a man of sense and spirit. He immediately brought out a duodecimo edition, at half-a-crown a volume. In the Annals of Mr. Bowyer's Press we find, in 1720, "The six volumes of Pope's 'Homer,' finely printed from an Elzevir letter." In a former work I said, "It may well be doubted if Pope would have made five thousand three hundred pounds if he had originally gone, without the quarto subscription process, to the buyers of duodecimos. Perhaps even the duodecimos would not have sold extensively without the reputation of the quartos. There was no great reading public to make a fortune for the poet out of small profits upon large sales.' I perhaps should have said that it might have been doubted whether the poet would have speedily realised his little fortune. Mr. Singer, the editor of 'Spence's Anecdotes,' states that Pope “ was at first apprehensive that the contract might ruin Lintott, and endeavoured to dissuade him from thinking any more of it. The event, however, proved quite the reverse. The success of the work was so unparalleled as at once to enrich the bookseller, and prove a productive estate to his family." The fortunes of the family were certainly improving since the time when Dunton wrote of Bernard, in allusion to Durfey, the music-master, as his leading genius-"He, I dare engage, will never want an author of sol-fa." In Humphrey Wanley's Diary of January, 1726, there is this entry: "Young Mr. Lintott, the bookseller, came inquiring after arms, as belonging to his father, mother, and other relations,

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66

'Once upon a Time,' edit. 1865, p. 281.

who now, it seems, want to turn gentlefolks. I could find none of their names." Young Mr. Lintott, the bookseller, was Henry, the son of Bernard, and succeeded to his father's business.

The dignity of the system of publishing books by subscription was, perhaps, sufficiently vindicated by the success of Dryden's 'Virgil,' of Steele's republication of The Tatler,' of Pope's 'Iliad,' and his 'Shakespeare.' Whilst small authors, who adopted this mode of sale, were frequently little higher than the begging-letter writers, the occasional grandeur of the subscription plan is illustrated by the fact that the Dean and Chapter of Christchurch, Oxford, entered into an engagement with Lintott, in 1715, that he should print by subscription the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, dividing the profits with the Dean and Chapter, for the purpose of finishing the Peckwater Quadrangle. Mr. Urry, a student of Christchurch, had obtained a patent for the exclusive printing of his edition, which he assigned, in 1714, to Bernard Lintott. But this ingenious Scotchman dying in 1715, his executor, in conjunction with the authorities of Christchurch, concluded this agreement with the bookseller, it having been the intention of Mr. Urry to devote 500l. to the purpose that the Dean and Chapter subsequently contemplated. This edition was issued in folio in 1721. Whether their share of the profits realised the fourteen hundred pounds which the Dean and Chapter anticipated does not appear. It may be hoped that the success of the subscription was not so large as long to deter other scholars from editorial rivalry. The editor had strange

notions of the licence that might be taken with an early English author, which can only be paralleled by the famous Perkins Shakspere. Till Mr. Tyrwhitt took the work in hand there had been no competent editor of Chaucer.

The attempted rivalry of Tickell with Pope in the translation of Homer introduces us to one of the most painful chapters in the history of literary quarrels. It broke up the friendship of Pope with Addison. How much better and happier the irascible poet might have been under the leading of Addison, instead of that of Swift, can scarcely now be predicated. It was not to be. Three days after the announcement that the first volume of Mr. Pope's translation of Homer is finished, appeared this advertisement in the same paper: "To-morrow will be published the first book of Homer's Iliad,' translated by Mr. Tickell. Printed for Jacob Tonson, at Shakspeare's Head, against Katherine-street, in the Strand." In Spence's 'Anecdotes,' Pope is recorded as saying of Addison, "He translated the first book of the 'Iliad' that appeared as Tickell's; and Steele has blurted it out in his angry preface against Tickell." The editor of Spence says that it was in a Dedication to Congreve of The Drummer.' Mr. Singer adds: "Mr. Nichols, in a note to his 'Collection of Poems,' vol. iv., says, that Mr. Watts, the printer, told a friend of his "that the Translation of the First Book of the 'Iliad' was in Tickell's handwriting, but much corrected and interlined by Addison." Lintott seems to have been perfectly aware of the temper in which Pope would receive a copy of Tickell's translation,

which he sent to him, immediately on its appearance, with this note: "You have Mr. Tickell's book to divert one hour. It is already condemned here; and the malice and juggle at Button's is the conversation of those who have spare moments from politics." Pope says of himself that he was heated by what he had heard, and wrote to Addison, that if he were to speak severely of him in return for his behaviour, it should be something in the following manner. He then subjoined the first sketch of the twenty-two lines, concluding with

"Who would not weep if Atticus were he?"

Addison, Pope says, used him very civilly ever after. We have no information whether the quarrel of the great writers extended to the publishers of the rival translations. There is an anecdote in the supplement to Spence, from which it appears that they long continued rivals. The authority for this anecdote is Dr. Young himself. "Tonson and Lintott were both candidates for printing some work of Dr. Young's. He answered both their letters in the same morning, and in his hurry misdirected them. When Lintott opened that which came to him he found it begin : That Bernard Lintott is so great a scoundrel, that,' &c. It must have been very amusing to have seen him in his rage; he was a great sputtering fellow."

Pope returned to his old bookseller, Tonson, when he published his edition of Shakespeare. It was not a success. Of the six quarto volumes, only about six hundred copies were sold; and the remainder of an impression of seven hundred and fifty were disposed

of at a reduced price. Pope received a small remuneration for his editorial labours, 2177. 128. His Preface was a masterly composition, pregnant with good sense, and elegant in style; but the character of the age, in which the higher art of the poet was imperfectly appreciated, is reflected in Pope's conception of Shakspere's genius. Theobald, three years after, produced his edition, having previously published a pamphlet, entitled 'Shakspeare Restored; or a Specimen of the many Errors, as well committed as unamended, by Mr. Pope in his late edition.' This attack, and Theobald's greater success, gave him that place upon the throne of Dulness which was afterwards occupied by Cibber. Lintott was the publisher of the subscription edition of 'The Odyssey,' in 1725. Pope, in announcing his proposals for this translation, avowed that he had been assisted by friends. He had undertaken the translation, but did not claim to be the sole translator. Mr. Pope, the undertaker, became a byeword amongst his numerous unfriends. Pope gained nearly three thousand pounds by this operation; but Lintott was disappointed; and pretending to have discovered something fraudulent in the agreement, threatened a suit in Chancery. Pope quarrelled, of course, with him, and finally elevated him to his ignoble position in The Dunciad.' That Curll came in for the greater honours of that poem is to be attributed to his share in the mystery of the publication of Pope's Letters, about which nearly as much has been written as about "Junius." It is beside the purpose of this little volume to enter upon this debatable ground. I