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A sentence somewhat more favourable is merited by Chapman, the translator of Homer, and Thomas Heywood, if we may judge of them from the single specimens of their works in Dodsley's collection. Chapman has handled the well-known story of the Ephesian matron, under the title of The Widow's Tears, not without comic talent.
It was at Dodsley's that he first met his countryman Goldsmith, also Garrick, Boswell and Johnson. It was then that Johnson received that lasting impression of Burke, of whom he said, "Sir, if you met Edmund Burke under a gateway, where you had taken shelter for five minutes to escape a shower, you would be so impressed by his conversation that you would say, 'This is a most extraordinary man."
Such are the Odes to jealousy, to Hope, to Oblivion, and the like, in Dodsley's collection and the magazines of that day, which seldom fail to remind me of an Oxford copy of verses on the two SUTTONS, commencing with "Inoculation, heavenly maid! descend!"
In 1748, he wrote, for Dodsley's Preceptor, the Preface, and the Vision of Theodore the Hermit, to which Johnson has been heard to give the preference over all his other writings.
JOHNSON. 'I doubt whether Dodsley's brother would thank a man who should write his life: yet Dodsley himself was not unwilling that his original low condition should be recollected. When Lord Lyttelton's Dialogues of the Dead came out, one of which is between Apicius, an ancient epicure, and Dartineuf, a modern epicure, Dodsley said to me, "I knew Dartineuf well, for I was once his footman."
It is not strange, therefore, that, in the French verses of Frederic, we can find nothing beyond the reach of any man of good parts and industry, nothing above the level of Newdigate and Seatonian poetry. His best pieces may perhaps rank with the worst in Dodsley's collection. In history, he succeeded better.
Jake Dodsley's contributions to the "Leadville Herald" and to Henry Feldwisch's Denver "Inter-Ocean," though still aimed at the virgin mistress of The Bower, were pitched in a more exalted key and breathed a spirit that defied all human dangers.
I saw Poems by Mr. Gray advertised: I called directly at Dodsley's to know if this was to be more than a new edition? He was not at home himself, but his foreman told me he thought there were some new pieces, and notes to the whole. It was very unkind, not only to go out of town without mentioning them to me, without showing them to me, but not to say a word of them in this letter.
Recalling poor Jake Dodsley's fate Barber Sam discreetly did as he was bidden. As for Bill Merridew, he was shaking like a wine-jelly. The horses had come to a stand, and the passengers in the coach were wondering why a stop had been made so soon.
All this was sufficiently discouraging, and the next day's record is one of even worse omen. The poet thanks Heaven that his spirits are not affected by Mr. Dodsley's refusal, and that he is already preparing another poem for another bookseller, Mr. Becket.
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