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Notes
Autograph letter in my possession. This letter found its way into Richardson's files, and is endorsed in his hand. As printed in the Letters (1760), I, 193, asterisks are substituted for "Richardson," and in the second edition of the Letters (1784), I, 157, the name is given as "Rivington." I have already printed this extract from Hervey's letter in a study of his interest in natural science (University of Texas Studies in English, XXVIII [1949], 130).
To Philip Yorke, later Earl of Hardwicke, October 1, 1748. British Museum, Addit. MS. 35397, f. 170v. This passage has recently been printed by Edward A. Bloom, Samuel Johnson in Grub Street (1957), p. 279n. Sale, p. 27, quotes a letter of Richardson's dated November 1748 referring to this dispute with the compositors. Birch's figures for an average compositor's wages seem high; about a guinea a week is indicated by the scanty evidence. See Ellic Howe, The London Compositor, 1785-1900 (1947), p. 70; Sale, pp. 21-24.
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