian Mercury,' the first number appeared on March 17, 1690. With all his versatility, John Dunton kept on this penny tract, of a single leaf, till February, 1696, when he proposed to publish his 'Mercuries' in quarterly volumes. He decided upon this course, as the coffee-houses had the Votes every day, and nine newspapers every week." He designed, however, to resume his weekly half-sheet

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6

"as soon as the glut of news is a little over." In 1696 William III., after his glorious campaign, had to struggle against the plots of St. Germains; and the nation, amidst the discovery and punishment of treason, had little time for the solution by the "Athenians" of "the nice and curious questions proposed by the ingenious." Regarding the nineteen volumes of the Athenian Mercury' as the precursors of a revolution in the entire system of our lighter literature, which turned pamphlets and broadsides into magazines and miscellanies, I may call up the shadow of John Dunton, to linger a while on the scene with his "Athenian Society," which he avers “had their first meeting in my brain." He had three associates in this Society,-Richard Sault, a Cambridge theologian; Samuel Wesley; and the Rev. Dr. John Norris. They contrived to persuade the world that they were "the only knowing men of Europe," by keeping their names "religiously secret." In 'The History of the Athenian Society,' by one of the members (published in 'The Athenian Oracle,’ a selection from the periodical work) it is maintained that "England has the glory of giving rise to two of the noblest designs that the art of man is capable of inventing the Royal Society and the Athenian Society." Of the latter, the aim is "to advance all knowledge, and diffuse a general learning through the many, and by that civilize more now in a few years, than Athens itself did of old during the ages it flourished."

Of the success of his little periodical, and of the fame which it brought to him, Dunton was naturally

proud. Poems in its honour "were written by the chief wits of the age." The Marquis of Halifax perused it; and "the late Sir William Temple, a man of clear judgment and wonderful penetration, was pleased to honour me with frequent letters and questions." Another record is more curious: "Mr. Swift, a country gentleman, sent an ode to the Athenian Society, which, being an ingenious poem, was prefixed to the fifth supplement of the 'Athenian Mercury."" This was the Ode of which Johnson speaks: "I have been told that Dryden, having perused these verses, said, 'Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet;' and that this denunciation was the motive of Swift's perpetual malevolence to Dryden." The poem is to be found in all editions of Swift. We are startled when we read,

Pardon, ye great unknown, and far-exalted men,
The wild excursions of a youthful pen."

But how far more surprising is it to find Jonathan Swift, the haughtiest of mankind, sounding "the very base string of humility," in his letter "to the Athenian Society," dated from Moor Park, February 14, 1691: "For the Ode enclosed, I have sent it to a person of very great learning and honour, and since to some others, the best of my acquaintance (to which I thought very proper to inure it for a greater light), and they have all been pleased to tell me that they are sure it will not be unwelcome, and that I should beg the honour of you to let it be printed before your next volume (which I think is soon to be published), it being so usual amongst books of any great value