footman." Johnson has described the first representation of Cleone: "The two Wartons just looked into the town, and were taken to see Cleone,' where David [Garrick] says, they were starved for want of company to keep them warm. David and Doddy have had a new quarrel, and, I think, cannot conveniently quarrel any more. 'Cleone' was well acted by all the characters; but Bellamy left nothing to be desired. I went the first night, and supported it as well as I might; for Doddy, you know, is my patron, and I would not desert him. The play was very well received. Doddy, after the danger was over, went every night to the stage-side, and cried at the distress of poor Cleone." The quarrel with Garrick is described by Davies. "It was his misfortune to err egregiously, both in the choice and the rejection of new plays. In the years 1756, 1758, 1759, he successively rejected the 'Douglas' of Mr. John Home, Dodsley's Cleone,' and the Orphan of China,' by Mr. Murphy." Dodsley might have patiently borne the rejection, had not Garrick adopted some very illiberal means to prevent its success at the rival theatre. An author crying over the distress of his heroine is certainly an uncommon exhibition of what we may call a morbid vanity. Yet there is probably some fascination in the dramatic form of poetical composition which made Dodsley weep when he listened to his own words. Talfourd rarely lost an opportunity of reciting Ion,' not for the gratification of others, but whenever he could escape from company to the greater happiness of his own complacent musings. Yet this most ami

*Life of Garrick,' vol. i. 249.

able and accomplished lawyer never obtruded his scenes and characters. He solaced himself with them in his solitary walks, or in the silence of the night. Though Dodsley wept over his own dialogue, yet when he was told that Johnson held that for pathetic effect no play of Otway's could compete with 'Cleone,' he exclaimed with undoubted sincerity, 'It is too much.""

It is quite time that I should leave the author and return to the bookseller. There is one publication that issued in 1759 from the shop in Pall Mall, which has enjoyed a century's vitality. Three years before the publication of the Annual Register,' a young Irishman, who had been in London for some time, applied to Dodsley to publish a little tract, entitled A Vindication of Natural Society, &c., by a late Noble Writer.' The applicant was probably 7 known to the booksellers as one supposed to be a writer for newspapers and periodical works, but who did not appear to be following the profession of the law, which it was understood that he had come to town to pursue, when he was entered at the Middle Temple. It is probable that Edmund Burke did not at first communicate to the bookseller the secret of the Vindication of Natural Society.' It was published originally without an explanatory Preface, and was generally believed to be a posthumous work of Lord Bolingbroke. The flowing and eloquent style, the whole scope of the reasoning, were so characteristic of the great writer and statesman, that few would conclude that it was a wonderful imitation, produced by a person of original genius and accurate know

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ledge. When the fabrication was avowed, the real author explained his design, which was, "to show that without the exertion of any considerable powers the same engines which were employed for the destruction of Religion might be employed with equal success for the subversion of Government." Dodsley soon after published for his new friend the 'Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful.' The History of the European Settlements in America,' though published anonymously, is undoubtedly Burke's work. His power of historical narrative was here exhibited; and Dodsley made a wise decision when he selected this rising man as the conductor and chief writer of "The Annual Register.' For many years Burke continued to write the historical portion. He had higher ideas than those of a dry annalist when he engaged in this congenial labour; and when he undertook, in this volume for 1758, to narrate the events of a war carried on in the four quarters of the world, he accomplished a task which the dull chroniclers who preceded him seldom thought capable of being made acceptable to the critical as well as to the cursory reader, by accuracy and extent of research, and by vigour and elegance of style. The connexion of the greatest philosophical statesman of modern times long continued with the Dodsleys. When Robert died, his brother James succeeded to the flourishing business, in which he had previously been a partner. His was a long career of honourable prosperity. Like the elder of these deserving men, he seems never to have lost any of his earlier supporters. James Dodsley, in 1790, published Burke's famous Re

6

flections on the Revolution in France,' of which it is recorded by Nichols that he sold eighteen thousand copies. For some years before his death, in 1797, he kept no public shop, but was a wholesale dealer in books which were his own copyright.

Robert Dodsley died in 1764, when on a visit to Mr. Spence, who was a prebendary of the Cathedral of Durham. He was buried in the Abbey Churchyard there; and his epitaph was written by this warm and constant friend :

"If you have any respect

for uncommon industry and merit,
regard this place,

in which are deposited the remains of
MR. ROBERT DODSLEY;

who, as an Author, raised himself
much above what could have been expected
from one in his rank of life,

and without a learned education;
and who, as a man, was scarce
exceeded by any in integrity of heart,
and purity of manners and conversation.
He left this life for a better,
Sept. 25, 1764,

In the 61st year of his age."

CHAPTER X.

ANDREW MILLAR; CADELL AND STRAHAN.

I

N 1736 the booksellers of London were threatened with a competition which appeared likely to assume a very formidable character. A Society was established for the Encouragement of Learning. Of this Society the Duke of Richmond was the President; noblemen of high character were members of its Committee of Management; learned doctors and professors were also of this committee; and literature had its representatives in the persons of Paul Whitehead and James Thomson. The Secretary of this society was an enthusiastic Scot, Alexander Gordon, who, ten years before, had his head full of a project to make a communication by a canal between the Clyde and the Forth, and who is described as having "made trial of all the ways by which a man could get an honest livelihood." There is extant a letter from this gentleman in which he informs Dr. Richardson, the Master of Emanuel College, Cambridge, how they are determined to spare neither pains nor charges in what they shall publish. "In fine," he writes, nothing is wanting but to set out with some author of genius or note, in order to give the public a specimen of their desire to serve them as well as the

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