ping my eyes
upon a bookseller I can tell you with certainty what manner of books he
sells; but you must know that the ideal bookseller has no fads, being
equally proficient in and a lover of all spheres, departments,
branches, and lines of his art. He is, moreover, of a benignant
nature, and he denies credit to none; yet, withal, he is righteously so
discriminating that he lets the poor scholar have for a paltry sum that
which the rich parvenu must pay dearly for. He is courteous and
considerate where courtesy and consideration are most seemly.

Samuel Johnson once rolled into a London bookseller's shop to ask for
literary employment. The bookseller scrutinized his burly frame,
enormous hands, coarse face, and humble apparel.

"You would make a better porter," said he.

This was too much for the young lexicographer's patience. He picked up
a folio and incontinently let fly at the bookseller's head, and then
stepping over the prostrate victim he made his exit, saying: "Lie
there, thou lump of lead!"

This bookseller was Osborne, who had a shop at Gray's Inn Gate. To
Boswell Johnson subsequently explained: "Sir, he was impertinent to
me, and I beat him."

Jacob Tonson was Dryden's bookseller; in the earlier times a seller was
also a publisher of books. Dryden was not always on amiable terms with
Tonson, presumably because Dryden invariably was in debt to Tonson. On
one occasion Dryden asked for an advance of money, but Tonson refused
upon the grounds that the poet's overdraft already exceeded the limits
of reasonableness. Thereupon Dryden penned the following lines and sent
them to Tonson with the message that he who wrote these lines could
write more:

With leering looks, bull-faced and freckled fair
With two left legs, with Judas-colored hair,
And frowzy pores that taint the ambient air.

These lines wrought the desired effect: Tonson sent the money which
Dryden had asked for. When Dryden died Tonson made overtures to Pope,
but the latter soon went over to Tonson's most formidable rival,
Bernard Lintot. On one occasion Pope happened to be writing to both
publishers, and by a curious blunder he inclosed to each the letter
intended for the other. In the letter meant for Tonson, he said that
Lintot was a scoundrel, and in the letter meant for Lintot he declared
that Tonson was an old rascal. We can fancy how little satisfaction
Messrs. Lintot and Tonson derived from the perusal o