Such was his fame among his contemporaries that those sermons were purchased by the booksellers for the almost incredible sum of two thousand five hundred guineas, equivalent, in the wretched state in which the silver coin then was, to at least three thousand six hundred pounds.

Such a price had never before been given in England for any copyright.

About the same time Dryden, whose reputation was then in the zenith, received thirteen hundred pounds for his translation of all the works of Virgil, and was thought to have been splendidly remunerated.

[544] It was not easy to fill satisfactorily the high place which Tillotson had left vacant.

Mary gave her voice for Stillingfleet, and pressed his claims as earnestly as she ever ventured to press any thing.