[In the following essay, Hesse explains a reference in Pope's “A Farewell to London” as having to do with Tonson losing one of his authors to a rival publisher.]

Lintot, farewell! thy Bard must go;
          Farewell, unhappy Tonson!
Heaven gives thee for thy Loss of Rowe,
          Lean Philips, and fat Johnson.

The “Loss of Rowe” in these lines from Pope's “A Farewell to LONDON. In the Year 1715.” is inadequately explained in the Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope (vi, 131)—“i.e. when King George I made him one of the land surveyors of the port of London”, attributed to a note from Additions to the Works of Alexander Pope, Esq., i, 1776. But this statement is nonsense, since the poem was written in May or June 1715 and it was not until 17 September 1716, more than a year later, that Rowe received the Customs appointment (Calendar of Treasury Books, XXX, Pt. II, 436).

A plausible explanation is deduced from the study of book advertisements of Lintot and Tonson by Margaret Boddy (N. & Q., June 1966, 213-4). She concludes that “clearly Pope is here referring to Lintott's recent triumph over Tonson. The allusion gives evidence that [Pope] was well enough acquainted with Lintott's publishing business to know what authors he had triumphantly persuaded away from his rival.”

To understand the full extent of Lintot's triumph over Tonson, we need to remember that until July 1709 Rowe's major writings had been published almost exclusively by Tonson—all his plays except the first (The Ambitious Stepmother, Peter Buck, 1701), his edition of Shakespeare, and a good part of his translations and his occasional verse. Only a few occasional poems and miscellaneous writings had been published by others—none by Lintot—in the same period.

Then from July 1709 until July 1712 Rowe published nothing new. For the first two of those years he was fully engaged as under-secretary of state to the Duke of Queensberry until the Duke's death in July 1711. Thereafter, possibly until early 1713, Rowe seems to have floundered amid disappointments and troubles. He sought another government post unsuccessfully, even with help from Swift (Journal to Stella, 27 December 1712; also Spence's Anecdotes, especially learning Spanish for Lord Oxford); his wife for almost twenty years died in February 1712 (parish register of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, London Guildhall MS. 10350); he moved out of town to live austerely at Stockwell beyond Vauxhall (Correspondence of Pope, ed. Sherburn, i, 186-7); he published only one new piece, the first book of the collaborative translation for Curll of Quillet's Callipaedia in July 1712 (originally projected for publication in late 1708); and he was accused in January 1713 by the Widow Spann of a minor peculation in September 1712 (M.L.Q., iv, 1943, 465-73). When Rowe resumed writing plays in mid-1713, however, he was under contract to Bernard Lintot, and at the same time he was moving familiarly in the orbit of Alexander Pope.

There is a document, long overlooked but now in the Folger Shakespeare Library, which clinches the conjunction of Pope with Rowe and Lintot at the time of Tonson's loss:

May ye 7th 1713 Memorandum that I Nicholas Rowe this day agreed with Bernard Lintott to deliver him a true Copy of my Tragedy Entitul'd Jane Shore for the Summe of fifty pounds fifteen Shillings on condition that he pay me the same in manner following—that is to say Ten Guineas upon signing this Agreement, fifteen pounds upon the delivery of a perfect Copy of the said Tragedy and Twenty five pounds upon ye first day of its being Acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane as Witnesseth my hand. Wittness: Alex: Pope. N. Rowe.

On the verso is Rowe's signed receipt of the same date for ten guineas (“10.10.0”). The total sum mentioned is confirmed by an entry of payment to Rowe on 12 December 1713 in Lintot's memorandum book (Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the 18th Century, viii, 301), although the play's first performance—the day specified for paying the final instalment—did not take place until 2 February 1714 (Avery, The London Stage 1660-1800, Pt. 2, 316). Since this document would appear to be the publisher's copy of the agreement (only Rowe signed, not Lintot), it is significant that Pope was witness. Rowe, as far as we know, had never dealt with Lintot for any publishing, and so the signature of Lintot's “bard” Pope as a witness to the agreement would add some guarantee for Lintot of Rowe's good faith for its fulfilment. Pope had already had a mutually satisfactory arrangement with Lintot for publication since early 1712 (Nichols, 299; and R. H. Griffith, Alexander Pope. A Bibliography, vol. i, pt. 1) and must have been considering in mid-1713 the business arrangements for his translation of the Iliad which culminated on 23 March 1714 in his elaborate copyright agreement with Lintot (Bodleian Library MS. Don.a.6). It is thus probable that Pope brought Rowe and Lintot together, and it is certain that he was present, and therefore knew, when Rowe signed the agreement with Lintot which marked Tonson's “Loss of Rowe”. Even two years after that event, but in the midst of the great Iliad sweepstakes when Lintot was publishing Pope's version against the competition of Tonson's venture on Tickell's translation, Pope would remember to twit “unhappy Tonson”.