a man, whoſe zeal for the improvement of Engliſh literature, and whoſe liberality to men of learning, gave him a juſt title to all the honours which men of learning can beſtow. To ſuppoſe that a perſon employed in an extenſive trade, lived in a ſtate of indifference to loſs and gain, would be to conceive a character incredible and romantic; but it may be juſtly ſaid of Mr. Tonson, that he had enlarged his mind beyond ſolicitude about petty loſſes, and refined it from the deſire of unreaſonable profit. He was willing to admit thoſe with whom he contracted, to the juſt advantage of their own labours; and had never learned to conſider the author as an under-agent to the bookſeller. The wealth which he inherited or acquired, he enjoyed like a man conſcious of the dignity of a profeſſion ſubſervient to learning. His domeſtic life was elegant, and his charity was liberal. His manners were ſoft, and his converſation delicate: nor is, perhaps, any quality in him more to be cenſured, than that reſerve which confined his acquaintance to a ſmall number, and made his example leſs uſeful, as it was leſs extenſive. He was the laſt commercial name of a family which will be long remembered; and if Horace thought it not improper to convey the Sosii to poſterity; if rhetoric ſuffered no diſhonour from Quintilian’s dedication to Trypho; let it not be thought that we diſgrace Shakeſpeare, by appending to his works the name of Tonson.
To this prefatory advertiſement I have now ſubjoined a chapter extracted from the Guls Hornbook, (a ſatirical pamphlet written by Decker in the year
1609)
