(in the year 1758) unfortunately embarked for Dublin, on an engagement for one of the theatres there but the fhip was caft away, and every foul on board perifhed. There were about fixty paffengers, among whom was the Earl of Drogheda, with many other persons of confequence and property.

"As to the alledged defign of making the compliment pass for the work of old Mr. Cibber, the charges feem to have been founded on a fomewhat uncharitable conftruction. We are affured that the thought was not harboured by fome of the proprietors, who are ftill living; and we hope that it did not occur to the first defigner of the work, who was alfo the printer of it, and who bore a refpectable character.

"We have been induced to enter thus circumftantially into the foregoing detail of facts relating to the Lives of the Poets,' compiled by Meffrs. Cibber and Shiels, from a fincere regard to that facred principle of truth, to which Dr. Johnfon fo rigidly adhered, according to the beft of his knowledge; and which, we believe, no confideration would have prevailed on him to violate. In regard to the matter, which we now difmifs, he had no doubt been miffed by partial and wrong information : Shiel was the Doctor's amanuenfis; he had quarrelled with Cibber, it is natural to fuppofe that he told his story in his own way; and it is certain

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certain that be was not ralist."+

a very sturdy mo

These five volumes contain 213 lives from Chaucer down to a Mrs. Chandler, a poetefs, who died 11th Sept. 1745, æt. 58. The laft volume also contains the lives of Swift, Hammond, Savage, Tickel, Aaron Hill, Thomfon and Pope, befides many less eminent authors. But out of the 58 poets, whose lives fill the first volume, which comes down to the reign of Charles I. there are only 34 of those, of whom I now prefent fome account to the public. Cibber's lives are not ill-written, and deserve a better fame than they seem to have attained.

On 29 May, 1777, the bookfellers of London having refolved to re-publifht a body of

*Dr. Johnson, however, fays " Shiels was a man of very acute understanding, though with little fcholaftic education, who not long after the publication of his work, died in London of a confumption His life was virtuous, and his end was pious."

+ "This explanation," fays Boswell," appears to me very fatisfactory. It is, however, to be observed, that the story told by Johnfon, does not reft folely upon my record of his converfation; for he himself has published it in his life of Hammond, where he says, ⚫ the manufcript of Shiels is now in my poffeffion.' Very probably he had trufted to Shiels's word, and never looked at it fo as to compare it with The Lives of the Poets,' as published nder Mr. Cib. ber's name. What became of that manufcript I know not. I fuppose it was thrown into the fire in that impetuous combuftion of papers, which Johnson, I think, rafhly executed when moribundus,” Bofwell's Life of Johnfon, 8vo. ii. p. 392, 394.

It appears by a letter of Mr. Edward Dilly, the bookfeller, to

Bof well'

English Poetry, confifting of thofe works, which they conceived to be most popular, con tracted with Dr. Johnson to furnish them with a fhort life, in the way of Preface to every author whom they had felected. Hence originated his laft great work The Lives of the English Poets," of which the first four volumes in duodecimo, were publifhed early in 1779, and the remaining volumes in 1781. It was begun in his fixty-eighth year, and finished in his seventyfecond, and affords ample proof of the full vigor with which he ftill enjoyed his faculties. It contains only 52 lives, beginning with Cowley, and ending with Lyttelton: and of thefe, at least ten, as the work profeffed to be a felection, might furely have been spared.

Of this celebrated work I have already in part expreffed my opinion. Bofwell, the ufeful, yet too frequently injudicious, panegyrist of Johnson, has, I think, failed egregiously in fixing its merits with precifion. He says, that Johnfon" delighted to expatiate upon the various merits of the English Poets; upon the

Bofwell, dated 26 Sept. 1777, that this undertaking originated from the fmall edition of Bell and the Martins at Edinburgh, which the London bookfellers confidered as an invafion of what they called their Literary Property, and that the original intention was to publish an elegant and accurate edition of all the poets from Chaucer to the prefent time. Bosw. ii, p. 484.

* Pomfret, Stepney, Walsh, Smith, Duke, King, Sprat, Halifax, Sheffield, and Yalden.

niceties

niceties of their characters, and the events of their progrefs through the world which they contributed to illuminate." Should he not rather have faid, " to fearch out their demerits, and in too many inftances to think the niceties of their characters fo little worthy of investigation, as to comprize within a dozen widely printed pages the accounts of men, who have exhibited a tong life of literary and intellectual fplendor upon the wide theatre of the world!" But it will come more properly within the plan of the future volume which I intend, to enter at large into the character of this extraordinary performance, which the powerful and inimitable talents of the author have rendered too interesting to be depreffed by its defects; yet of which it is keenly to be regretted that dull heads and cold hearts confider the faults as excellencies.

In 1792, fome bookfellers of Edinburgh undertook a more comprehenfive collection of the Poets than had hitherto been published, in 13 volumes large 8vo. and to comprefs as much as poffible within their plan, printed it in double columns, with an extremely small type. This edition goes by the name of the Editor Robert Anderfon, of Edinburgh, M. D. who furnished. a biographical and critical preface to the works

Of this the flight and contemptuous life of George Lord Lyttelton, is a glaring proof.

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of each poet. These prefaces are written with much candor; and the lives of fome of the mo dern authors contain much pleafing and ufeful information which had not hitherto been collected together. The collection comprehends the works of one hundred and fourteen authors, of whom forty-nine are not to be found in Johnfon's edition and forty-five are for the first time received into an edition of English Poetry. The first volume contains Chaucer, Surty, Wyat, "Uncertain Auctours" from Totell's Mifcellany, and Sackville. Moft alfo of the modern poets down to the date of the publication, which was closed in November 1795, are inferted.* The Editor would alfo, had not the neceffary limitations of the proprietors interfered, have inferted Langland, Gower; the best parts of Lydgate, Barclay, Hawes; the best parts of Skelton; the best parts of Warner, Sydney, Marlow, Stirling, Quarles, King; and the translations of Fairfax, Sandys and May; and of the moderns, Marvell, C. Cotton, Sedley, Hopkins, Oldham, Eufden, Welfted, Sewell, Mendez, Jenner, and Kirkpatrick.+

Such are the former publications of the lives

It is to be regretted that this spirited undertaking did not prove beneficial to the original undertakers, who, I believe, failed: and the remaining copies were bought by Mr. Stockdale, of Piccadilly, at a very reduced price. + See the Editor's preface to the above collection.

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