DUNTON, JOHN, an eccentric bookseller and voluminous writer of the 17th and 18th centuries, was born at Graffham in Hunting donshire, on the 4th of May, 1659. The events of his life are soon told, the main interest attached to his name being comprised in his writings. His father was rector of Graffham, and, later in life, of Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire, and was the third John Dunton iu regular descent who had been minister in the church. The fourth John Dunton was designed by his father to follow the same course, but after trying a private school, and then a private education under his father, it was found that he had " such a disgust to the languages, that though he had acquired enough Latin to speak it pretty well extempore, the difficulties of Greek were unconquerable." His father at length resolved to apprentice him to a London bookseller when he was nearly fifteen. He served his time with satisfaction to his master, but became a zealous Whig in politics, and a dissenter in religion. Before be was out of his time he was active in getting up, from the apprentices of London, a remonstrance to the king, in reply to a long address praying for the prevention of petitions to parliament. This remonstrance was presented by the Lord Mayor. Dunton himself states that " the Tory apprentices had gathered five thousand names to their address; but ours, I speak modestly, had at least thirty thousand." This must be an exaggeration, if it means apprentices ; but probably though got up by the apprentices it was signed by anybody.
In 1685 he commenced business for himself, and was for a time successful. He married a daughter of the non-conforming minister, Dr. Anneslcy, of whom another daughter married Samuel Wesley, afterwards rector of Epworth, and father of the distinguished founder of the sect of Methodists. Dunton's business however fell off greatly, indeed business of all kind suffered, after the defeat of the Duke of Monmouth at Sedgemoor ; he therefore took a cargo of books to Boston in America. He was four months on his voyage, and suffered from the want of food and water. The venture was successful, and he remained there some time. While in America he visited an Indian station, of which he gives a curious but not a very correct account, and saw tho Rev. John Eliot, the apostle of the Indians, of whose character and successful efforts for the conversion of the natives he speaks very highly. Towards the end of 1686 he returned, but found himself involved by having become surety for a sister of his wife. To escape the consequences he made an excursion to Holland, Flanders, and Germany.
On his return Dunton found his affairs settled, and again embarked in business as a publisher, in which he continued for ten years. He
lost his wife, married again, had disputes with his wife and her mother about property, failed in business, and continued publishing pamph lets and other works till 1723, after which nothing is known of him except that he died in 1733.
Dunton was a most prolific writer, and a not less prolific projectqr. His writings were chiefly on religious, moral, or political subjects, but in nearly all of them he contrived to introduce much of hie own per sonal affairs. With an inordinate degree of vanity he mixed consider able shrewdness of observation, and in the most entertaining of his works, The Life and Errors of John Dunton,' printed in 1705, he has given the "Lives and Characters of a Thousand Persons." It is amusing to see the principle on which they are introduced entirely with reference to himself—the authors who wrote for him, the book sellers he associated with, the printers he employed, and the person even who made the printer's ink. When he goes abroad it is the same ; no eminence attracts him, but all with whom he has any acquaintance are charactered. The characters on the whole are done without ill-nature or prejudice, but are not very discriminative, and as he occasionally had intercourse with men whose memory yet lives, the sketches he gives are not uninteresting. In his characters of the booksellers he incidentally relates some curious facts with reference to their business. It thence appears that some single sermons and occasional pamphlets had a very large sale. Of Lukin's 'Practice of Godliness,' 10,000 were sold ; of Keach's War with the Devil,' and Travels of 'I'rue Godliness,' 10,000 were printed, and " they will sell to the end of time." With Goodwin, the printer to the Houser of Commons, and two other printers, Dunton was in partnership for the printing of 'Dying Speeches;' a singular undertaking, as it seems to us now, to require the union.of four respectable firms.
Of his other works, the most important were The Athenian Mercury,' which was published in weekly numbers from 1690 to 1696, forming twenty volumes. From this a selection in three volumes was made, under the title of the Athenian Oracle.' The papers consist of answers to queries, most of them imaginary, upon all sorts of questions. The plan, of which he was extremely proud, was Dunton's own, and his assistants were, at first, his brother-in-law, Wesley, Mr. R. Sault, a Cambridge theologian, and Dr. John Norris. The 'Dublin Scuffle' contains some curious particulars relating to social manners in Ireland; and Dunton's Creed, or the Religion of a Bookseller, in imitation of Brown's Religio Medici,' is a singular production.