Robert Dodsley, 1703–1764, is noted both as an author and a publisher. He began life as apprentice to a tradesman, and afterwards he was a footman. His first publication, made when he was twenty-nine years old, was a collection of poems, called “The Muse in Livery, or The Footman’s Miscellany.” His next essay was a drama, “The Toy Shop.” The manuscript being sent to Pope for examination, he pronounced a warm verdict of approval, which led to its being played at Covent Garden Theatre. Dodsley then opened a bookstore, and was successful in the business. He combined it, however, with authorship and with the patronage of authors. He wrote several other plays. “The King and the Miller of Mansfield;” “The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green;” “Cleone, a Tragedy,” besides numerous poems. He published a “Collection of Old Plays,” 12 vols., and wrote “The Economy of Human Life,” etc. But the greatest service he did to literature was his establishment of the Annual Register, begun in 1758 at the suggestion of Edmund Burke (who had the charge of it for some time) and continued to the present time.
Personal
“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 out every night to the stage-side, and cried at the distress of poor Cleone.
He was a generous friend, an encourager of men of genius; and acquired the esteem and respect of all who were acquainted with him. It was his happiness to pass the greater part of his life with those whose names will be revered by posterity, by most of whom he was loved as much for the virtues of his heart as he was admired on account of his excellent writings.
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.” |
Personally Dodsley is an attractive figure. Johnson had ever a kindly feeling for his “patron,” and thought he deserved a biography. His early condition lent a factitious importance to some immature verse, and his unwearied endeavours for literary fame gained him a certain contemporary fame. Some of his songs have merit—“One kind kiss before we part” being still sung—and the epigram on the words “one Prior” in Burnet’s “History” is well known. As a bookseller he showed remarkable enterprise and business aptitude, and his dealings were conducted with liberality and integrity. He deserves the praise of Nichols as “that admirable patron and encourager of learning.”
General
The first edition of the present volumes was one of the many excellent plans produced by the late Mr. Robert Dodsley; a man to whom literature is under so many obligations that it would be unpardonable to neglect this opportunity of informing those who may have received any pleasure from the work, that they owe it to a person whose merit and abilities raised him from an obscure situation in life to affluence and independence.
His plan of republishing “Old English Plays” is said to have been suggested to him by the literary amateur Coxeter, but the execution of it leaves us still indebted to Dodsley’s enterprise.
“Dodsley’s Collection” turned out to be a chance “medley:” unskilled in the language and the literature and the choice of his dramatists, he, as he tells us, “by the assistance of a little common sense, set a great number of these passages right;” that is, the dramatist of the dull “Cleone” brought down the ancient genius to his own; and, if he became intelligible, at least he was spurious. If, after all, some parts were left unintelligible, the reader must consider how many such remain in Shakespeare.
| Good DODSLEY honest, bustling, hearty soul, | |
| A foot-man, verse-man, prose-man, bibliopole; | |
| A menial first beneath a lady’s roof, | |
| Then Mercury to guttling Dartineuf, | |
| His humble education soon complete, | |
| He learnt good things to write, good things to eat. | |
| Then boldly ventured on the buskin’d stage, | |
| And show’d how toys may help to make us sage: | |
| Nay, dared to bite the great with satire’s tooth, | |
| And made a Miller tell his King the truth. | |
| In tragic strain he told Cleone’s woes, | |
| The touching sorrows and the madd’ning throes | |
| Of a fond mother and a faithful wife. | |
| He wrote “The Economy of Human Life.” | |
| For flights didactic then his lyre he strung, | |
| Made rhymes on Preaching, and blank verse on Dung; | |
| Anon with soaring weary, much at his ease, | |
| Wrote Epigrams, and Compliments, and Kisses. | |
| All styles he tried, the tragic, the comic, lyric, | |
| The grave didactic and the keen satiric; | |
| Now preach’d and taught as sober as a dominie, | |
| Now went pindaric-mad about Melpomene; | |
| Now tried the pastoral pipe and oaten stop, | |
| Yet all the while neglected not his shop. | |
| Fair be his fame, among a knavish clan | |
| His noblest title was an honest man. | |
| A bookseller, he robb’d no bard of pelf, | |
| No bard he libell’d, though a bard himself. |
Dodsley attempted literary fame in many branches, but among all his productions nothing is so well known as his “Select Collection of Old Plays,” 1744, dedicated to Sir Clement Cotterel Dormer, who probably contributed some of its contents. The great ladies who first patronised Dodsley had not forgotten him, and the subscription list displays a host of aristocratic names. The art of collation was then unknown, and when he first undertook the work the duties of an editor of other than classical literature were not so well understood as in more recent times…. His most important commercial achievement was the foundation of the “Annual Register” in 1758, which is still published.
