Note 748 — CANTO THE FIFTEENTH.
Reading edition
{555}Jacob Tonson, according to Mr. Pope, was accustomed to call his writers "able pens," "persons of honour," and, especially, "eminent hands." Vide Correspondence, etc., etc.
["Perhaps I should myself be much better pleased, if I were told you called me your little friend, than if you complimented me with the title of a 'great genius,' or an eminent hand, as Jacob does all his authors."—Pope to Steele, November 29, 1712, Works of Alexander Pope, 1871, vi. 396.]