[10] The following facts will show the value of _literary property_;
immense profits and cheap purchases! The manuscript of
"Robinson Crusoe" ran through the whole trade, and no one
would print it; the bookseller who did purchase it, who, it is
said, was not remarkable for his discernment, but for a
speculative turn, got a thousand guineas by it. How many have
the booksellers since accumulated? Burn's "Justice" was
disposed of by its author for a trifle, as well as Buchan's
"Domestic Medicine;" these works yield annual incomes.
Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield" was sold in the hour of
distress, with little distinction from any other work in that
class of composition; and "Evelina" produced five guineas from
the niggardly trader. Dr. Johnson fixed the price of his
"Biography of the Poets" at two hundred guineas; and Mr.
Malone observes, the booksellers in the course of twenty-five
years have probably got five thousand. I could add a great
number of facts of this nature which relate to living writers;
the profits of their own works for two or three years would
rescue them from the horrors and humiliation of pauperism. It
is, perhaps, useful to record, that, while the compositions of
genius are but slightly remunerated, though sometimes as
productive as "the household stuff" of literature, the latter
is rewarded with princely magnificence. At the sale of the
Robinsons, the copyright of "Vyse's Spelling-book" was sold at
the enormous price of 2200_l._, with an _annuity_ of fifty
guineas to the author!
[11] The circumstance, with the poet's dignified petition, and the
King's honourable decree, are preserved in "Curiosities of
Literature," vol. i. p. 406.
[12] The elder Tonson's portrait represents him in his gown and cap,
holding in his right hand a volume lettered "Paradise
Lost"--such a favourite object was Milton and copyright! Jacob
Tonson was the founder of a race who long honoured literature.
His rise in life is curious. He was at first unable to pay
twenty pounds for a play by Dryden, and joined with another
bookseller to advance that sum; the play sold, and Tonson was
afterwards enabled to purchase the succeeding ones. He and his
nephew died worth two hundred thousand pounds.--Much old
Tonson owed to his own industry; but he was a mere trader. He
and Dryden had frequent bickerings; he insisted on receiving
10,000 verses for two hundred and sixty-eight pounds, and poor
Dryden threw in the finest Ode in the language towards the
number. He would pay in the base coin which was then current;
which was a loss to the poet. Tonson once complained to
Dryden, that he had only received 1446 lines of his
translation of Ovid for his Miscellany for fifty guineas, when
he had calculated at the rate of 1518 lines for forty guineas;
he gives the poet a piece of critical reasoning, that he
considered he had a better bargain with "Juvenal," which is
reckoned "not so easy to translate as Ovid." In these times
such a mere trader in literature has disappeared.
[13] Sir James Burrows' Reports on the question concerning Literary
Property, 4to. London, 1773.
[14] Mirror of Parliament, 3529.
[15] See "Amenities of Literature" for an account of this author.
[16] A coster-monger, or Costard-monger, is a dealer in apples, which
are so called because they are shaped like a _costard_, _i.e._
a man's head. _Steevens._--Johnson explains the phrase
eloquently: "In these times when the prevalence of trade has
produced that meanness, that rates the merit of everything by
money."