Tonson's other English copyrights show how astutely he harvested the rising generation of literary talent: Congreve, Creech, Thomas Hughes, Matthew Prior, Rochester, Rowe, Vanbrugh, all were published by Tonson. This shrewd man of ordinary birth and vague education (though he clearly had competence in Latin) had achieved a degree of monopoly in polite literature of which our modern press barons cannot even dream.

However, the next phase of Tonson's life was even more extraordinary. In 1718, and dominant in the literary world of London, Tonson retired from active bookselling (while nevertheless still acting as an agent for well-heeled clients such as the Earl of Macclesfield). He sold his copyrights to his nephew, Jacob Tonson the Younger, and moved to Paris.  

But Tonson was not distracted from his own advantage by the pursuit of pleasure. His two years' residence in the French capital was an extraordinary financial success. With impeccable timing, Tonson invested in the French Mississippi bubble, and got out at the top with a stupendous fortune of 40,000 livres sterling (as an aghast and presumably envious Robert Arbuthnot reported to Matthew Prior). What did he do next?

In one sense, Tonson's next move was entirely predictable and ordinary. Having made his fortune, he invested much of it in land. He bought an estate, The Hazels, near Ledbury in Herefordshire, and set up as a landed gentleman. However, one of his particular enthusiasms in this new identity was tending and improving an established but neglected vineyard which formed part of the estate. In the very last letter of his life (and with his usual idiosyncratic spelling), the octogenarian Tonson told his nephew that "I am now pleasing my Self as much as I can in any thing in taking care of & improving my house & the Vyneard there, & indeed tis ye best amusement I am capable of."