SOURCE: Boys, Richard C. “Some Problems of Dryden's Miscellany.” ELH 7, no. 2 (June 1940): 130-43.

[In the following essay, Boys discusses the mystery surrounding the publication of the various editions of Dryden and Tonson's Miscellany and Tonson's part in the matter.]

In 1684 the rising young bookseller, Jacob Tonson, added another feather to his cap by publishing Miscellany Poems, which came to be known as Dryden's or Tonson's Miscellany and enjoyed popular approval until 1727. In all there were six parts to the anthology in the forty-three years of its existence. Constantly re-issued it proved to be the most successful of the early eighteenth-century collections, with the possible exception of Poems on Affairs of State.¹ One manifestation of the vogue of Dryden's Miscellany is the large number of imitators it had. It is not too much to say that it set the fashion for one kind of collection, which may arbitrarily be called the general miscellany,² a type revived by the Augustans and destined to become important in the eighteenth century. Dr. Earl Wasserman has pointed out³ how even the title of the Dryden was imitated in such works as Miscellany Poems and Translations by Oxford Hands (1685) and Miscellany, Being a Collection of Poems (1685). That these books were probably drawing their titles from Dryden's collection can hardly be denied, since they appear suspiciously soon after 1684. But too much stress should not be placed on this fact. For in the first place, although the word ‘miscellany’ was frequently used there was in many cases no attempt to treat the same subject-matter. Also, some books, such as Wycherly's Miscellany Poems (1704), were not miscellanies as we think of them, being by one poet only.⁴ Furthermore, why was it that only the title of Part 1 of the Dryden was copied if all parts of the collection were being imitated?⁵ The answer, no doubt, is a simple one; the word ‘miscellany,’ in some combination or other, offered a title which covered a variety of needs. Dryden's Miscellany merely reminded other writers and booksellers of the existence of a convenient term. To be sure, as the seed from which many early eighteenth-century collections sprang, the Dryden is of considerable importance, but its place is apt to be overestimated. It is certainly going too far to say, as one writer does, that “thereafter the majority of the collections took a more serious and literary turn.”⁶ One need only glance through Professor Case's bibliography to see that anthologies of songs (without music), miscellanies from the spas, translations of amatory verse, gay, bawdy political poems, and courtesy-books kept light and often frivolous verse very much alive.

A veil of obscurity surrounds the editing and publishing of Dryden's Miscellany. That Dryden had a hand in the venture there is no doubt,⁷ but just how much he did is a mystery; Mr. MacDonald believes that he was merely an occasional adviser, not the actual selector.⁸ Still other questions arise. Who, we might ask, carried on after Dryden's death in 1700, until the completion of the first series, in 1709? Did the same man edit the 1716 edition and the one in 1727? Although practically nothing is known about these matters Mr. MacDonald has perhaps pointed the way to a partial solution. He states:

In a catalogue of Books Printed for E. Curll, At Pope's-Head, 1735 (B. M. 13457 2) is the following entry: ‘The Original Genuine Edition of Miscellany Poems and Translations. Begun by Mr. Dryden, in the year 1684, and continued by Mr. Rowe to 1709, concluding with Mr. Pope's Pastorals. In six volumes. Price a guinea. N. B. All the late Editions are castrated.’⁹

If more evidence could be turned up to prove Rowe's share in the undertaking one of the important problems connected with Dryden's Miscellany would be cleared up.

The 1716 edition presents one puzzle which has received some attention from scholars. There certain changes are made which clearly set it off from the earlier volumes, namely, the inclusion of a considerable body of poems not found in the parts put out from 1702 to 1709. Of these about one hundred were from the pre-Restoration period and are striking because they show an interest in the earlier poetry unusual for the early eighteenth century.¹⁰ That Cowley and Waller should be well represented in 1716 is not surprising, since they were among the most popular poets in the miscellanies of the time, but the picture we have of the period does not generally include Donne, Jonson, Drayton, Carew, and Wither, nor Milton's minor poems. In addition to poems written by acknowledged Renaissance writers there was a fair number of anonymous poems and ballads. Why then, the question arises, in an age generally considered to be out of touch with these poems and poets should such a body of verse appear? Professor Havens states that “apparently there is but one answer: the new selections were expected to increase the attractiveness and hence the sales of the work.”¹¹

Dr. Wasserman carries the conjecture still further:

No longer under Dryden's restraint and, although he [Tonson] continued to use Dryden's name on the title-page, no longer able to attract strongly the fashionable groups through the use of it sixteen years after the editor's death, he seems to have planned, therefore, to make the contents more popular and thereby widen their appeal.¹²

To Dr. Wasserman's suggestion might be added the fact that we should expect Tonson to make a bid for popular favor in the field of the miscellany for he, more than any bookseller of his time, had a finger on the public pulse. It was Tonson, for instance, who helped popularize Milton and who, by publishing Rowe's edition did much to establish Shakespeare's fame among the general reading public. To these suggestions I shall add below another possibility which fits nicely into the pattern. But before going on I should like to consider the matter of Tonson's success in going to the past for new material. Did these pre-Restoration poems, in a word, win for their publisher the approval of the readers?

It is difficult to discover with any degree of certainty the popularity of these hundred poems. Dr. Wasserman is of the opinion that they were well received,¹³ but Professor Havens holds the opposite view.¹⁴ From the evidence we have it seems likely that this group of poems added to the 1716 edition met with a cool reception. One of the best proofs of this fact was the scantiness of reprinting in other collections of the time; since copyright was not yet well established, piracy was common and popular poems were widely reprinted in other miscellanies.¹⁵ Some of the earlier poems that were in the 1716 Dryden did appear from time to time in anthologies during the first half of the century. They are given below:

Ask me no more where Jove bestows (Thomas Carew)

Hive, 1st and 2nd eds., Volume 1, 1724

Beauty and love once fell at odds

Syren, 1735, 1737, 1739; Complete Collection of Old and New Scotch Songs, No. 1 of Volume 4, 1736; Linnet, 1749

Dear Dorinda weep no more

Hive, Volume 2, 1724

Did you not once, Lucinda, vow (A Pastoral Vow)

Choice, Volume 3, 1733; Syren, 1735, 1737, 1739; Complete Collection of Old and New English and Scotch Songs, No. 1 of Volume 4, 1736; Linnet, 1749

Farewell, my mistress, I'll be gone

Syren, 1735; Complete Collection of Old and New English and Scotch Songs, No. 2 of Volume 4, 1736

Hark, My Flora, love doth call us (Love's Courtship, by William Cartwright)

Hive, Volume 3, 1725

How severe is forgetful old age (Song of Hey Ho)

Hive, Volume 2, 1st ed., 1724; Volume 2, 3rd ed., 1727; Volume 2, 4th ed., 1733

If wealth a man could keep alive (Alexander Brome)

Syren, 1735, 1737, 1739; Thrush, 1749

In Lancashire, where I was born (The Lancashire Song)

Choice, Volume 3, 1733; Syren, 1735, 1737, 1739

I sighed and I writ

Hive, Volume 2, 1724

I tell thee, Dick, where I have been (Ballad on a Wedding, by Sir John Suckling)

Collection of Old Ballads, Volume 2, 1723; Volume 2, 2nd ed., 1726

Kind gentlemen will you be patient awhile (An Old Ballad of Bold Robin Hood)

Collection of Old Ballads [Volume 1], 1723; [Volume 1], 2nd ed., 1723

Let Jug in smiles be ever seen

Thrush, 1749

A maiden of late (The Maiden's Longing)

Choice, Volume 3, 1733; Syren, 1735, 1737, 1739; Linnet, 1749

My name is honest Harry (Harry and Moll)

Hive, 1st ed., Volume 2, 1724; 3rd ed., Volume 2, 1727; 4th ed., Volume 2, 1733; Choice, Volume 1, 1729 and 1733-7; Syren, 1735, 1737, 1739; Cupid, 1736, 1737, 1739; Collection of Diverting Songs, c. 1739; Thrush, 1749

No more shall meads be decked with flowers (Thomas Carew)

Choice, Volume 2, 1733; Thrush, 1749

Now God alone that made all things [In some cases printed as Now God above. …]

Triumphs of Bacchus, 1729; Collection of Bacchanalian Songs, 1729; Choice, Volume 2, 1733; Syren, 1735, 1737, 1739; Collection of Diverting Songs, c. 1739; Thrush, 1749

Shall I wasting in despair (George Wither)

Hive, Volume 3, 1729 and c. 1733; Tea-Table Miscellany, Dublin, 1729; also 1733, 1740, and 1750; Nightingale, 1738 and 1742; Robin, 1749

A silly shepherd wooed but wist not

Syren, 1735, 1737, 1739; Linnet, 1749

Sir Eglamore, that valiant knight (Sir Eglamore)

Lark, 1740, and two issues in 1742

Songs of sonnets and rustical rondelays (Hunting the Hare)

Collection of Old Ballads, Volume 3, 1725, also Volume 3, 1738

Two noble dukes of great renown (Song of the Banishment of two Dukes)

Collection of Old Ballads, Volume 1, 1723, also Volume 1, 2nd ed., 1723

When Orpheus sweetly did complain

Choice, Volume 3, 1733; Syren, 1735, 1737, 1739; Linnet, 1749

With an old song made by an ancient pate (The Old Courtier)

Syren, 1735, 1737, 1739; Robin, 1749

Ye pretty birds that sit and sing (Thomas Heywood)

Choice, Volume 3, 1733; Vocal Miscellany, Volume 2, 1734 and 1738; Nightingale, 1738 and 1742 (two issues of latter); Collection of Diverting Songs, c. 1739; Robin, 1749

A young man lately in our town (The Hobgoblin)

Nightingale, 1738¹⁶

It is true that the printing of these poems in various miscellanies should not be taken as conclusive proof of their popularity; a complete picture would include a study of commonplace-books, periodicals, editions of ballads and works of Renaissance poets in the period, and song books. We can, however, learn much from such a compilation as that given above. To begin with it should be noticed that only about one fourth of the hundred poems under consideration were reprinted in other collections. Furthermore, most of them reappeared, if they did at all before 1750, after 1723, which leads us to the conclusion that if Dryden's Miscellany were responsible for the revival of the poems, its force was felt at least seven years late. We cannot be sure, in fact, that the 1716 Dryden should be given any credit for what vogue there was of the poems. It seems more likely that it introduced the pieces to a reading public which was not yet ready for them. Also, after 1723 there was a burst of anthologies, such as the Collection of Old Ballads and the Hive which were devoted primarily to songs and ballads. The constant reissuing of these miscellanies after 1723 shows that readers were then bestowing full favour upon that kind of verse. What is more likely than that the 1727 Dryden's Miscellany also partly owed its appearance to this same fashion? It would not be right to rob Tonson of the credit often given him for assisting in the ballad revival, but he should be remembered more as the man who sowed than as the reaper. In other words he probably failed in his own attempt to popularize the ballad, but in doing so he did bring the form to the attention of the reading public, thus paving the way for more successful ventures.

Although the hundred older poems selected for the 1716 edition are striking, they should be seen in the proper perspective. In quantity they were small, making up but one third of the poems added in 1716, and but 12٪ of the whole Miscellany (Parts 1-6). Furthermore this intriguing list of poems is apt to obscure another fact about the 1716 Dryden, namely, that two thirds of the additional verses were still the usual thing found in the earlier volumes. And for about forty of the remaining poems the editor went back to the first editions of the Miscellany. In other words, even if the shrewd Jacob were making a bid for a new audience, he was not forgetting the old.

Another reason which may have caused Tonson to search about for fresh material¹⁷ was rivalry with a business competitor, Bernard Lintot. It is common practice to picture this struggle as a battle of Titans,¹⁸ but to do so is wrong. For in this war, if it may be called one, genial Jacob was far out of Lintot's class in every way. The former was a man of some importance, having come a long way since he opened shop at the Judge's Head, in Chancery Lane, in 1678. Beginning with such writers as Otway and Nahum Tate, Tonson cast about for bigger game and succeeded, in 1679, in getting a share of Dryden's Troilus and Cressida. This began a long and profitable connection with the Poet Laureate. A second jewel was added to his crown in 1683, when he bought a half share in Paradise Lost, the work which was to be his most profitable venture. Not long after Dryden's death in 1700 Tonson began to glitter socially as well as in his profession. To his position of secretary of the famous Kit-Cat Club, where he associated with such eminent men as Steele, Addison, Congreve, Sir Samuel Garth, and Sir John Vanbrugh, Tonson owed much of his prominence. After he bought the mansion of Barn Elms, near Barnes, Tonson became a sort of summer host for the Club. It was there that Sir Godfrey Kneller's portraits were hung, to insure the transmission of Jacob's name to posterity if there were any danger of its being forgotten.¹⁹

Lintot's life lacked the color of his competitor's. He did not begin business until shortly after 1698, when Tonson was already established as a man of some consequence. The younger man's early progress in the publishing field was steady but not distinguished. A miscellany, Examen Miscellaneum (1702), was his first work of any importance—after this came Lady Chudleigh's Poems on Several Occasions (1703). He also had part shares in Colley Cibber's Love's Last Shift (1701) and John Dennis's Liberty Asserted (1704); in 1705 he bought all of the latter writer's Appius and Virginia. Lintot completed his first decade as a bookseller with the publication of another miscellany, edited by Elijah Fenton, Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany Poems (1708). During this period Lintot became the publisher for such writers as Gay, Farquhar, Fenton, and Parnell and his shop achieved the reputation of being a lounging place for men of letters.²⁰ By 1708, then, we find him well on his way toward becoming a successful bookseller, but by no means capable of pushing Tonson from his pinnacle; nor did he ever do this.

What, then, is the reason for the popular misconception of the rivalry between the two booksellers? In part the answer lies in contemporary writings, especially pieces by Gay and Pope. The first, Gay's poem “On a Miscellany of Poems to Bernard Lintot,” was printed in Miscellaneous Poems and Translations (1712), sometimes called Lintot's Miscellany. There the poet says to Lintot:

Woulds't thou for miscellanies raise thy fame;
And bravely rival Jacob's [Tonson] mighty name,
Let all the muses in the piece conspire,
The lyrick bard must strike th' harmonious lyre.

And he concludes the poem with the following lines:

From these successful bards collect thy strains,
And praise with profit shall reward thy pains:
Then, while calves-leather binding bears the sway,
And sheep-skin to its sleeker gloss gives way;
While neat old Elzevir is reckon'd better
Than Pirate Hill's brown sheets, and scurvy letter;
While print admirers careful Aldus chuse
Before John Morphew, or the weekly news:
So long shall live thy praise in books of fame,
And Tonson yield to Lintott's lofty name.(21)

In much the same vein Pope adds his bit to Gay's praise. His “Verses Designed to be Prefixed to Mr. Lintott's Miscellany” was printed along with Gay's poem as further proof of the undertaking's importance:

Some Colinaeus praise, some Bleau,
Others account them but so so;
Some Stephens to the rest prefer,
And some esteem old Elzevir:
Others with Aldus would besot us;
I, for my part, admire Lintottus.
Those printed unknown tongues, 'tis said,
Which some can't construe, most can't read;
What Lintott offers to your hand,
Even R— may understand:
They print their names in letters small,
But Lintott stands in Capital;
Author and he with equal grace
Appear, and stare you in the face.
Oft in an Aldus or a Plantin,
A page is blotted, or leaf wanting;
Of Lintott's books this can't be said,
All fair, and not so much as read.
Their books are useful but to few,
A scholar, or a wit or two:
Lintott's for general use are fit,
For some folks read, but all folks sh-t.(22)

Pope adds more fuel to what has been called a fire in his well known letter to Burlington,²³ in which he talks about Lintot as “the redoubtable rival of Mr. Tonson.” The letter has at times been accepted in all seriousness as evidence of bitter friction between the two booksellers. Throughout there are references to Tonson which show that he was very much on Lintot's mind. In some of them Lintot seems, at best, irritated, as in the following:

I [Pope] asked him [Lintot] where he got his horse? He answered he got it of his publisher: “For that rogue my printer (said he) disappointed me: I hoped to put him in good humour by a treat at the tavern, of a brown fricassee of rabbits, which cost two shillings, with two quarts of wine, besides my conversation. I thought myself cocksure of his horse, which he readily promised me, but said that Mr. Tonson had just such another design of going to Cambridge, expecting there the copy of a new kind of Horace from Dr. [Bentley], and if Mr. Tonson went, he was preengaged to attend him, being to have the printing of the said copy.

A little later Pope reports Lintot as saying:

Now damn them! what if they should put it into the newspaper, how you and I went together to Oxford? what would I care? If I should go down into Sussex, they would say I was gone to the Speaker. But what of that? If my son were but big enough to go on with the business, by G-d I would keep as good company as old Jacob.

In another place in the letter Lintot states that he bargained with Dr. Sewel “for a new version of Lucretius to publish against Tonson's.” From this letter it is clear that Lintot fancied himself a worthy opponent for the great Jacob, or at least that he had hopes of becoming one. But from the tone of amusement which runs through Pope's and Gay's poems and the letter by Pope it seems fairly clear that Lintot's friends did not take his pretensions too seriously, that they were, in fact, poking fun at him. Apparently Lintot considered Pope's “Verses” and Gay's piece complimentary, although to us it seems that he was blind indeed to let the dubious praise be printed.²⁴

It will be shown later how Lintot did compete with Tonson in the realm of the miscellany. Also, when Tonson published Rowe's edition of Shakespeare (1709), the younger bookseller followed suit with a two-volume edition of the Bard's poems. Like Tonson, Lintot enjoyed a certain financial prosperity, and as Tonson set himself up as a country squire at Barn Elms so did Lintot aspire to a higher social plane. John Nichols reports a statement supposedly made by Humphrey Wanley, the custodian of the Earl of Oxford's heraldic manuscripts:

Jan. 31, 1725-6. Young Mr. Lintot, the bookseller, came enquiring after arms, as belonging to his father, mother and other relations, who now, it seems, want to turn gentle folks. I could find none of their names.²⁵

But if Lintot were not the equal of Tonson professionally or socially, his position should not be underestimated. He made a good thing of his business and won the acquaintance, if not the respect, of many men of letters. After 1708, where we left his career, Lintot continued to prosper and occasionally his path crossed Tonson's or that of Tonson's successor. These skirmishes are apt to be misinterpreted; if isolated, they may be used to build up a case justifying the intensity of the rivalry. It should, however, be remembered that much of this competition was in the normal line of business and that their individual interests frequently conflicted with those of other booksellers as well.²⁶ Nor should it be supposed that the professional duels between the men resulted in bitter personal enmity. For on several ventures, such as the publishing of Steele's Conscious Lovers (1722), and on a Government printing job, the house of Tonson worked hand in hand with Lintot.

The clashes between Lintot and Tonson in their business were fairly numerous and need not be taken up exhaustively here; a few instances will be sufficient. Pope was the cause of the first fall, which was won by Lintot. The story of how Tonson made himself the patron of the young poet and published his first pieces in the 1709 Dryden Miscellany has been described by Professor Sherburn.²⁷ Tonson gave further encouragement to Pope by including his “Sappho to Phaon” and some other pieces in his miscellany, Ovid's Epistles, published in 1712. Lintot's first great triumph came when he secured several of Pope's poems, including the first two cantos of “The Rape of the Lock,” for his own anthology, Miscellaneous Poems and Translations, which also appeared in 1712.²⁸ Pope likewise figured in the second friction, which arose over the publication of John Dennis's Remarks Upon the Tragedy of Cato (1713). The story is not without humour. The great success of Addison's Cato, which infuriated Dennis, gave Pope a chance to even up an old score going back to Dennis's attack on the Essay on Criticism. For Dennis's part he was only too willing to lash out at Addison, because of his own harsh treatment in the Tatler and Spectator. So Pope, it is suspected, may have egged Dennis on to a sure destruction which would follow an attack on such a popular play as Cato. Lintot published the Remarks,²⁹ and his act may possibly be explained in part at least, apart from any financial profit, by the desire to get in a dig at Tonson, who published Addison's play.

Pope again took the center of the field in the furor created by the publication of the Iliad. This quarrel, traced in detail by Professor Sherburn,³⁰ may be stated briefly. On March 23, 1714, Pope signed an agreement with Lintot to translate the Iliad. Eight days later Thomas Tickell made a similar arrangement with Tonson. Since neither poet wanted to be the first in the field, fearing what the other might do, there followed an amusing period of one trying to lure the other out into the open. On June 6 Pope released Volume One, which was followed two days later by Tickell's.

The clashes between Tonson and Lintot in the field of the miscellany are much more obscure, although not, I believe, unimportant. It was pointed out earlier that Dryden's Miscellany (published by Tonson) certainly enjoyed great popularity up to 1709. There were countless imitators, among them Lintot, whose Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany Poems (1708) was of the type brought into fashion by the Dryden. It was not until 1712, however, that Lintot seriously entered the field. That Lintot himself, at least, considered his Miscellaneous Poems and Translations a strong competitor to Tonson's collection can be inferred from Gay's poem, quoted above. And certainly the time was ripe for such a venture, since no volume of Dryden's Miscellany had appeared for three years. It may have been because of Lintot's new collection, which had a second edition in 1714, that Tonson issued Poetical Miscellanies (Steele's Miscellany) about the same time. It, too, was a general miscellany, as Lintot's was. Or possibly Tonson's appeared first, in 1714, thus drawing fire from Lintot, who then issued a second edition. In 1716 there came out the first collected edition of Dryden's Miscellany, in six volumes. Certainly it is likely that one factor which may have influenced Tonson to bring out the biggest miscellany yet seen in England was pressure from other publishers who were invading the field, especially Lintot. The latter replied with Poems on Several Occasions (1717), which Mr. Norman Ault has recently edited as Pope's Own Miscellany. Then three years later Lintot put out a third edition of Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. About that time old Jacob Tonson retired and his nephew, generally called Jacob II, took over the business. For six years the Tonson camp was silent in this particular contest, while Lintot issued a fourth edition of his miscellany in 1722.

1727 found a renewal of hostilities, between Jacob II and Lintot; in that year there appeared the second collected edition of Dryden's Miscellany and the fifth edition of Lintot's.³¹ The simultaneous publication of these two works could hardly have been accidental. Most significant of all is the fact that Lintot, after fifteen years, changed the title of his anthology from Miscellaneous Poems and Translations to Miscellany Poems, the title used by the Tonsons both in 1716 and again in 1727. Which of the collections appeared first in 1727 is not known—nor does it matter a great deal—but it is probable that Lintot struck out first and that young Tonson replied with what he would consider an “authentic” edition. At any rate it looks suspiciously as if Lintot were trying to capitalize on a Tonson title. Probably neither collection enjoyed notable success in 1727; it was the last appearance of the Dryden, while Lintot's Miscellany gave a last gasp in 1732 and then died. Shortly after the 1727 edition of his Miscellany came out Lintot retired, as his ‘rival,’ Old Jacob Tonson, had seven years before. With his passing into private life, where he could “keep as good company as old Jacob,” Lintot marked the end of an important era in English publishing. For Tonson and his emulator, Lintot, had firmly established their profession as an honorable one, worthy of being handed on to Dodsley for still more distinction.

Notes

1. This important miscellany, until the last few years neglected by scholars, went through at least fifteen editions or issues in nineteen years, while the Dryden appeared in twenty-seven volumes from 1684 to 1727. Bibliographical complexities of both anthologies are great. Of the Dryden the best accounts are those by Professor Arthur Case (Bibliography of English Poetical Miscellanies 1521-1750, Bibliographical Society, Oxford, 1935, pp. 115-23), Mr. Hugh MacDonald (John Dryden, a Bibliography, Oxford, 1939, pp. 67-78), and Professor Raymond D. Havens (PMLA 44 [1929]. 502). Professor Case has also done much to untangle the snarl of Poems on Affairs of State (Bibliography, pp. 147-53), while Mr. James Osborn and Dr. Arthur Mizener, at Yale, have made extensive inquiries along the same lines. The latest, and perhaps fullest treatment in print, is Mr. Hugh MacDonald's in the Dryden bibliography (pp. 316-22).

2. A general miscellany, unlike many anthologies, contains poems of a heterogeneous nature. In contrast there were miscellanies, to mention a few, devoted entirely to religious poems, to songs, and to political verse.

3. “Pre-Restoration Poetry in Dryden's Miscellany,” in MLN 52 (1937). 548.

4. Professor Case's arbitrary definition of a miscellany as a book containing poems by three or more authors (Bibliography, p. v) is an adequate one.

5. Tonson used several titles in his miscellany. Part 1 was called Miscellany Poems, Part 2 Sylvae, Part 3 Examen Poeticum, Part 4 The Annual Miscellany, and Parts 5 and 6 Poetical Miscellanies. The 1716 collected edition was called Miscellany Poems, and that title was retained in 1727.

6. Earl Wasserman, in MLN 52 (1937). 548.

7. A good, brief summary of the evidence concerning Dryden's share in the editing is given by Mr. Hugh MacDonald in his bibliography (p. 67).

8. Ibid., p. 67.

9. Ibid., p. 324.

10. The significance of these poems was first pointed out by Professor Raymond D. Havens, in “Changing Taste in the Eighteenth Century,” in PMLA 44 (1929). 506-12.

11. Ibid., p. 508.

12. MLN 52 (1937). 548.

13. Ibid., p. 555.

14. PMLA 44 (1929). 512.

15. For instance, Roscommon's “Paraphrase on the 148th Psalm” (O azure vaults! O crystal sky) appeared in the following collections at least: Collection of Poems: Viz. The Temple of Death (1701, 1702, and 1716), Collection of Divine Hymns and Poems (1719), Examen Poeticum [Dryden's Miscellany, Part 3] (1706), The Miscellaneous Works of … Rochester and Roscommon (1709), Poems by the Earl of Roscommon (1717), Miscellansa Sacra (1707), and The Virgin Muse (1717, 1722). Similarly, other poems were used freely by different publishers. Some of these, with the number of times they appeared in different volumes before 1725 are: Roscommon's “Horace, Book 1, Ode 22” (10), the Earl of Mulgrave's “Essay on Poetry” (9), “Chevy Chase” (8), John Philips's “The Splendid Shilling” (8), Swift's “Baucis and Philemon” (8), Pope's “To the Ingenious Mr. Moore” (7), Gay's “Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book 6” (6), Sedley's “Thirsis and Strephon” (6), Dorset's “To all ye ladies now at land” (6), Waller's “Upon the Late Storm” (6), Addison's “A Letter from Italy” (6), and Sedley's “Constancy” (6). These figures are based on a study of 190 volumes of miscellanies and about half of the poems printed more than five times are given here. The vogue of those pieces given above shows that up to 1725, at least, “Restoration” verse held an important position in literature of the time.

16. I am grateful to Mr. W. N. H. Harding, of Chicago, for most of this list.

17. Dr. Wasserman has shown convincingly (MLN 52 [1937]. 545-55) that Tonson made extensive use of seventeenth-century drolleries, commonplace-books, and miscellanies in collecting this host of pre-Restoration poems.

18. See, for example, the following: Henry Curwen, A History of Booksellers (London, 1873, p. 32) and Frank Mumby, Publishing and Bookselling (London, 1930, p. 182).

19. Frank Mumby, Publishing and Bookselling, pp. 151-2, 175-6.

20. William Roberts, The Earlier History of English Bookselling (London, 1889), pp. 189-190.

21. It should be noted that while Gay is commenting on the publishing business in general he works up to Tonson, the leading figure, which also serves to single out Tonson as Lintot's special ‘rival.’

22. Text of the fourth edition of Lintot's Miscellany (1722).

23. Pope, Works, ed. Elwin-Courthope, 10. 205-10.

24. Pope's and Gay's pieces were included in his Miscellany up to 1727, in which edition they were omitted.

25. Quoted by William Roberts, The Early History, p. 210.

26. Edmund Curll, for instance, was a thorn in practically everyone's side. And in the field of the miscellany alone there were countless squabbles. Typical of these was the trouble over the Odes and Satyrs of Horace (1717). The Preface to Tonson's edition makes the following statement: “It is thought not improper to inform the Reader, that there having been lately published an Edition of this Book by A. Bell, T. Varnum, J. Osborne, J. Browne, and J. Baker, Persons who have no Right to the Printing thereof, the Copies therein being near all taken from the Miscellany Poems published by Mr. Dryden, and printed by Jacob Tonson: Therefore the said Proprietor, in Justice to himself, hath Published this Edition. …”

27. George Sherburn, The Early Career of Alexander Pope (Oxford, 1934), pp. 51-2, 85-6.

28. His achievement is somewhat lessened by the fact that Pope had already taken his Essay on Criticism to another bookseller, William Lewis.

29. George Sherburn, The Early Career, pp. 104-5. Professor Edward N. Hooker, of the University of California at Los Angeles, was kind enough to send me Dennis material relating to this quarrel.

30. Early Career, pp. 129-40.

31. For a discussion of the 1727 Dryden see Professor Havens's article (PMLA 44 [1929]. 501-18). Lintot's Miscellany for that year, although substantially the same as the 1722 edition, contains one change of some interest. Since the first appearance of his collection in 1712 he played up Pope's contribution but in 1727 he emphasized it still more. Several of Pope's pieces were added, including “The Temple of Fame” and “The Epistle to Martha Blount, on her Birthday.” Still more striking are the poems lauding Pope written by Wycherly, Buckingham, the Countess of Winchilsea, Parnell, Fr. Knapp, Elijah Fenton, Christopher Pitt, Abel Evans, Simon Harcourt, and William Broome. There are two unsigned pieces. By devoting practically all of Volume 1 to Pope, Lintot was no doubt once more hitching his wagon to Pope's star.