human
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 thirty 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 {114} has now in his possession Theophilus Cibber's receipt 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 Shiells and other writers. I say _other_, because many of the best pieces of biography in that collection were not written by Shiells, but by superior hands. In short, the engagement of Cibber, or some other _Englishman_, to superintend what Shiells in particular should offer, was a measure absolutely necessary, not only to guard against his Scotticisms, and other defects of expression, but his virulent Jacobitism, which inclined him to abuse every Whig character that came in his way. This, indeed, he would have done; but Cibber (a stanch Williamite) opposed and prevented him, insomuch that a violent quarrel arose on the subject. By the way, it seems to me, that Shiell's Jacobitism has been the only circumstance that has procured him the regard of Mr. Johnson, and the favourable mention that he has made of Shiell's 'virtuous life and pious end'--expressions that must draw a smile from every one who knows, as I did, the real character of Robert Shiells. And now, what think you of noticing this matter in regard to truth, and the fair fame of the honest bookseller?