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Notes
The British Post Office. A History (1948), pp. 117-118. For Johnson, for instance, see his letter to Mrs. Thrale on 7 November 1779 in the Hyde Edition of The Letters of Samuel Johnson, ed. Bruce Redford (1992-94), III, 210. Her husband, Henry Thrale (1728?-81), was M.P. for Southwark at the time. For Montagu, see his letter to Walpole on 17 November 1761, in Horace Walpole's Correspondence with George Montagu, ed. W. S. Lewis and A. Dayle Wallace (1941) I, 402; for Cole, see his letter to Walpole on 11 February 1764 in Horace Walpole's Correspondence with the Rev. William Cole, ed. W. S. Lewis and A. Dayle Wallace (1937), I, 59. For some of the following general notions on the history of franking, I rely on (besides Robinson) George Brumel, A Short Account of the Franking System in the Post Office: 1652-1840 (Bournemouth: Bournemouth Guardian, Ltd., 1936); Kenneth Ellis, The Post Office in the Eighteenth Century (1958); and J. C. Hemmeon, The History of the British Post Office (1912).
Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1651-1652, ed. Mary Anne Everett Green (1877), p. 507.
As Ellis notes (pp. 39-40), despite the Treasury's setting policy for the Post Office, its attitude toward franking had always differed from that of the Post Office: whereas the Treasury was always anxious to protect the privilege, the Post Office regularly sought to curtail it.
Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Misc. d. 174, ff. 27-29; 45-46. Printed in The Correspondence of Robert Dodsley, 1733-1764, ed. James E. Tierney (1989), pp. 110-111, 129-130. All subsequent references to this edition will be indicated simply by Correspondence.
Simon Gratz Collection, Case 11, Box 6, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Correspondence, pp. 121-122.
Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Misc. d. 174, ff. 19-[21]; 23-25. Correspondence, pp. 105-106; 109-110.
Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Robert Dodsley/Recipient 1/Bound, ff. 13-16. Correspondence, pp. 315-316.
Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Robert Dodsley/Recipient 1/Bound, ff. 33-36. Correspondence, pp. 348-350.
Somerset County Record Office, DD/SK, 28/1, 7; 15; 79. Correspondence, pp. 293-294, 474-475, 482.
Correspondence, p. 280; Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Robert Dodsley/Recipient 1/Bound, ff. 25-28 (Correspondence, pp. 339-341); British Library, Add. MS. 35,339, ff. 23-24 (Correspondence, pp. 361-362).
Lyttelton's Discourse on Providence (1747) passed through three editions within its first year; his Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul had reached a fifth edition by 1754.
On 26 August 1751, John Gilbert Cooper wrote to Dodsley: "I recd about three days ago a letter from an unknown hand, which was directed & frank'd by you . . ." (Bodleian Ms. Eng Misc, d. 174, f. 61; Correspondence, p. 140). It is not absolutely clear whether Cooper means that Dodsley personally franked the letter or whether he is saying that the bookseller procured a frank to cover the postage. Since the Dodsley letter to which Cooper refers is missing, first-hand evidence is lacking. Given the isolated circumstances of the "frank"— two years before Dodsley's franks begin to appear, and addressed to someone other than Shenstone—it is impossible to conclude whether or not Dodsley's franking actually dates from 1751.
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