rinted was by the Rev. Mr. Doolittle, and
was of an eminently religious character.

'One Lord's Day (and I am very sensible of the sin) I was strolling
about just as my fancy led me, and, stepping into Dr. Annesley's
meeting-place--where, instead of engaging my attention to what the
Doctor said, I suffered both my mind and eyes to run at random--I soon
singled out a young lady that almost charmed me dead; but, having made
my inquiries, I found to my sorrow she was pre-engaged.' However,
Dunton was content with the elder sister, one of the three daughters
of Dr. Annesley. The one he first saw became the wife of the Reverend
Samuel Wesley, and the mother of John and Charles. The third daughter
is said to have been married to Daniel De Foe.

As soon as he was out of his apprenticeship, Dunton set up business as
a publisher and bookseller. He says grimly enough:

'A man should be well furnished with an honest policy if he intends
to set out to the world nowadays. And this is no less necessary in
a bookseller than in any other tradesman, for in that way there are
plots and counter-plots, and a whole army of hackney authors that
keep their grinders moving by the travail of their pens. These
gormandizers will eat you the very life out of a _copy_ so soon as
ever it appears, for as the times go, _Original_ and _Abridgement_
are almost reckoned as necessary as man and wife.'

The mischief to which Dunton refers was permitted by the stupidity of
the judges, who refused to consider an abridgment of a book any
interference with its copyright. Some learned judges have, indeed,
held that an abridger is a benefactor, but as his benefactions are not
his own, but another's, a shorter name might be found for him. The law
on the subject is still uncertain.

Dunton proceeds: 'Printing was now the uppermost in my thoughts, and
hackney authors began to ply me with _specimens_ as earnestly and
with as much passion and concern as the watermen do passengers with
_Oars_ and _Scullers_. I had some acquaintance with this generation in
my apprenticeship, and had never any warm affection for them, in
regard I always thought their great concern lay more in _how much a
sheet_, than in any generous respect they bore to the _Commonwealth of
Learning_; and indeed the learning itself of these gentlemen lies very
often in as little room as their honesty, though they will pretend to
have studied for six or seven years in the Bod