It is certainly a very different performance from Swift's famous 'Directions.' We servints should see all and say nothing,' writes Winifred Jenkins; and Mrs. Lowther's poet, under the chapter of 'Discretion,' is as insistent as Lord Chesterfield himself on the importance (in the Servants' Hall) of the volto sciolto and pensieri stretti:

'Your Master's House his Closet ought to be,

Where all are Secrets which you hear or see,'

he says, adding with undeniable but superfluous truth:

'For he who indiscreetly babbles small Things
May be suspected of the same in all Things.'

Three years elapsed before Dodsley again addressed the public. This time it was as the author of a volume of occasional verses entitled 'A Muse in Livery: or, the Footman's Miscellany.' It was prefaced by a goodly subscription list, which—in addition to a fair show of Duchesses and Countesses-included the names of Sir Robert Walpole and of Steele's Aspasia,' the Lady Elizabeth Hastings; and it was furnished with an emblematic frontispiece by Fourdrinier which should have been worth the entire price of the volume. This represents a young man in a classic tunic, who, besides being alone in a desolate land

scape, is manifestly in lamentable case. His right hand, weighed down by Poverty, is chained to Misery, Folly, and Ignorance, while he hopelessly stretches his left, winged by Desire, towards Knowledge, Virtue, and Happiness. Fate has further handicapped him in the race by fettering his right foot to a box or block very legibly labelled 'Despair.'

'In vain DESIRE oft wings my Soul,

And mounts my Thoughts on high;
DESPAIR still clogs, and keeps me down,
Where I must grov'ling lie.'

So sings the poet himself in a rhymed 'Effigies Authoris,' or 'Mind of the Frontispiece.' As for the contents of the volume, they are no worse-nay, they are rather better-than the average of contemporary Verses on Various Occasions.' There is the usual Pastoral after Mr. Pope, the usual "Wish' after Mr. Cowley, the usual Tale, more or less coarse, in the manner of Mr. Prior or Mr. Gay, and the usual Epistles. The best of these last is a letter entitled 'The Footman,' the compensation for whose menial calling is the privilege of listening to the talk at dinner :

'I hear, and mark the courtly Phrases,
And all the Elegance that passes;

Disputes maintain'd without Digression,
With ready Wit, and fine Expression,
The Laws of true Politeness stated,

And what Good-breeding is, debated.'

With Despair tugging at his leg, Mr. Dodsley may perhaps be forgiven for declining to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth concerning the amiable Persons of Quality who were kind enough to patronize his little work. Unless, however, his experiences in the Lowther household were very exceptional, his description of contemporary 'Polite Conversation' (it may be whispered) is wholly at variance with that famous. record of Swift of which Mr. George Saintsbury not long since revived the interest. But if he is over-indulgent to his superiors, he is correspondingly severe upon his equals. Swearing, smallbeer, obscenity, and the reviling of Masters and Mistresses, make up, he affirms, the chief resources of his 'Brother Skips.' Towards the close of the book he asks incidentally whether future ages will rank his name with that of Prior. The question is put to nobody in particular, but Posterity, it is to be feared, will scarcely answer in the affirmative.

In the meantime, Mr. Dodsley's contemporaries were more easily satisfied. They received

'A Muse in Livery' so kindly that Osborne and Nourse were enabled to bring out a second edition in the same year as the first, to the titlepage of which the writer added the supplementary information that he was 'Footman to a Person of Quality at Whitehall.' In his next literary effort there is a greater congruity. That a gentleman's gentleman should versify is unexpected; but, looking to the recognized importance of the eighteenth-century lackey as a playhouse critic, it is not so remarkable that he should write for the stage. Whether keeping his mistress's place in the boxes, or surveying the house from that coign of vantage, the upper gallery, Mrs. Lowther's footman must have enjoyed peculiar advantages. He turned them to account by composing, upon a hint taken from Thomas Randolph, a little singlescene satire entitled 'The Toy Shop.' Dramatically it is weak, as the interest lies chiefly in the satirico-didactic observations which one person (the toy-man himself) makes upon his wares; and it is not difficult to conjecture the course he would take in moralizing upon (say) a lady's pocket-glass or a pair of temple spectacles. But it is neatly and fluently written; and the author had the temerity to submit it in manuscript to the great Mr. Pope. What was more, he had the

good fortune to please that potentate, who acknowledged it very graciously. 'I like it,' he said, 'so far as my particular judgment goes.' He doubted, and doubted justly, whether it had action enough for the boards, but he recommended it notwithstanding to Rich of Covent Garden, where it was played. With its success, Dodsley's career 'below stairs' came definitely to an end. He had saved something; Pope lent him 100; and other friends came forward so liberally that, having quenched his last flambeau in Mrs. Lowther's service, he opened the 'Tully's Head' as a bookseller's shop.

This was in 1735; and he could scarcely have chosen a more favourable moment. Before the year was out, died Jacob Tonson the Younger, to be followed only a few months later by Jacob Tonson the Elder-the famous old Jacob of Dryden and the Kit-Cats. Early in 1736, too, died another survivor of the Augustan Worthies, Bernard Lintot. In each of these cases relatives of the same surname continued the business, but the ancient prestige was gone. And if the moment was favourable, so was the locality selected. No one of the other booksellers, either notable or notorious, was very near to Pall Mall. Edmund Curll, of disreputable memory, at the