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Notes
Dodsley's Collection of Poetry: Its Contents and Contributors (1910). Also passim, N&Q, 1906-1909.
Republication was standard practice among eighteenth-century periodical essayists. Joseph Spence republished ten of his contributions to the Museum as Moralities (1753) under the pseudonym "Sir Harry Beaumont." Likewise, John Campbell re-issued his Museum historical memoirs as The Present State of Europe (1750). However, despite Cooper's proposal, it seems that his "handsome volume" never did appear.
This poem is mentioned outside the context of the proposed volume. Cooper concludes the letter: "I would not have any of the Poetry publish'd."
This is probably the eighteenth essay Miss Addington attributes to Cooper. Actually its authorship was revealed when the essay appeared with Cooper's name among Dodsley's posthumous Fugitive Pieces (1765).
Another essay, "Of the Knowledge of the World," because it appeared in the very next issue of the Museum and was marked "supplement to Education," tempts one to attribute it to Cooper. However, functioning as negative evidence, Cooper's letter of May 28, 1746, dispels that possibility when the writer is seen asking Dodsley for the identity of the "Supplement's" author.
Writing on November 15, 1746, Cooper seems disturbed with this neglect: "I have only time this post to acquaint you that whenever the Directors of the Museum would subscribe a name allusive to the subject of any of my papers, that the mark of Philaretes may be plac'd in the opposite corner besides. For instance if they should sign that Paper I sent you upon lying Pseudophilus, as that upon the Beggar was Philoptochus, I desire you would still remind the Printer not to reject the other mark ["Philaretes"]." Apparently Cooper's pride in his favorite pseudonym could overlook the absurdity of a double signature.
Some other contributors include: Mark Akenside, William Collins, David Garrick, Samuel Johnson, Christopher Smart, Joseph Spence, Horace Walpole, Joseph and Thomas Warton the Younger, and William Whitehead. For their works and those of other contributors, see my article on the Museum, in Studies in English Literature, 13, No. 2 (Summer, 1973).
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