"MY LORD,

TO LORD WESTCOTE.

"Bolt Court, Fleet Street, July 27, 1780.

"The course of my undertaking will now require a short life of your brother, Lord Lyttelton. My desire is to avoid offence, and to be totally out of danger. I take the liberty of proposing to your lordship, that the historical account should be written under your direction by any friend you may be willing to employ, and I will only take upon myself to examine the poetry. Four pages like those of his work, or even half so much, will be sufficient. As the press is going on, it will be fit that I should know what you shall be pleased to determine. I am, my Lord, your lordship's most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON."

66

"MY LORD,

TO LORD WESTCOTE.

"Bolt Court, Fleet Street, July 28, 1780.

"I wish it had been convenient to have had that done which I proposed. I shall certainly not wantonly nor willingly offend; but when there are such near relations living, I had rather they would please themselves. For the life of Lord Lyttelton I shall need no help-it was very public, and I have no need to be minute. But I return your lordship thanks for your readiness to help me. I have another life in hand, that of Mr. West, about which I am quite at a loss; any information respecting him would be of great use to, my Lord, your lordship's most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON."

II.

THEOPHILUS CIBBER'S LIVES OF

THE POETS.

["He told us, that the book entitled the 'Lives of the Poets,' by Mr. Cibber, was entirely compiled by Mr. Shiels, a Scotchman, one of his amanuenses. ."-See ante, p. 80. In the second and third editions of his work, Boswell appended a note, which, as being too long, is printed here.]

IN the "Monthly Review" for May, 1792, there is such a correction of the above passage as I should think myself very culpable not to subjoin. "This account is very inaccurate. The following statement of facts we know to be true, in every material circumstance-Shiels was the principal collector and digester of the materials for the work; but as he was very raw in authorship, an indifferent writer in prose, and his language full of Scotticisms, [Theoph.] Cibber, who was a clever, lively fellow, and then soliciting employment among the booksellers, was engaged to correct the style and diction of the whole work, then intended to make only four volumes, with power to alter, expunge, or add, as he liked. He was also to supply notes occasionally, especially concerning those dramatic poets with whom he had been chiefly conversant. He also engaged to write several of the Lives; which (as we are told) he accordingly performed. He was farther useful in striking out the Jacobital and Tory sentiments which Shiels had industriously interspersed wherever he could bring them in; and as the success of the work appeared, after all, very doubtful, he was content with twenty-one pounds for his labour, besides a few sets of the books to disperse among his friends. Shiels had nearly seventy pounds, besides the advantage of many of the best Lives in the work being communicated by friends to the undertaking; and for which Mr. Shiels had the same consideration as for the rest, being paid by the sheet for the whole. He was, however, so angry with his whiggish supervisor (THE., like his father, being a violent stickler for the political principles which prevailed in the reign of George the Second) for so unmercifully mutilating his copy, and scouting his politics, that he

wrote Cibber a challenge; but was prevented from sending it by the publisher, who fairly laughed him out of his fury. The proprietors, too, were discontented in the end, on account of Mr. Cibber's unexpected industry; for his corrections and alterations in the proof-sheets were so numerous and considerable, that the printer made for them a grievous addition to his bill; and, in fine, all parties were dissatisfied. On the whole, the work was productive of no profit to the undertakers, who had agreed, in case of success, to make Cibber a present of some addition to the twenty guineas which he had received, and for which his receipt is now in the booksellers' hands. We are farther assured, that he actually obtained an additional sum; when he, soon after (in the year 1758), unfortunately embarked for Dublin, on an engagement for one of the theatres there; but the ship was cast away, and every person on board perished. There were about sixty passengers, among whom was the Earl of Drogheda, with many other persons of consequence and property.

"As to the alleged design of making the compilement pass for the work of old Mr. Cibber, the charges seem to have been founded on a somewhat uncharitable construction. We are assured that the thought was not harboured by some of the proprietors, who are still living; and we hope that it did not occur to the first designer of the work, who was also the printer of it, and who bore a respectable character.

"We have been induced to enter circumstantially into the foregoing detail of facts relating to the 'Lives of the Poets,' compiled by Messrs. Cibber and Shiels, from a sincere regard to that sacred principle of truth, to which Dr. Johnson so rigidly adhered, according to the best of his knowledge; and which, we believe, no consideration would have prevailed on him to violate. In regard to the matter which we now dismiss, he had, no doubt, been misled by partial and wrong information; Shiels was the doctor's amanuensis; he had quarrelled with Cibber; it is natural to suppose that he told his story in his own way; and it is certain that he was not 'a very sturdy moralist." "

This explanation appears to me satisfactory. It is, however, to be observed, that the story told by Johnson does not rest solely upon my record of his conversation; for he himself has published it in his "Life of Hammond," where he says, "the manuscript of Shiels is now in my possession." Very probably he had trusted to Shiels' word, and never looked at it so as to compare it with

"The Lives of the Poets," as published under Mr. Cibber's name. What became of that manuscript I know not. I should have liked much to examine it. I suppose it was thrown into the fire in that impetuous combustion of papers, which Johnson, I think rashly, executed when moribundus.-Boswell.

Johnson's attestation as to the authorship, is in the “Life of Hammond" ("Lives of the Poets," Works, vol. viii. p. 90). "The book called Cibber's Lives of the Poets,' I take this opportunity to testify that it was not written nor, I believe, ever seen by either of the Cibbers: but was the work of Robert Shiels, a native of Scotland, a man of very acute understanding, though with little scholastick education, who, not long after the publication of his work, died in London of a consumption.' His life was virtuous and his end was pious. Theophilus Cibber, then a prisoner for debt, imparted, as I was told, his name for ten guineas. manuscript of Shiels' is now in my possession."

The

In the "Memoir of the Life, Writings, and Mechanical Inventions of Edmund Cartwright, D.D., F.R.S.,” London, 1843, there is a letter, to which attention was directed by Mr. Croker,— which partially confirms the corrections of the Monthly Reviewer. Cartwright had written a review in that journal of the earlier portion of Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," and Mr. R. Griffiths, the publisher of "Cibber's Lives," forwarding to Cartwright the new volumes of Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," wrote as follows::

MR. GRIFFITHS TO MR. CARTWRIGHT.

"DEAR SIR,

"Turnham Green, June 16.

"I have sent you a FEAST! Johnson's new volumes of the 'Lives of the Poets.' You will observe that Savage's Life is one of the volumes. I suppose it is the same which he published about 30 years ago, and therefore you will not be obliged to notice it otherwise than in the course of enumeration. In the account of Hammond, my good friend Samuel has stumbled on a material circumstance in the publication of Cibber's 'Lives of the Poets.' He intimates that Cibber never saw the work. This is a reflection on the bookseller, your humble servant. The bookseller has

1 He died Dec. 29, 1753.-Gentleman's Magazine.

now in his possession Theophilus Cibber's receipts for twenty guineas (Johnson says ten) in consideration of which he engaged to revise, correct, and improve the work, and also to affix his name in the title page. Mr. Cibber did accordingly very punctually revise every sheet; he made numerous corrections and added many improvements, particularly in those lives which came down to his own times, and brought him within the circle of his own and his father's literary acquaintance, especially in the dramatic line. To the best of my recollection he gave some entire lives, besides inserting abundance of paragraphs, of notes, anecdotes, and remarks, in those which were compiled by Shiels and other writers. I say other because many of the best pieces of biography in that collection were not written by Shiels, but by superior hands. In short, the engagement of Cibber, or some other Englishman, to superintend what Shiels in particular should offer, was a measure absolutely necessary, not only to guard against his Scotticisms and other defects of expression, but his virulent Jacobitisms, which inclined him to abuse every Whig character that came in his way. This, indeed, he would have done, but Cibber (a staunch Williamite) opposed and prevented him, insomuch that a violent quarrel arose on the subject. By the way, it seems to me, that Shiels' Jacobitism has been the only circumstance that has procured him the regard of Mr. Johnson, and the favourable mention that he has made (in the paragraph referred to) of Shiels' virtuous Life and Pious End,' expressions that must draw a smile from every one who knows, as I did, the real character of Robert Shiels. And now, what think you of noticing this matter, in regard to truth and the fair fame of the honest bookseller?"- Memoir of Edmund Cartwright, Lond. 1843, pp. 34-37.