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And, in fact, his profits ought to be calculated without deduction, since it was his own choice, from indolence, to purchase assistance. The Iliad was commenced about October, 1713. In the summer of the following year he was so far advanced as to begin making arrangements with Lintot for the printing; and the first two books, in manuscript, were put into the hands of Lord Halifax.

Lintot printed two hundred and fifty on royal paper in folio for two guineas a volume; of the small folio, having printed seventeen hundred and fifty copies of the first volume, he reduced the number in the other volumes to a thousand. It is unpleasant to relate that the bookseller, after all his hopes and all his liberality, was, by a very unjust and illegal action, defrauded of his profit.

To the "Essay on Criticism" succeeded one of Pope's most brilliant poems, the famous "Rape of the Lock." In its first form it appeared, together with some minor poems and translations, in a volume of "Miscellanies" published by Tonson's rival, Lintot.

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.

As this was unquestionably the greatest literary labor, as to profit, ever executed, not excepting the most lucrative of Sir Walter Scott's, if due allowance be made for the altered value of money, and if we consider the Odyssey as forming part of the labor, it may be right to state the particulars of Pope's contract with Lintot.

Of the quartos it was, I believe, stipulated that none should be printed but for the author, that the subscription might not be depreciated; but Lintot impressed the same pages upon a small folio, and paper perhaps a little thinner, and sold exactly at half the price, for half a guinea each volume, books so little inferior to the quartos that, by fraud of trade, those folios being afterwards shortened by cutting away the top and bottom, were sold as copies printed for the subscribers.

The publishing of books is a very different affair now-a-days from what it was in the time of Bernard Lintot. I found the publisher a fashionably-dressed man, in an elegant drawing-room, furnished with sofas and portraits of celebrated authors, and cases of splendidly bound books. He was writing letters at an elegant table. This was transacting business in style.

"'I should think the apothecary protection sufficient! says our mother. "'I don't, mother! I bawl out, for I was very angry; 'and if Lintot offers her any liberty, I'll brain him with his own pestle! "'Oh! if Lintot has withdrawn, sir, I suppose I must be silent. But I did not know of the circumstance.

"Here the dear creature hid her eyes in her handkerchief, and had hard work to prevent her mama, who came in, from seeing that she was crying. Nor, indeed, did my good mother, who supposed that Sam Lintot, the apothecary's lad at Richmond, was Fanny's flame an absurd fellow that I near kicked into James River.

The loss, however, fell not upon Pope, but upon Lintot, who, on this occasion, was out of temper, and talked rather broadly of prosecution. But that was out of the question. Lintot, however, was no loser absolutely, though he might be so in relation to his expectations; on the contrary, he grew rich, bought land, and became sheriff of the county in which his estates lay.