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The Life of Samuel Johnson [Ed. by F.P. Walesby].
The Life of Samuel Johnson - Ed. by F.P. Walesby Author:James Boswell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: We talked of Flatman's Poems; and Mrs. Thrale observed, that Pope had partly borrowed from him The dying Christian to his Soul. Johnson repeated Rochester's vers... more »es upon Flatman, which I think by much too severe: Nor that slow drudge in swift Pindarick strains, Flatman, who Cowley imitates with pains, And rides a jaded Muse, whipt witl) loose reins. I like to recollect all the passages that I heard Johnson repeat: it stamps a value on them. He told us, that the book entitled The Lives of the Poets, by Mr. Gibber, was entirely compiled by Mr. Shielsp, a Scotchman, one of his amanuenses. "Thebooksellers," said he, " gave Theophilus Cibber, who was then in prison, ten guineas, to allow Mr. Gibber to be put upon the title-page, as the author: by this, a double imposition was intended; in the first place, that it was the work of a Cibber at all; and in the second place, that it was the work of old Gibber." f 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, 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 dramatick poets with whom he had been chiefly conversant. He also engaged to write several of the lives; which, a...« less