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ACT III.

Composed by.
Dibdin t

a

6

How can you, inhuman!....
Ah! how cruel the reflection.
To fear a stranger

I wonder, I'm sure, why this fuss should be

made...

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7

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THE

TOYSHO P.

A DRAMATIC SATIRE.

IN ONE ACT.

FIRST ACTED AT THE

THEATRE-ROYAL in COVENT-GARDEN,

IN THE YEAR 1735..

WRITTEN BY

ROBERT DODSLEY..

-P

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THE EDITOR's PREFACE.*

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COBERT DODSLEY, the Author of The ToyShop, The King and The Miller of Mansfield, Sir John Cockle at Court, and The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, was born at Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, February 13, 1703. His father was an officer in the Excise, and, besides Robert, had four sons and one daughter, who all lived to be respectably settled in the world, and none of them degenerated from those virtues which marked the character of our author and his father. At Robert's first setting out in life he was footman to Charles Dartiquenave (or Dartineuf) and afterwards to the Hon. Mrs. Lowther, a relation to the Earl of Lonsdale, who resided in London, in which situation he probably wrote The Muse in Livery; or The Footman's Miscellany, a thin 8vo.. published by subscription, in 1732. His abilities very soon raised him to a higher station, for, having written The Toy-Shop,† and shewn it to Pope, the delicacy of satire which is so conspicuous in it, though clothed with the greatest simplicity of design, so strongly recommended its author to the notice

These particulars of the life of Dodsley are taken principally from The Biographia Britannica, Vol. V. from The Biographia Dramatica, and from Mr. A. Chalmers' Life of Dodsley in the XVth. Vol. of his edition of the English Poets. For some few of them I am indebted to a relative of our Author now living at. Mansfield.

In the new edition of THE BIOGRAPHIA DRAMATICA, by ISAAC REED and STEPHEN JONES, in 3 volumes 8vo. 1812. (which I have this day received, Jan. 28. 1812) mention is made of two dramas written by Dodsley before The Toy-Shop.

1. An Entertainment designed for Her Majesty's Birth-day. 8vo. 1732.

2. An Entertainment designed for the Wedding of Governor Lowther and Miss Pennington. 8vo. 1732.

of that celebrated poet, that he continued, from that time to the day of his death, a warm friend and zealous patron · to Dodsley. He recommended the piece to Rich, the Manager of Covent-Garden Theatre, who brought it out in 1735, when it met with the success it merited. Of this piece I shall speak more fully hereafter. In the title page of the first edition Dodsley calls himself Author of The Art of Charming, a work which his Biographers have not noticed. From the profits derived from these pieces he entered into that business which of all others has the closest connection with, and the most immediate dependence on, persons of genius and literature, namely that of a Bookseller. The King and the Miller of Mansfield was acted at Drury Lane in 1737, and the title page to that says Printed for the Author, at Tully's Head, Pall-Mall. In this station, Pope's recommendation and his own merit soon obtained him not only the countenance of persons of the first abilities, but also of those of the first rank, and in a few years raised him to great eminence in his profession, in which he was almost, if not altogether, at the head.

It is a matter of wonder to me, that a Trade, or will rather call it a Profession, which affords such opportunities of enriching its professors, and of indulging in literary pursuits, should not have oftener been undertaken by persons of the middle classes of life, of liberal education and having literary views. To the younger sons of gentlemen, who may have little or no prospect of success in the Church, who may not have a partiality for Medicine, or to whom the Law may be too dry and uncertain a study, the business of a Dealer in Books and a Writer of them appears to afford at once a profitable and a pleasing occupation, one, in which he might

Egerton's Theatrical Remembrancer says that it was acted at Drury Lane, but The Biog. Dram. at Covent-Garden; and, as it appears from Dodsley's Epistle prefixed, that Rich was the Manager who brought it out, I apprehend that Covent-Garden was at that time his Theatre. The first copy does not state at what theatre it was performed.

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