University of Virginia Library

Patchwork and Piracy: John Bell's "Connected System of Biography" and the Use of Johnson's Prefaces
by
Thomas F. Bonnell [*]

The birth of Johnson's Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets was difficult, at once premature and overdue. An anxious set of midwives, the booksellers for whom Johnson wrote, were alarmed by John Bell, whose series of British poets from Chaucer to Churchill was projected to reach one hundred volumes. Viewing Bell's scheme as an invasion of their literary property, they had plotted to undermine it with a collection of their own, banking on Johnson's name to give them an advantage.

Timeliness was all. To facilitate dispatch, the publishers had minimized their request of Johnson, as the biographer readily confessed: "My purpose was only to have allotted to every Poet an Advertisement, like those which we find in the French Miscellanies, containing a few dates and a general character."[1] The greater hurdle, it seemed, was the printing of fifty-six volumes of poetry; to expedite this task, ten printshops were put to work.[2] The proprietors had done their best to speed things along. To their undoubted chagrin, however, Johnson ignored their scant recipe for the lives, led beyond their intention by an "honest desire of giving useful pleasure"—a process that stretched from months into years. Meanwhile, Bell enjoyed an uncontested market, his Poets of Great Britain steadily progressing from its commencement in 1777.[3]

Johnson's delay left the proprietors with five options, none of them appealing:

This anomaly elicited a jibe from Bell. In 1783, upon the completion of his series, he published a triumphal letter in which he sniffed at the irregular bond between Johnson's Prefaces and the proprietors' collection of poems. Johnson, Bell observed, had had no real concern in the edition called "Johnson's Poets" "otherwise than in writing and compiling the four volumes of the lives, which have no reference or allusion whatever to that Edition of the Poets, more than to mine.—Nay, I will even dare him so say, that he saw even a single sheet of manuscript, or printed copy, of what is called his Edition of the Poets, before it came finished from the press."[4] It was true: the four-volume Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (the 1781 reprint of the Prefaces) bore no clear affiliation to the Works of the English Poets. Nor had the original Prefaces—this was Bell's point. Because Johnson had paid little explicit attention to the proprietors' edition in drafting his lives, and because the lives as a result did not "own" that collection, they could with equal propriety have been attached to Bell's series as well.

The insinuation was deliberately ironic. Some of Johnson's work had, in fact, been incorporated into The Poets of Great Britain: the famous writer's words and ideas were appropriated by Bell's compilers in several of his prefaces, running the gamut from outright piracy, which cost Bell a legal scrape, to the promiscuous little borrowings that were routine in eighteenth-century hackwork. To sort this out I have tried to chart the tangle of sources

used in Bell's lives. My purpose in doing so is twofold: (1) to bring to light one of the earliest responses to Johnson's Prefaces, a practical critique or compiler's-eye view of their most enticing elements; and (2) to set this practice into perspective by cataloging the other sources which shaped Bell's prefaces.

I
"That Part Which You May Call Piracy"

The mischief began in 1779 after the proprietors, on March 31, published their fifty-six volumes of poetry with the first installment of Johnson's Prefaces. For a compiler seeking biographical details and critical opinion, the new source was irresistible. By August 26, the first purloined material had been printed in Edinburgh, in Bell's "Life of Sir John Denham," to accompany The Poetical Works of Denham when offered for sale in London on 18 December 1779.

The biographical half of the preface is a jigsaw compilation of passages from Johnson and Biographia Britannica. Phrases, sentences and paragraphs are spliced together without their provenance being effaced. The technique may be seen at its most intricate in the following passage. For comparison I have provided the ur-source, Athenæ Oxonienses (AO), and presented Bell's text (JB) phrase by phrase to show the alternate use of Johnson (SJ) and Biographia Britannica (BB).[5]

AO: Shortly after he was prick's High Sheriff for Surrey, and made Governour of Farnham-Castle for the King: But he being an inexpert Soldier, soon after left that Office, and retired to his Maj. at Oxon, where he printed his Poem called Cooper's-hill:

BB: Soon after he was pricked for High-Sheriff of the county of Surrey, and made Governor of Farnham-Castle for the King. But, not being well skilled in military affairs, he soon quitted that post, and retired to his Majesty at Oxford, where he published his poem called Cooper's Hill.

SJ: He was after that pricked for sheriff of Surrey, and made governor of Farnham Castle for the king; but he soon resigned that charge, and retreated to Oxford, where, in 1643, he published "Cooper's Hill."

JB:

• He was soon after [SJ syntax preferred]
• pricked for High Sheriff of the county of Surrey, [BB]
• having an estate at Egham in that county, [BB note (d)]
• and appointed Governor of Farnham Castle; [either source]
• but his skill in military fairs not being extensive, [BB]
• he resigned that charge, [SJ]

---

196




• and went to King Charles I. then at Oxford, [BB]
• where, in 1643, he published Cooper's Hill. [SJ]

Many passages are similarly structured, with some paraphrase but mostly fractured and reassembled quotation. Elements of Johnson pervade this section of the life; they provide the framework, while materials from BB are either interpolated or relegated to footnotes. Most of SJ 11-20 is quoted wholesale.

Where the critical section of the life begins, Bell's text becomes wholly Johnson's. With the exception of five altered phrases, one sentence deletion, the omission of a few verses in the poetical examples, and the switching of paragraphs 25 and 26, Johnson's critical discussion of Denham (SJ 21-42) is reprinted in full.

How word of the theft reached the proprietors is unclear. Months passed before any of the interested parties noticed, but by the end of March they had sought legal counsel to establish whether the offense was actionable. This advice in hand, several printers and booksellers met at Anderson's Coffeehouse on 27 March 1780. Calling themselves "the Committee of the Poets," they resolved as follows:

Thirteen parties witnessed the resolution: Thomas Longman, George Nicol, Thomas Cadell, Thomas Evans, Lockyer Davis, Thomas Davies, John Rivington's Sons, Nathaniel Conant, John Nichols, George Robinson, Bedwell Law, Benjamin White and Robert Baldwin.[6]

Their legal help was impressive. Lloyd Kenyon was poised to receive a silk gown (on June 30), the first in a train of elevations which led to his succeeding Lord Mansfield as Chief Justice in 1788. As an equity judge his merits were "rapidity and accuracy"; perfectly versed in this branch of law, he decided cases "without any hesitation or delay."[7] Despite some failings, such as a defective manner of speech, an unprepossessing education, and a reluctance to articulate his legal principles, his judicial skill was superlative. A century later it could be said of him that "no judge who presided so long in

the king's bench has been as seldom overruled," and that "the decisions and rulings of no judge stand in higher estimation than those of Lord Kenyon."[8]

Isaac Reed, too, was a natural choice. He was an intimate of the London literary scene, whose passion was to amplify and correct the biographical and bibliographical record of the nation. By 1780 his assistance, usually anonymous, had been vital to the notes in Nichols' Select Collection of Poems (4 vols., 1780), the revisions of Biographia Britannica, and the republication of Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays (6 vols., 1780), including the preface, annotations, and accounts of the playwrights.[9] More pertinent was his link to Johnson's Prefaces, as recalled in Boswell's summary of the help Johnson received: "But he was principally indebted to my steady friend Mr. Isaac Reed, of Staple-Inn, whose extensive and accurate knowledge of English literary History I do not express with exaggeration, when I say it is wonderful."[10] If anyone knew the exigencies of compiling lives and had faced repeatedly the practical divide between legitimate borrowing and piracy, it was Isaac Reed.

Rather than to face this formidable legal challenge and expose himself in the courts to possible penalties, Bell cut his losses. He withdrew the edition of Denham from sale, thereby avoiding an injunction or worse.[11] Changes to the book in the ensuing months tell of Bell's efforts to regroup and to salvage from the setback something of a commercial opportunity.

To retrace this bibliographical trail one needs to know a few facts about The Poets of Great Britain. The series was printed in Edinburgh by Gilbert Martin and sons. Its format is 18mo in sixes; the first three leaves in a gathering are signed with letters and roman numerals (for instance D, Dij, Diij). Besides an engraved series title-page and in some a frontispiece portrait, each volume contains two letterpress title-pages. Since the series consisted of reprints, and the extent of any volume was known from the outset, the compositor had no need to resort to a separate sequence of signings for the preliminaries.

The single sequence begins with the title-pages ([A] and [Aij]), resulting in the first page of the prefatory life (p. [v]) being signed Aiij. On the final page of each volume was printed a colophon that reads "From the APOLLO PRESS, by the MARTINS," followed by a date. According to the colophon, the press work for The Poetical Works of Sir John Denham was completed on 26 August 1779.

In this volume "The Life of Sir John Denham" appeared on pp. [v]-xviii, followed by Denham's dedication "To the King" (pp. [xix]-xxii) and the poems (pp. [23]-178). With a two-page table of contents, the book came to 180 pages, or precisely five sheets of paper printed in 18mo, for a collation of A-P6. The paper Martin used for Denham had a crowned horn watermark with a pendant "GR," and a "J Taylor" countermark.[12] These are the earmarks of the book containing the pirated Johnsonian preface. The final four sheets (pp. 37-180) were never altered. What happened to the first sheet is what defines the second and third states of this edition and its subsequent re-issue.[13]

To avoid further legal action Bell withdrew the piracy from sale and laid plans for re-issuing the volume once he had obtained a revised life of Denham. As an interim measure he sold copies of the book from which the life had been cancelled. Cut out were pp. [v]-xviii, or seven leaves (A3 through

B3) from the first two gatherings.[14] Such copies constitute a second state, typographically identical to the first except for the missing life. That copies in this state were deemed saleable, their mutilation notwithstanding, is a sign of Bell's impatience before the full remedy could be implemented.

To end this predicament Bell was willing to improvise, anxious lest his regular printing arrangement with Edinburgh cause undue delay. The moment his revised text was ready, he had it printed closer to home (presumably in London) and then, inserting the fresh "Life of Sir John Denham" into the gap left by the cancels, resumed at least a limited sale of the volume.[15] Bibliographical evidence tells the story of this third state. The life is not the presswork of Gilbert Martin. Departures from the style of the Apollo Press include: a double rule above the title of the life on p. [v], a feature shared with no other preface in the Poets; block quotations of poetry which are flush left, not indented as in the rest of Bell's series; and Arabic instead of Roman numerals in the signings. In addition, the type is larger—a bourgeois letter with a small brevier or large minion for the block quotations, in place of the Apollo Press brevier with block quotations in pearl. The paper, too, featuring a "W" countermark, differs from any other in Bell's edition.[16] The format employed was a version of 18mo called "sixteen pages to a half sheet of eighteens," resulting in eight leaves, signed A through A4, and numbered [v]-xx.[17] As the sixteen-page life did not fit the fourteen-page gap left by the cancels ("To the King" starts on p. xix), the volume would have been spared its redundant pp. xix and xx if the new life arbitrarily had been numbered [iii]-xviii, instead of [v]-xx.[18]

This third state was a stopgap. A limited supply would have sufficed until the revision had made its way to Edinburgh and back, where Martin could

print the new text in the usual style of Bell's Poets. At this point it was simplest to reprint the entire first sheet, which effectively made a cancel of the first three gatherings. This new sheet from the Apollo Press defines Bell's re-issue of the Denham edition. As before, the paper bears the watermark of a crowned horn with pendant GR, but the countermark now reads "IV."[19] The text of the sixteen-page life has been followed verbatim, with changes in accidentals, but has been recast in brevier type to restore the original pagination ([v]-xviii).[20] Since the first sheet encompassed pp. [i]-36, the other features also needing to be reset were the title-pages, dedication, all of "Cooper's Hill," and the first eighteen verses of "On the Earl of Strafford's Trial and Death." The imprint was updated to 1780, to suit Bell's purpose in re-advertising the edition. These sheets were shipped to London and sewn onto the second through fifth sheets of the original 1779 stock, readying the volume for re-issue.

How many copies of Bell's Denham were affected by these changes? A survey of ESTC, OCLC, RLIN, and NUC (along with chance discoveries) yields a list of thirty copies with the 1779 imprint, and twenty-one with the 1780 imprint. Other things being equal (not always a safe assumption), this ratio would suggest that before re-issuing the edition, Bell had sold more than half of his print run. As for the relative numbers of the 1779 issue extant in its various states, my own research (in effect a random selection) may serve as a rough guide. Of the seventeen copies I have seen or questioned others about, eleven conform to the original state (with the pirated life), five to the second state (without a life), and only one to the third state (with the sixteen-page life). If representative, this sample implies a considerable sale of the original state (nearly 40% of the full print run), a far from negligible number sold in the imperfect second state (between 15% and 20% of the edition), and a fairly minimal exposure to sale of the third state.[21]

The re-issue was heralded in the Morning Post of 19 July 1780.[22] With his usual promotional flare Bell advertised the "New Edition" of Denham's works in the course of an open rebuke "To the Forty Booksellers, who have so long, and impotently attempted by their combined wealth and influence, as well as by every plausible imposition on the public, which art could suggest,

or malevolence devise, to suppress and to rival Bell's Edition of the Poets, or to annihilate the publisher." He trumpeted the "NEW LIFE of the Author, intended as a PARAPHRASE of that, which is supposed to have been written, by Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON." By refusing to concede that his first life had been a piracy, and casting doubt on the allegation itself, Bell implied that his opponents had not dealt with him in good faith. Addressing his rivals "with contempt," he palliated his offense and improved upon hints of their fraud: While the piracy of Johnson could not have been inadvertent, Bell's denial of involvement is plausible. Apart from his implicit policy of reprinting authoritative lives, where available, and otherwise the fullest warrantable compilation, there is no reason to think that he supervised this work closely, especially if it was done in Edinburgh.

As to the proprietors' "daily practice" belying their legal rules, there is a grain of truth to the charge. Publishers commonly tested their borrowing limits, though it was disingenuous to suggest that theft as extensive as the Denham piracy, and with materials so recent, was the norm. More incriminating is Bell's view of their marginal ethics in promotional matters. The whole collection had in fact "been forced upon the world . . . as the production of Dr. Johnson." To say these were "Johnson's Poets" was a lie, one that Johnson himself protested in characterizing the unauthorized use of his name as misleading and indecent.[23] No one could have been more keenly attuned to such marketing licence than Bell.

In closing, Bell softened his grievance, portraying himself as a responsible bookseller whose initiative had been swift and voluntary:

The challenge to compare the two versions, an otherwise obligatory promotional topos, is all the more defiant because the revised life was not an overhaul. It was based on the contested text itself, the source of Bell's legal headache, and declared to be "intended as a paraphrase."

In the biographical half of the revised preface, the erstwhile quotations

of Johnson have been targeted for change. Witness the following revision, compared with the original sources:[24]

• BB: In 1652, or thereabout, he returned into England; and, his paternal estate being greatly reduced by gaming and the Civil Wars, he was kindly entertained by the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton, and continued with that Nobleman about a year. (3:1647)
• SJ: About this time, what estate the war and the gamesters had left him was sold, by order of the parliament; and when, in 1652, he returned to England, he was entertained by the earl of Pembroke. (16; my emphasis)
• 1779: Mr. Denham returned into England about the year 1652, and what estate the Civil war and the gamesters had left him being sold by order of the Parliament, he was kindly entertained by the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton, with whom he continued near twelve months. (x; my emphasis)
• 1780: About the year 1652 he returned to England; and his paternal estate being greatly reduced by gaming and the Civil wars, he was kindly entertained by the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton, with whom he resided near twelve months. (x)

The tactic is clear: Johnson's phrase (in italics) is relinquished, and the rereviser retreats to BB. Obviously this kind of revision, combing through the pirated text phrase by phrase to detect and remedy the plagiarism, was possible only with Johnson and BB both open before the reviser.

While Johnson's preface served as a map for revision, it was also used in one instance for further, though more circumspect, borrowing. Bell's 1779 text called upon BB and SJ to recount Denham's appointment as Surveyor of the King's Buildings and his receiving the Order of the Bath. Johnson's paragraph consists of three sentences, the second of which, with two surgical transplants from BB, formed Bell's paragraph. The reviser duly cut away the plagiarised words, again falling back on BB, but could not leave the operation without grafting on Johnson's first and third sentences:

• SJ: Of the next years of his life there is no account. . . . He seems now to have learned some attention to money; for Wood says, that he got by his place seven thousand pounds. (17)
• 1780: From this period to the Restoration, in 1660, there appears to be a chasm in the history of Denham's life. . . . He likewise now appears to have acquired a greater degree of economical prudence than he had been usually blessed with, as Wood informs us that he realized by his appointment upwards of 7000l. (x)

The mode of disguise here is wordiness, one of the principal means of paraphrase employed in the revision.

Verbosity could also be used to mask the retention of Johnson's verbal formulae:

• 1779: He seems to have divided his studies between law and poetry; for in 1636 he translated the second book of the Æneid. (vi; SJ 7)
• 1780: During the period he had abstained from his favourite amusement, in consequence of his father's admonitions, he appears to have divided his time between the study of the law and the cultivation of his poetical talents; for in the year 1636 he translated the second book of the Æneid, which was published twenty years after, under the title of The Destruction of Troy; or, An Essay upon the second book of Virgil's Æneids [sic]. (vi-vii)

The core borrowing is embellished with a dependent clause in front (the needless reiteration of a previous point) and a relative clause at the end (merely the addition of a title and publication date).

If the compiler could fall back on BB or even Wood where the biographical outline was concerned, the critical section presented no such opportunity. There were stark alternatives to retaining Johnson's opinions: either to form an independent literary appraisal, or to abandon the section altogether. Remarkably, even under the legal scrutiny to which the revision would have been subjected, Johnson's ideas were considered fair game so long as some of the words were changed. The critical section itself was reorganized; Johnson's order of presentation was altered.[25] But the striking fact remains that Johnson's ideas survive the paraphrase.

As a measure of this retention, compare the following passage with its revision:

• 1779: He appears to have had, in common with all mankind, the ambition of being, upon proper occasions, a merry fellow; and, in common with most of them, to have been by nature, or by early habits, debarred from it. Nothing is less exhilerating [sic] than the ludicrousness of Denham. He does not fail for want of efforts: he is familiar, he is gross; but he is never merry, unless the Speech against Peace in the Close Committee be excepted. For grave burlesque, however, his imitation of Davenant shews him to have been well qualified. (xi-xii; SJ 22)
• 1780: . . . in the ludicrous he generally fails of answering the end proposed. There is nothing in this species of his poetry that excites our risibility, or that tends to exhilarate. He affects to be thought a humorous writer, but Nature seems to have debarred him from being so. When he attempts to be witty he is familiar, gross, and disgusting to a chaste imagination. In every effort he miscarries, unless we except The Speech against peace in the Close Committee, which is written with some humour. His imitation of D'Avenant, indeed, shows that he was not ill qualified for grave burlesque. (xiv)

The reviser shuffles a few sentences, alters syntax, changes a verb from active to passive voice, substitutes words and phrases, and elaborates a conceit or two. Still, the ideas and examples are unmistakably Johnson's, even many of the key terms. Little substance is lost in translation. The thoughts which do not survive the paraphrase—the comment about a shared human desire to be thought funny, and the glance at habit as a developmental factor—are missed for the distinctive turn of mind that they convey.

As if to offset the loss of Johnson's voice, the reviser often affects a Johnsonian style, however crudely understood. Compare these sentences from the two versions:

• 1779: Nothing is less exhilerating [sic] than the ludicrousness of Denham. (xi; SJ 22)
• 1780: There is nothing in this species of his poetry that excites our risibility, or that tends to exhilarate. (xiv)

Intent on parallelism, the reviser mimics Johnson's diction by adding a second polysyllabic, Latinate word ("risibility" to complement "exhilarate"). Too much strain goes into this stylistic elevation, as is evident in the appraisal of Denham's rhymes:

• 1779: . . . as exact at least as those of other poets, though now and then the reader is shifted off with what he can get. (xvii; SJ 39)
• 1780: . . . as well coupled as those of other poets; yet we may discern in many of them a manifest inattention. . . . (xiii)

The original prose is relaxed and colloquial, the revision self-conscious and ceremonious. Blind or indifferent to the energy and relative informality of Johnson's mature style, the reviser echoes the allegedly "stiff, laboured, and pedantic" style of the Rambler and Dictionary years.[26] This anachronism is audible in substitutions like these.[27]            

1779	1780
got by his place (SJ 17)	realized by his appointment (x)
ends of his verses (xvii; SJ 41)	terminations of his lines (xiii)
the morality too frequent (xiii; SJ 29)	the morality superabundant (xv)
learned some attention to money (SJ 17)	acquired a greater degree of economical prudence (x)
law and poetry (vi; SJ 7)	the study of the law and the cultivation of his poetical talents (vi-vii)

While never amounting to a sustained imitation of "Johnsonian" prose, the stylistic preening to which the paraphrase is given comes across frequently as a bid to out-Johnson Johnson.

It is tempting to regard this mimicry also as a touch of recalcitrance. What better irreverence than to tease the lawyers who, paragraph by paragraph, would vet the revision in search of any lingering evidence of piracy? In this light even a polite commonplace takes on a sly edge:

• 1779: The strength of Denham . . . is to be found in many lines and couplets, which convey much meaning in few words, and exhibit the sentiment with more weight than bulk. (xv; SJ 34)
• 1780: His forte appears to have been a mode of conveying a great deal of meaning in few words, or of compressing (if we may be allowed the phrase) a large quantity of sentiment into a little space. (xvii)

Under the circumstances of legal duress, the reviser's begging leave to use a phrase might be seen as an exaggerated show of deference to the lawyers.

Bell did not forget this lesson nor the sting to his pride. When someone published an unauthorized abridgement of a property of his, An Apology for the Life of George Anne Bellamy (5 vols., 1785), he got the courts to grant an injunction against "a publication piratically taken from another." Their offense? Publishing "facts, and even the terms in which they were related . . . frequently verbatim from the original work."[28] Bell had to bide his time before he could finally thumb his nose at the proprietors of Johnson's Prefaces. In 1793 he published a second edition of The Poetical Works of Sir John Denham, attaching to it the 1779 piracy instead of the revised life of 1780. Fourteen years had elapsed since 1779, and because Johnson had died in that time, the copyright on his "Life of Denham" could not be renewed for another fourteen years. So Bell had the last word. He had moved on to other concerns, however, when in 1807 Samuel Bagster and others reprinted Bell's collection in expanded form as The Poets of Great Britain in Sixty-One Double Volumes. Several of Johnson's lives now were reprinted openly, among them the "Life of Denham"—the full text this time, with Johnson's name on the title-page and on the first page of the life.[29]

II
"Additional Materials . . . Interwove"

An image for Bell's handling of sources is provided in a footnote to "The Life of John Philips": "This life is principally copied from Dr. Sewell's Life of Philips: where that was found defective the additional materials will be found either interwove in the text or thrown into marginal readings."[30] The

metaphor, albeit mixed, is apt: to mend a central text, threads from other narratives are interwoven, or patches stitched into the "margins" (i.e., footnotes). The notion of an imperfect fabric, closely mended or hastily patched, captures the process of compiling Bell's lives.

Johnson's Prefaces afforded a ready supply of these materials, too good to pass up despite the trouble over Denham. As accident and delay would have it, there were two phases of borrowing. Had Bell kept to his projected timetable of publishing one volume per week, he would have had no chance to pilfer from Johnson, for his series would have been completed by the time Johnson appeared in print. A fire, however, having burnt the Apollo Press to the ground in 1778, Martin was unable to resume printing until mid-1779, by which time the first four volumes of the Prefaces had been published (31 March 1779). After ten months of printing, another delay postponed the series until the last six volumes of the Prefaces had appeared (15 May 1781).[31] Table 1, which charts the printing of Bell's Poets against the staggered publication of the Prefaces, shows which of Johnson's lives were used as compared with those that were "available" when Bell's compiler presumably was hunting for sources. The question was moot for Johnson's lives of Milton, Dryden, Butler, Waller and Cowley, since Bell's editions of these poets were published before Johnson's volumes containing these lives went on sale. Several of the lives in Johnson's fourth volume, however, were eligible targets. Why Pomfret and Garth failed to attract is unclear; but Denham, Hughes, and Roscommon drew the attention of Bell's compiler.

What caused a seventeen-month hiatus between April 1780 and September 1781 is a mystery. Yet the dates raise an intriguing possibility. Printing of the series faltered just when Bell would have been apprised of the lawsuit, assuming the proprietors notified him soon after their resolution of March 27. By the time Bell had sent word to Martin, the first of the two Somerville volumes would have been in the press; and with these volumes, their colophons dated April 15 and 22, the series abruptly ceased. It is not surprising that the Poets would be suspended while legal action was pending and until Bell could re-issue the Denham in altered form. But after July 1780, why the further delay? Was he low on capital? If so, it did not hamper Bell's British Theatre, which Martin went on printing during this period at a healthy pace.[32] It is just conceivable that Bell, occupying himself meanwhile with other projects, waited to resume the Poets until Johnson's second installment of Prefaces had appeared. Could an urge to nettle his rivals have gotten the better of his acumen, or could he simply have wanted to provide his compiler with a broader choice of sources? Whatever the case, the series and Bell's borrowing from Johnson resumed simultaneously with the Collins/Hammond volume, printed within four months of the release of Prefaces, vols.

5-10. This was roughly the same interval as had been required for the Denham piracy.[33]

Leaving aside the life of Savage, a separate case,[34] twenty of Johnson's lives presented Bell's compiler with an opportunity for borrowing. Fifteen were used. When not appropriated for the main narrative, they were treated as a source of threads for interweaving or snippets to be "thrown into marginal readings." If the Denham preface had not been challenged, piracy might well have been the preferred mode. Bell's life of Roscommon, printed before the legal issue had been raised, was nearly as flagrant a theft as the other, its second half taken en bloc from Johnson. (Even so, Bell was not forced to retract this preface, and the text was never changed.) The Denham crisis ensured that subsequent loans would consist of shorter passages, usually in lazy paraphrases which, far from disguising their origin, preserved much of Johnson's syntax and word choice. Apart from Denham and Roscommon, three other Johnsonian lives served as Bell's primary source: those of Broome, Lyttelton, and West. Strands from the accounts of Hughes, Rowe, Tickell, Ambrose Phillips, Pitt, and Akenside were interwoven into other narratives. And material for footnotes was lifted from the lives of Collins, Hammond, John Philips and Smith.

Any grain in specificity was worthwhile. At the most rudimentary level, Bell's compiler gathered key minutiae from Johnson—a missing date, birthplace, or name. In the life of Hughes, for instance, drawn mainly from William Duncombe's account of the poet, the compiler embellishes a reference to "Mr. Montague" with Johnson's epithet, "the general patron of the followers of the Muses" (vi; SJ 4). To the end of a lengthy paragraph in the same life the compiler tacks on this sentence: "The same year 1699 our Author produced a song on the Duke of Gloucester's birth-day" (vii; SJ 4). The need for this addition is symptomatic of the shortage of dates and titles that often confronted the compiler. What many earlier literary biographies lacked, ironic though it seems, is what the Prefaces usually provided: a firmer chronology. To this obvious task Johnson brought his fascination with the course of life, especially a writer's life, and marked with empathy the stages of his subjects' poetic careers. For example, he characteristically notes the first attempt by Ambrose Philips, with verses on the death of Queen Mary, to "solicit the notice of the world"; Bell's compiler interrupts Cibber's Lives

of the Poets (TC), his primary source, to insert this bit of intelligence ([v]; SJ 1).

In addition to the biographical data so easily inserted into the prefaces, Bell's compiler made little grafts of the "characters" which were a feature even in some of Johnson's shorter prefaces. Examples of this borrowing are the thumbnail sketches of Tickell (xii; SJ 17) and Ambrose Philips (vii; SJ 34).

Of highest value on the biographical side of the ledger were the anecdotes. As a companion of Collins, for instance, Johnson had seen "the guineas safe in his hand" from an advance he accepted for translating Aristotle's Poetics; he knew also that, the bargain never fulfilled, Collins had returned the sum. In abbreviated form (and minus the occular testimony), this anecdote becomes a footnote in Bell (ix; SJ 5). Johnson related a story told by Dodsley, who had sought Pope's opinion of The Pleasures of Imagination in manuscript: "this [is] no every-day writer," Pope advised him, a comment that finds its way via the Prefaces into Bell's life of Akenside (ix; SJ 4). In his life of Smith, Johnson tells how the unlucky poet died from taking a self-prescribed medicine against his apothecary's warning; how Addison asked Smith to write a history of the revolution; and how the poet had no part in corrupting the text of Clarendon's history. All this Johnson had on the authority of his friend Gilbert Walmsley, who had known Smith, and it winds up in Bell (vi-vii, x; SJ 43, 57-59, 71, 56). Firsthand knowledge of Collins, Dodsley's report of what Pope had said, conversations with an acquaintance of Smith— by these means Johnson preserved the kind of biographical detail he prized most, the volatile and evanescent impressions which are lost forever if not set down in print. In seizing upon them Bell's compiler attests to their currency and appeal.

Relative to the supply of such anecdotes, however, the Prefaces offered a greater fund of critical opinions. From this storehouse dozens of Johnsonian renderings were pilfered. Bell's compiler interrupts TC's discussion of Rowe's The Fair Penitent to distill (rather awkwardly) Johnson's appraisal of the drama, "one of the most pleasing tragedies on the stage, of which it still keeps, and probably will long keep, possession, the story being of a domestick nature, the fable interesting, and the language delightful" (xiii; SJ 7). Johnson's critical estimate of The Royal Convert is also introduced: "The fable of this play is taken from dark and barbarous times, and the scene is native, being laid among our ancestors. Rhodogune is a character highly tragical, vicious with a mind that must have been truly heroick if formed to virtue" (xiv-xv; SJ 11). Where stronger praise is offered, Johnson's words are often quoted directly and attributed to him, as when he praises Rowe's Lucan as "one of the greatest productions of English poetry" (xviii; SJ 35). The approach is similar in the life of Ambrose Philips. Johnson lurks anonymously in paraphrase where the poet's "epitome of Hacket's Life of Williams has been thought destitute of spirit"; on the other hand, his epithet for The Freethinker, which "Dr. Johnson styles his happiest undertaking," is openly acknowledged (xvi, xvii; SJ 5, 28).

Some of Johnson's less favorable assessments were mitigated. The frankness in his appraisal of Tickell, for instance, was carefully excised.

• SJ: Of the poems yet unmentioned the longest is Kensington Gardens, of which the versification is smooth and elegant, but the fiction unskilfully compounded of Grecian Deities and Gothick Fairies. Neither species of those exploded Beings could have done much, and when they are brought together, they only make each other contemptible. (17)
• JB: Kensington Garden is the longest of our Author's poems. The fiction is compounded partly of Grecian deities and partly of Gothick Fairies. The versification is harmonious, and the language elegant. (viii)

The compiler overlooks the sarcasm about "exploded Beings," ignores the adverb "unskilfully," and adorns what little praise Johnson admits, pairing "language" with "versification" and promoting the versification from "smooth" to "harmonious." Johnson's dismissal of two tragedies by Ambrose Philips as being "not below mediocrity, nor above it" (35) elicits an oblique refutation. In reference to some other poems, Bell's compiler counters that "though they reach not excellence they are yet above mediocrity" (xxii). Even if commercial expedience, not conviction, is the spur to this merest of critical disagreements, as an answer to the Prefaces it offers an early hint of the polemical engagement that so often defined the reception of Johnson's text.

In more accomplished hands the interweaving and footnoting of Johnson might have been a seamless process. But, no doubt for reasons of haste and uncertainty, ragged edges are sometimes obvious. Where Johnson and Langhorne record different years for an event in Collins's life, Bell's text gives both (viii). More glaringly, text and footnote in the life of Smith are at war over the question of his student days at Oxford. The main narrative, copied from TC, lauds Smith for his talents and fails to mention his expulsion from the university. This unflattering episode, condensed out of SJ (30, 35-36, 40), is added in a footnote. The compiler tries lamely to mute the dissonance: "We must observe in this note, notwithstanding of what is said in the text, that the indecency of Smith's behavior" caused him to be expelled (v). Incoherently, the matter is left at that.

Confronted with a similar discrepancy, Johnson would have ruminated over the credibility of his sources. This example underscores the quality that could not be transferred to Bell's lives: a strong voice, an idiosyncratic authorial presence. In the life of John Philips, for example, Johnson corrects a mistaken attribution: "The inscription at Westminster was written, as I have heard, by Dr. Atterbury, though commonly given to Dr. Freind" (8). Bell's compiler follows the sentence word for word, but deletes the incidental "as I have heard" (xxxviii). Johnson's colloquial presence is masked in other cases with anonymous phrases like "it is said" or "we are told," substitutions which preserve the cadences of oral history but efface its authority.

More analysis is needed on this topic, but what I have done presently is enough to call attention to the compiler's unique perspective on Johnson's Prefaces. His assignment was to organize various sources as efficiently as possible into more or less coherent prefaces. Because this was the task faced by

Johnson, the record of what Bell's compiler selected from the Prefaces, and what he altered, is a critique of their practical appeal. While Johnson's reviewers went their heated ways, the utilitarian compiler identified materials that were of immediate value for adding interest or depth to his compilations. While these borrowings were neither sustained nor consistent, they comprise an important chapter in the early reception of the Prefaces.

III
"A Connected System of Biography"

Bell conceived of his series as a repository of English classics. Suitable to the ceremony implicit in such an undertaking, the poets were to be presented in full dress, one element of which was the prefatory life, or "biographical and critical account of each author."[35] Instead of the various and sometimes prolix formulae that had dotted eighteenth-century title-pages, Bell settled for a simple, uniform phrase: "The Life of . . ." As no other poetic reprint series had included this feature, much less cultivated this degree of formality,[36] the credit for innovation belongs to Bell.

It was natural, Bell asserted, for readers to "wish to know something of the man who entertains and edifies [them]." This curiosity he thought had been neglected, "the lives of but few of our poets being transmitted to the public along with their writings." To remedy this defect his prefaces were meant to "convey to posterity the most authentic anecdotes relative to those eminent men, whose writings are the object of the present undertaking; and by thus forming a connected system of biography, so far as relates to this particular class of writers, bring the reader acquainted at once with the poet and the man."[37] Not only was each life to illuminate the connection between writer and human being; the lives taken as a whole were to form a literary history, a "connected system" to advance our understanding of poets and poetry.

Unlike the proprietors of The Works of the English Poets, Bell had too little capital to commission a famous writer to undertake a series of fifty lives; and it made no sense to get one who was not famous. Besides, as the proprietors found out, original composition brings a greater risk of delay. It was better, in Bell's mind, to stress "authentic materials"—that is, to reprint earlier lives in full, or to rely on hackwork to weave and patch together divers materials.

Table 2 categorizes the sources for Bell's lives. The taxonomy of Pat Rogers proves helpful: "single" lives indicate those published independently or prefixed to the author's works; "general" lives denote entries in universal or national dictionaries of biography; and "authorial" lives come from specialized

collections concerned exclusively with writers.[38] In Table 2 and the collations below, the following abbreviations refer to three general and three authorial sources:

• AO Anthony à Wood, Athenœ Oxonienses, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (London, 1721).
• BB Biographia Britannica, 6 vols. (London, 1747-66): vol. 1 (1747), vol. 2 (1748), vol. 3 (1750), vol. 4 (1757), vol. 5 (1760), vol. 6, part 1 (1763), vol. 6, part 2 (1766).
• BD A New and General Biographical Dictionary, 12 vols. (London, 1761-67).
• TC Theophilus Cibber, The Lives of the Poets, 5 vols. (London, 1753). "TC" honors the nominal author, who wrote less of the work than Robert Shiels.[39]
• CP David Erskine Baker, A Companion to the Play-House, 2 vols. (London, 1764).
• SJ Samuel Johnson, Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets, 10 vols. (London, 1779-81).[40]

Table 2 reveals a strong emphasis on single lives and multiple sources at the outset of the series: the first poets being more famous, single lives of them were more common; and some of these lives having a reputation of their own, Bell had promotional reasons for using them. Equally noteworthy in the later phase, once the final volumes of the Prefaces had been published, is the persistent recourse to Johnson.

Bell's connected system of biography is detailed below, in alphabetical order by poet. The entries will take the following form:

• Source(s). Where the compiler has drawn on more than one text, the first listed is the primary source, with the others ranked in descending order of importance. Unless otherwise noted, the sources are London imprints. Note: if a text had seen more than on edition, it is virtually impossible to know which one the compiler used. For that reason it makes no sense to insist upon either first editions or the last one prior to Bell, nor to clutter the record with bibliographical details easily obtained elsewhere. I will list only the edition I used to collate Bell's text.
• Collation. This record details the sources used to construct Bell's text page-by-page.

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  The term Bell indicates the opening page(s) of the life, expressed in Arabic or Roman numerals according to Bell's usage. (Parentheses around numerals indicate footnotes.) What follows the colon is a list of sources for those pages, with a slash mark (/) to designate each interruption. The initial Bell is not repeated; progress through the text, consequently, is marked by page numbers which stand alone. By contrast, the page numbers of the sources are always accompanied by a two-letter abbreviation: usually the author's initials, but where that is not possible, a two-letter abstract of the title (and where this could be confusing, the list of sources provides the abbreviation assigned it). Numerals after SJ refer to paragraphs; those after the other abbreviations are page numbers. A hyphen between numerals (231-233) suggests continuous copying; a comma (3, 4) represents a more selective gathering. Where BB is concerned, the main text is cited with numerals, the footnotes with capital letters in brackets, and marginal notes in parentheses.[41] If the numerals are missing (as in "TC 35 / SJ 11 / TC / SJ"), the compiler has returned to the last page or paragraph cited from that text. When multiple pages are listed for Bell (as in "vi-vii"), the first source cited supplies the text which bridges the page.
• Comments. Next I note how the sources were used (reprinted, paraphrased, abridged, etc.), along with any quirks in the compilation. Parenthetical citations refer to the page numbers in Bell.
• Acknowledgement. Where a source text is cited by Bell, however cryptically, I make a note of it. Acknowledgements within a source text—that is, to its own sources, prior to Bell's compilation—are not recorded.
• ADDISON. TC 3:305-320. Bell [v]-xxiii. Reprint, with two minor adjustments. TC, published two years before Johnson's Dictionary, regrets that "our language yet wants the assistance of so great a master, in fixing its standard, settling its purity, and illustrating its copiousness, or elegance"; the anachronism failed to register with the compiler (xix; TC 316). In the life of Roscommon, by contrast, the compiler brought up to date TC's anticipation of "an English Dictionary, long expected, by Mr. Johnson" (x; 2:348).
• AKENSIDE. BB 1:103-107 (2nd ed., 1778); and SJ. Bell [v]: BB 103 / SJ 2-3 / vi-vii: BB 104 / SJ 10 / BB [C], 104 /SJ 11 / vii-viii: BB 104-105 / SJ 13 / viii-ix: BB 105, [D], 105, [E] / SJ 14, 4 / ix-xiv: BB [F] / SJ 14, 20 / xiv-xv: BB [F] / SJ 23, 24 / xv-xvi: BB [G]. Quotation and paraphrase. BB serves as the framework; SJ donates some biographical details; critical assessments from SJ are liberally interpolated, sometimes in quotation marks. Acknowledgement: BB cited twice (x, xiv); SJ credited twice (xiv, xv).
• ARMSTRONG. Untitled preface to Miscellanies; by John Armstrong, M.D., 2 vols. (1770), 1:[iii]-[v]. Bell [v]-vi. Reprint. Called an "Advertisement," not "The Life of John Armstrong."

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• BROOME. SJ (Broome, Pope, and Fenton); [OH] The Odyssey of Homer, 5 vols. (1725-26); Alexander Pope, The Works of Alexander Pope Esq., ed. William Warburton, 9 vols. (1751); and William Broome, "The Preface: Being an Essay on Criticism," Poems on Several Occasions (1727), pp. [1]-17. Bell [v]: SJ B.1, 2, 3, 4 / SJ P.86 / [v]-vi: SJ B.5 / SJ F.10 / SJ B.6 / SJ P.130 / (vi): SJ P.129, 134 / vi-vii: SJ B.6 / OH 5:260-261 / SJ B.6, 7 / vii-viii: AP 5:219 / SJ B.8 / SJ P.254 / SJ B.9 / (viii): WB 3 / ix: SJ B.11 / WB 16-17 / ix-x: SJ B.12-14, 15. Paraphrase, slightly abridged, with interweaving from SJ's lives of Fenton and Pope, a note from AP, and WB's preface to his poems and postscript to his notes for OH.
• BUCKINGHAM. BB 6:3653-3666. Bell [v]-xxviii. Reprint of body of BB, with footnotes [A], [F], [L], [O], [Q], [T], [X], [Z], [CC], [EE], [GG], [HH], [II] and [LL] in full, and abbreviated versions of [D], [R], [S], [BB] and [KK]. Since BB presents a continuous block of text, Bell introduces paragraph breaks. (True for lives of Chaucer and King as well.)
• BUTLER. [AL] "The Author's Life" and [ZG] "Preface," Hudibras, 2 vols., ed. Zachary Grey (Cambridge, 1744), 1:[iv]-xiv, [i]-xxxvi; and Genuine Remains, 2 vols., ed. Robert Thyer (1759). Bell [7]-10: AL [iv]-viii / (10): ZG xxxiv / 11-14: AL viii-xiii / (14): RT 1:[i] / 15: AL xii-xiv / (15): RT 1:(145) / 16: ZG xxxiv. Reprint of AL, taken from an earlier edition of Hudibras,[42] along with Grey's footnotes, the epitaph from ZG, and two additional footnotes drawn from RT. Bell performs a tiny surgery on AL, "[T]here being several particular persons reflected on, which are not commonly known," the writer had cautioned, "and some old stories and uncouth Words which want explication, we have thought fit to do right to their memories; and . . . to explain their characters in some additional Annotations" (AL ix-x). The phrase I highlight was strategically omitted (Bell 12); it was expected that little known personages should require a footnote, but not acceptable to characterize parts of the text as old and uncouth.
• CHAUCER. BB 2:1293-1308; and Thomas Tyrwhitt, "An Abstract of the Historical Passages of the Life of Chaucer," The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, 5 vols. (1775-78), 1:xxiv-xxxvi. Bell [vii]-lxv: BB 1293-1308 / [lxvi]-lxxvi: TT 1:xxiv-xxxvi. Reprint of BB, with some interpolation of marginal notes; all the footnotes are used except [L] and [N] (on The Testament of Love and The Conclusions of the Astrolabie); from [B] and [P] the poetic stanzas are dropped. To "The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer" proper is appended TT. Acknowledgement: TT is cited by title "from Tyrwhitt's edit. 1775" ([lxvi]).
• CHURCHILL. "Memoirs of the Rev. Mr. Charles Churchill," The Annual Register (1764), pp. 58-62; and Charles Johnstone, Chrysal: or, The Adventures of a Guinea, 3rd ed., 4 vols. (London, 1768), 4:90-96. Bell [v]-xiii: AR 58-62 / xiii-xxii: CJ 90-96. Reprint of AR, to which is appended the excerpt from CJ, introduced as "an anecdote frequently told of him" but with the following caveat: "leaving the credit due to the story, which is much to the honour of humanity, with the reader" (xiii). The sentimental anecdote recounts an act of generosity, the guinea's "master" lifting a family out of financial misery. Acknowledgement: "Chrysal, vol. I. chap. 21" (xiii), by which is meant chapter 21 of the first book in vol. IV.
• COLLINS. John Langhorne, "Memoirs of the Author," The Poetical Works of Mr. William Collins (1771), pp. i-xv; and SJ. Bell [v]-vi: JL i-v / (vi): SJ 1 / vii-viii: JL v-viii / SJ 4 / viii-ix: JL viii-xi / (ix): SJ 4, 5 / x: JL xi-xiii / (x): SJ 5 / xi-xiii: JL xiii-xv. Reprint of JL. Unable to resolve a discrepancy between JL and SJ over the

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  year WC left Oxford for London, Bell adds "or 1744" (SJ's guess) to JL's "1743" (viii). The only other disruptions of JL's text are the typographical symbols for four brief footnotes derived from SJ. These notes, couched in SJ's words, concern the occupation of WC's father, WC's proposals for the History of the Revival of Learning, the advance he obtained to translate the Poetics, and the amount he inherited from his uncle. Bell uses the 1771 text of JL, which eliminates (from the first edition of 1765) an ad hominem attack on Andrew Millar for being "a favourer of genius, when once it has made its way to fame" (xi).
• CONGREVE. TC 4:83-98; and BB 3:1439-1449. Bell [v]-xix: TC 83-95 / xix: BB [P] / xix-xx: TC 95, 98. Quotation. Inserted from BB is the inscription on Congreve's monument. What Bell omits from TC (95-97) is the poem "Of Improving the Present Time," which TC prints from BB 1447. Also deleted from TC are two negative opinions: after the mention that WC's pastoral elegy on the death of Queen Mary had been "extolled in the most lavish terms of admiration," TC adds "but which seems not to merit the incense it obtained" (xi; TC 88); and in summary of WC's piecemeal translations of the "Art of Love," The Iliad, and some epigrams, TC notes "in all which he was not unsuccessful, thought at the same time he has been exceeded by his cotemporaries [sic] in the same attempts" (xv; TC 91).
• COWLEY. Thomas Sprat, "An Account of the Life and Writings of Mr. Abraham Cowley. Written to Mr. M. Clifford," The Works of Mr. Abraham Cowley (1668), sigs. A1r-A2v, a1r-e2v. Bell [v]-xl. Reprint. Although Bell changes the title to "The Life of Abraham Cowley" (for consistency), he retains "Written to Mr. Clifford." Acknowledgement: "T. Sprat" (xl).
• CUNNINGHAM. Bell [v]-xi. This life is largely independent of any prior account I can locate. The "Memoirs of the Late Mr. John Cunningham," London Magazine 42 (1773): 495-497, was surmised by Henry Morse Stephens to have been the sole authority for the lives attached to the editions of Bell, "Johnson" (1790), Cook (1795) and Chalmers (1810).[43] This is untrue, so far as it concerns Bell, which contains much information not available in the "Memoirs."
• DENHAM (1779). SJ; and BB 3:1646-1648. Bell [v]: SJ 1-2 / BB 1646 / SJ / BB / SJ 3 / BB / SJ 4 / BB / SJ / vi: BB / SJ 5-6 / BB / SJ / BB / SJ 8 / BB / SJ 7, 9 / BB [A] / SJ / vii: SJ 10 / BB 1646, (d), 1646 / SJ / BB / SJ / (vii-viii): BB [B] / vii-viii: SJ 11-12 / BB 1646 / viii-ix: SJ 13, 14 / BB 1647 / SJ 14-15 / BB 1647, [E] / (ix): BB [D] / ix-x: SJ 15 / BB 1647 / SJ 16 / BB / SJ 17 / BB / SJ 17, 18, 19 / x-xi: BB / SJ / BB / SJ 20, 19 / BB 1648 / xi-xii: SJ 21-24, 26, 25 / xiii-xviii: SJ 27-42. Quotation of SJ with extensive interpolation from BB. See discussion of this piracy in Part I.
• DENHAM (1780). SJ; BB 3:1646-1648; and AO 2:422-424. Bell [v]: BB 1646 / AO 422 / BB / AO / [v]-vi: BB / SJ5 / BB / AO / SJ 6 / BB / SJ 8 / AO 423 / SJ / vi-vii: SJ 7 / BB [G], 1646, [A], 1646, (d), 1646 / SJ 10 / BB / SJ / BB 1646, [B] / vii-viii: BB / SJ 11, 12 / viii-ix: BB 1646, [C], 1646-1647, [D] / SJ 14 / BB 1747, [E] / ix-x: SJ 15 / BB 1647 / SJ 17 / BB 1647, [G] / x-xi: SJ 17-20 / BB 1648 / AO 424 / BB / xi-xii: SJ 21, 36-38, 36 / xiii-xiv: SJ 39-42 / xiv-xv: SJ 21-24, 26, 27, 29, 28 / xvi-xviii: SJ 30, 32-34, 42. Paraphrase of Denham (1779), with constant checking of (and new borrowings from) BB and SJ, including the effort to consult AO directly. The critical section is restructured. SJ proceeds first by genre ("descriptive, ludicrous, didactic, and sublime," though not in that order), turns to consider poetic style, and concludes by summing up the "petty faults" of JD's "first productions." Bell now begins with the versification, moves on through the faults, and finishes with the survey of genres. See discussion in Part I.

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• DONNE. Izaak Walton, "The Life of Dr. John Donne," The Lives of Dr. John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Mr. Richard Hooker, Mr. George Herbert (1670), pp. [9]-88. Bell [v]-lxvi: IW 12-81. Reprint, minus "The Introduction" and three poetic tributes. IW's life, first printed in 1640, was expanded three times—in 1658, 1670 and 1675. The penultimate text, by accident or design, is copied by Bell. Had the final edition been used, Bell might have been prompted to omit one lengthy addition on the same grounds that mention of Dryden's astrology was suppressed (see next collation): the story of JD's vision of his wife, about which even IW feels it necessary to apologize. Acknowledgement: "J.W." (lxvi).
• DRYDEN. TC 3:64-94; and BB 3:1749-1761. Bell [5]: TC 64 / BB 1749 / [5]-21: TC 64-74, 76-80, 82-83 / 21: BB 3:1760-1761 / 21-26: TC 83-93. Quotation. Most of TC has been reprinted, with short interpolations from BB for details of JD's family, and with some corrections, a slight re-ordering, and significant omissions. Bell omits six passages in TC that tarnish JD's reputation slightly: the mention of a distich, admitted to be "downright nonsense," which "expos'd our poet to the ridicule of the wits" (65); Burnet's character of JD, confessed to be deficient in "true resemblance" (74-76); the comment that "Mac Flecknoe" prompted Pope's Dunciad, "and it must be owned the latter has been more happy in the execution of his design" (76); a footnote implying that JD's translation of Virgil had been surpassed by Dodsley's (77); Dr. Trap's low estimate of JD's Virgil, with mention of Trap's own dullness (78); and a story revealing JD to be "fond of Judicial Astrology," and cautious lest anyone find out, "either thro' fear of being reckoned superstitious, or thinking it a science beneath his study" (80-82). Inexplicably, Bell also omits the praise of "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day" as being "justly esteemed one of the most elevated in any language" (79).
• DYER. "Advertisement," Poems. By John Dyer, L.L.B. (1761), pp. [iii]-v. Bell [v]-vi. Reprint. Called "The Life of John Dyer" for conformity's sake, but nothing more than an "advertisement" with a few dates and a general character.
• FENTON. TC 4:164-177; and BB 6.ii:50-52. Bell [v]-xvi: TC 164-173 / BB [D]. Reprint of TC, excluding the final bibliography and a "specimen" of EF's poetry, obviously superfluous for Bell. Pope's epitaph for EF is appended, taken from the life of EF included in the supplement to BB.
• GARTH. TC 3:263-272. Bell [v]-xiv. Reprint, omitting one poetic specimen, an unflattering phrase, and a reference to Tonson's edition of SG's works.
• GAY. "An Account of the Life and Writings of the Author," The Works of Mr. John Gay, 4 vols. (Dublin, 1770), 1:i-xvi; and BB 4:2182-2188. Bell [5]-9: WG i-v / (9): BB [I] / 9-10: WG v / (10): BB [L] / 10-11: WG vi / (11): BB [O] / 11-12: WG vi-vii, viii / (12): BB [Q], [R] / 12-18: WG x-xiii, xv-xvi, xv, xiv. Quotation of WG, slightly rearranged, with the omission of 70vv. concerning JG's "dissatisfaction with the court" (WG viii-ix). To the eight (out of nine) footnotes copied from WG, five more are added in Bell, all derived from BB. Only one offers new data and is honestly acknowledged: "Biogr. Brit." ([L]). The others are gratuitous: three are created by omitting a sentence or clause arbitrarily from WG and moving the same information into a footnote with phrasing from BB ([I], [O], and [R]); the fourth is a footnote out of the blue [Q]. Acknowledgements at second hand from BB's marginal citations are made for these tidbits, their transparent purpose being to enhance the diversity of Bell's sources and to magnify the compiler's seeming industry: "Cibber's Lives of the Poets" ([I]), "Intelligencer, No. III" ([O], [Q]), and "Cibber, the father, in his Apology, p. 144" ([R]). The attempt is farcical, however: two of the attributions (for [I] and [Q] are mistaken; the compiler has tracked the wrong numbers into the margin.
• GRAY. William Mason, "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mr. Gray," The Poems of Mr. Gray (York, 1775), pp. [1]-416. Bell [v]: WM 2, 3 / ([v]): WM (119) / [v]-vi:

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  WM 3, 12, 13, 14, 16, 15, 4-5, 39, 40, (41) / vii: WM 41, 40, 97, 56, 97-98, 99-102, 114, 116, (116), 116, 41 / viii: WM 117-118, (119), 119 / viii-ix: WM 120, 121, 156, 123, 124 / (ix-x): WM (156), 168-169 / ix-x: WM 157 / x-xi: WM [Poems 60][44], 155-156, 156-157, 170 / xi-xiii: WM 171-172, 175, 177, 179, (184), 184, 188-189, 191, 192 / xiii-xv: WM 193-200 / xvi: WM (203), 205, (205), (210), 209, 211, 221, 222, 222-223, 226, (228) / (xvi): ? / xvi-xvii: WM 228, 229, 230, 232-233, 235, 237-238, (258), 256, (258) / (xvii): WM 229 / xvii-xviii: WM 258-259, 292, [Poems (62)], 292, (293), 293, 292, 293 / xviii-xix: WM (293), 308, 309-318, (318), 318, 327, 328, 331-332 / xix-xx: WM 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 340 / xx-xxi: WM 339, 341, 342, 343 / xxi-xxii: WM 342 / ? / 348-349 / ? / (350-351), 394 / xxii-xxiii: WM 395, 396 / ? / 398-399 / xxiii-xxiv: WM 399-400 / ? / 264, 263, (385), 384 / ? . Paraphrase of WM, severely abridged, using both TG's letters and WM's narrative, with interpolations from at least one additional source. Whereas the summary of epistolary content can be terse (on pp. vii and xix the substance and tone of lengthy letters is reduced to a single sentence), the rendering of WM's narrative can be prolix ("While at school, he contracted a friendship with Mr. Horace Walpole and Mr. Richard West" [WM 3] becomes "During the time of Mr. Gray's continuance in this abode of the Muses he contracted the strictest intimacy with two of their votaries, whose dispositions in many respects were congenial with his own" [v]). The final paragraph is a short rejoinder to "the attacks of envy and rancour," probably an allusion to SJ's criticisms: "If Mr. Gray was not a poet of the first order there is no poetry existing; and if his boldest expressions be nonsense [cp. SJ 33], so are the best passages of Shakespeare and Milton, and the sublimest figures of divine inspiration" (xxiv).
• HAMMOND. James Hammond, Love Elegies (1743); and SJ. Bell ([v]): SJ 3 / vi: LE iv, iii / vii: LE iii, iv, iii / ix: LE / x: LE. This collation is incomplete. Except for a few gleanings from LE and the footnote based on SJ's information about the relationship of JH's mother to Sir Robert Walpole, this life is original to Bell. The writer, who knows more than can be gleaned from SJ or Lord Chesterfield's preface to Love Elegies, confesses a personal disappointment unparalleled elsewhere in Bell's Poets: "The writer of this Narrative hoped, about three years ago, to have drawn from [Miss Catharine Dashwood], by means of a lady her friend, a more satisfactory account; but she entreated that no questions might be asked her on so distressing a subject" (ix-x). The chance was irretrievable, for Miss Dashwood died on 17 February 1779 (vii). Acknowledgement: "Dr. Johnson informs us . . ." ([v]).
• HUGHES. William Duncombe, "An Account of the Life and Writings of John Hughes, Esq.," Poems on Several Occasions. With Some Select Essays in Prose, 2 vols. (1735), 1:[i]-xxxvii; and SJ. Bell [v]: WD i-ii / [v]-vi: WD v-vi, xxix, vi / SJ 4 / vi-vii: WD vii-viii / SJ 4 / vii-xiii: WD viii-xv / SJ 6 / WD / SJ / WD / SJ 7 / WD xxix / xiii-xiv: WD xv-xvi / SJ 8 / WD / SJ 9 / WD / xiv-xv: WD xxxi, xvii-xviii / SJ 10 / WD / SJ / xv-xvi: WD / SJ / WD xxxiii / xvi-xvii: WD xix / SJ 12, 13 / xvii-xviii: SJ 14 / WD xxxvi / SJ 15 / xviii-xix: WD xxiv, ii-iii / SJ 16 / WD iii, xxv / xix-xxvi: WD xxxvii-xlvii. Quotation mixed with paraphrase of WD, rearranged, with largely verbatim interpolations from SJ. WD's preface includes Richard Steele's essay on JH from The Theatre (xxxviii-xlvii), which Bell takes also. After WD had "gone thro' the first Part of [his] Design" (xxix), he retraced his steps to discuss JH's translations and prose writings; Bell avoids this second chronology by inserting these materials into the initial account of JH's life.
• KING. BB 4:2850-2856; and TC 3:228-235. Bell [v]-vi: BB 2850, [B] / ([v]-vi): BB [A] / vi-vii: TC 231 / (vi-ix): BB [B] / viii-xx: BB 2850-2854 / (ix-x): BB [C] / (x-xi):

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  BB [D] / (xii-xiv): BB [E] / (xiv-xv): BB [F] / (xvi-xix): BB [G] / (xix): BB [H] / (xx-xxi): BB [K] / xxi: TC 229-230 / xxi-xxii: BB [I] / (xxii): BB (o) / xxii-xxv: BB 2854-2855 / TC 233 / (xxiii-xxiv): BB [M] / (xxiv-xxv): TC 233 / xxv-xxvii: BB 2855 / TC 234 / (xxvi): BB [N] / xxvii-xxviii: BB 2855, [O]. Quotation (with a few paraphrases) of full body of BB and all but two footnotes ([L] and [P], which are lists of WK's works); [I] and [O] are interpolated into the body of the text. Added from TC are some anecdotes and WK's character.
• LANSDOWNE. TC 4:239-249. Bell [v]-x: TC 239-243 / x-xii: TC 246-248 / xii-xiii: ? / xiii-xiv: TC / ? / TC 248-249. Reprint of TC is complete except for one gap, an exchange of verses between Lansdowne and Elizabeth Higgins. Two interpolations surface from an unidentified source.
• LYTTELTON. SJ (Lyttelton and Gilbert West); The Annual Register (1774), pp. 24-29; and The Works of George Lord Lyttelton (1775). Bell [v]: SJ 1 / AR 25 / SJ 1-2, 4 / AR 26 / SJ / WL 499 / SJ 6 / [v]-vi: WL 546 / SJ 11 / AR 27 / SJ / AR 28, 27 / SJ 9 / AR vi-vii: WL 549-550 / AR 28 / SJ 10 / AR / SJ / AR / SJ 13, 30, 23 / vii-viii: WL 514 / SJ 23 / viii-xi: SJ 24-29, 3, 16, 12 / SJ W.5, W.6 / xi-xii: SJ 12, 19, 31. Paraphrase of SJ, abridged, rearranged, with additional materials interwoven from AR, WL and SJ West. Extra details are brought to Bell from an unidentified source. SJ's error regarding the number of GL's daughters is corrected. Two of SJ's critical comments are quoted using quotation marks; other SJ comments are introduced with "It is said" or "We are told" (vii, xi). Acknowledgment: SJ cited with reference to the error and the punctuated quotations (vi, x, xi).
• MALLET. CP 2: sig. X1r (s.v. MALLET, David, Esq.). Bell [v]-vi. Quotation, with some rearrangement. Called an "Advertisement," not "The Life of David Mallet." Dated "March 1780," the lone instance in Bell of the date of compilation being noted.
• MILTON. Elijah Fenton, "The Life of Mr. John Milton" and [PS] "Postscript," Paradise Lost (1739), pp. [vii]-xvii and [xviii]-[xx]; Thomas Newton, "The Life of Milton," Paradise Lost (1749), pp. i-lxi; and Jonathan Richardson, Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Milton's Paradise Lost (1734). Bell [5]-7: EF [vii]-viii / (7-8): TN vi-viii / 7-13: EF viii-xii / (13-14): JR lxvi-lxvii / 13-20: EF xii-xvii / 21-24: TN lv-lvi, lvii-lviii / PS xx. Reprint of EF (first published 1725) with additional family details from TN, and footnoted with letters from TN (Wotton on travel), and JR (Milton on blindness). Acknowledgement: "Elijah Fenton" (20).
• MOORE. CP 2: sig. Y6r-v (s.v. MOORE, Mr. Edward); Edward Moore, "Preface," Poems, Fables, and Plays, by Edward Moore (1756), pp. v-vi and 417-418; and The World, 4 vols. (1763). Bell [v]: CP / EM vi / [v]-vi: CP / (vi): EM 417 / vi-vii: EM vi / CP / vii-viii: TW / CP. Quotation of CP with some rearranging, plus interpolations from EM and information from an edition of TW. Acknowledgment: "Preface to the quarto edition of his works in 1756" ([v]).
• PARNELL. Poems on Several Occasions (1770) contains three separate sources: Oliver Goldsmith, "The Life of Thomas Parnell, D.D." (pp. i-xxxv); Alexander Pope, "To the Right Honourable, Robert, Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer" (pp. [i]-iii); and David Hume, "Mr. Hume's Essays, page 265" (sig. π2v); and "To the Reader," The Posthumous Works of Dr. Thomas Parnell (Dublin, 1758), pp. [iii]-vii [sic for vi]. Bell [v]-viii: OG i-vi, v / viii-xvii: OG vi-xv, xvii / xvii: AP ii / xvii-xviii: OG xxiii, xxvi / xviii-xxi: OG xxv-xxviii / xxi: DH / OG xxvii / xxi-xxii: PW iii-iv / OG xxix. Paraphrase, abridged; with interpolations from PW, AP, and DH ("Essay on Simplicity and Refinement").
• PHILIPS, Ambrose. TC 5:122-142; and SJ. Bell [v]: TC 122 / SJ 1 / TC 122, 132-133 / SJ 25 / [v]-vi: TC / vi-vii: SJ 30, 31, 32, 33 / TC 142 / SJ / TC 139 / SJ 34 / vii-viii: TC 122 / SJ 3 / viii-xvi: TC 124-131, 133-134, 132 / SJ 5 / TC / SJ / xvi-xvii: TC / SJ 28, 29 / TC 134 / SJ 6 / xvii-xviii: TC / SJ 35 / xviii-xx: TC 134-137 /

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  SJ 26, 27 / xx-xxii: TC 137-138 / SJ 27, 35, 4. TC is quoted, paraphrased, and rearranged; poetical specimens are left out; many interpolations from SJ. Acknowledgement: "Dr. Johnson" cited for a favorable opinion (xvii).
• PHILIPS, John. George Sewell, "The Life of Mr. John Philips," Poems on Several Occasions (Glasgow, 1763), pp. [3]-28; BB 5:3353-3359; and SJ. Bell [v]: GS [3] / BB 3353 / GS / BB / ([v]): SJ 23 / [v]-vi: BB / GS / BB / SJ 3 / vi-vii: BB 3353, (c) / GS 4 / BB 3353 / GS / vii-viii: BB / viii-xii: GS 4-5, 6-8 / BB 3354, [B] / (xii): BB / xii-xiii: GS 9 / xiii-xiv: BB 3359, (q), 3359, [K] / xiv-xviii: GS 9-14 / BB 3354-3355 / (xviii-xxi): BB [D], [E] / SJ 11 / xix-xxi: GS / BB 3356 / xxi-xxii: GS 14-15 / (xxii-xxiv): BB 3356, [F] / SJ 12 / xxii-xxvii: GS 15-19 / (xxvii-xxix): BB 3354, [I] / xxviii-xxx: GS 19-20 / (xxx): SJ 15 / xxxi: GS 21 / (xxxi): SJ 14 / xxxi-xxxiv: GS 21-24 / BB [L] / (xxxiv): BB (15) / xxxv: GS / xxxv-xxxvi: BB 3358 / (xxxvi): BB [H] / xxxvi-xxxvii: BB 3358 / GS 25 / BB / xxxvii-xxxviii: GS 26 / SJ 8 / BB / xxxviii-xl: SJ. Quotation of GS (first published in 1712) with omissions, but also with extensive interpolations from BB and many excerpts from SJ. The GS is taken from a late edition, possibly the one I cite, as evident from a footnote not found in earlier editions. Acknowledgement: BB mentioned (xx); SJ credited four times (xxi, xxiv, xxx, xxxi).
• PITT. TC 5:298-307; and SJ. Bell [v]: TC 298 / SJ 1 / [v]-vi: TC / SJ 7 / TC 299 / SJ 11 / vi-xiv: TC 299-307. Reprint of TC; a place name, a date, and Pitt's epitaph interpolated from SJ.
• POMFRET. Philalethes, "Some Account of Mr. Pomfret, and His Writings," Poems upon Several Occasions (Dublin, 1726), pp. [vii]-[ix]; and TC 3:218-227. Bell [v]-vii: PH [vii]-[viii] / TC 218-219 / viii-x: PH [viii]-[ix]. Quotation of PH. Bell apologizes for the "short narrative, dated in the 1724, which is all we have been able to collect relative to this poet or his works" ([v]); this is not strictly true, since JP's religious character is adopted from TC. Acknowledgement: "1724. Philalethes" (x).
• POPE. TC 5:219-252. Bell [5]-46. Quotation, with minor omissions. Acknowledgement: "Cibber's Lives" (46).
• PRIOR. Samuel Humphreys, "Some Account of the Author," Poems on Several Occasions, 2 vols. (1767), 2:[xiii]-lxxii. Bell [v]-xxviii: SH [xiii]-xxi, xxiii, xxxiv-xliii. Reprint of SH (first published 1733-34), with these omissions: MP's "Preamble to the Patent" for the Earl of Dorset's being created a duke; an essay by Dennis, addressed to MP, on Roman satirists; and a set of thirteen poems addressed to MP. Acknowledgement: SH cited in a separate "Advertisement" ([xlviii]).
• ROSCOMMON. TC 2:344-353; and SJ. Bell [v]-xiii: TC 344-350 / xiii-xvi: SJ 27-39. Reprint of TC (itself a near copy of Johnson's biography in Gentleman's Magazine 18 [1748]: 214-217) up to the criticism of the "Essay on Translated Verse," at which point the compiler switches to SJ and pirates the entire section of criticism.
• ROWE. TC 3:272-284; BB 5:3520-3523; and SJ. Bell [v]: TC 272-273 / [v]-vi: BB [A] / TC / (vi): BB 3520, 3522 / vi-viii: TC 273-274 / BB [B] / TC / (viii-x): TC 274-275 / BB [C] / ix: SJ 5 / ix-x: TC / (x): BB [D] / x-xi: TC / (xi): BB / xi-xii: SJ 5 / xii-xiii: TC 275, 276 / SJ 7 / xiii-xiv: TC 276-277, 279 / SJ 14 / TC 277 / xiv-xv: SJ 11 / TC 278 / SJ 15 / xv-xvi: TC 278-279 / (xvi): TC / xvi-xvii: BB 3522, [H] / (xvii): TC 279-280 / xvii-xviii: BB / TC 284 / SJ 18 / TC 283 / (xviii-xix): SJ 35 / BB [G] / xviii-xix: TC 283-284 / BB 3521 / xix-xx: TC 280 / BB / xx-xxi: TC / BB / TC 281 / BB 3522, [I] / xxi-xxii: TC / BB 3522 / TC 282 / (xxii): BB [K] / xxiii-xxiv: SJ 23-26 / xxiv-xxv: TC 283 / SJ 27 / BB 3522-3523, [L]. Quotation; TC provides the framework for elaborate interweaving, BB and SJ supplying the other strands. Acknowledgement: the compiler straightens out an error committed by the "Authors of the Biographia" (vi).

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• SAVAGE. Samuel Johnson, "Life of Savage," The Works of Richard Savage, 2 vols. (1777), 1:[5]-187. Bell [v]-cxlvi. Reprint of SJ from this edition, number 77b in Clarence Tracy's "Textual Introduction" to Life of Savage (Oxford, 1971), p. xxiii.
• SHENSTONE. Robert Dodsley, "Preface," The Works in Verse and Prose, of William Shenstone, Esq, 3 vols. (1764-69), 1:[i]-viii. Bell [v]-x. Reprint; called "Preface," as in RD, not "The Life of William Shenstone." Acknowledgement: "R. Dodsley" (x).
• SMITH. TC 4:303-312; and SJ. Bell [iii]: TC 303 / SJ 28 / [iii]-v: TC 303-304 / (v): SJ 30, 35, 36, 40 / v-vi: TC 305-306 / (vi-vii): SJ 43 / vii-viii: TC / (viii): SJ 48 / viii-x: TC 309-311 / SJ 56 / TC / (x): SJ 57, 58, 59, 71, 56 / x-xii: TC 311-312. Quotation, with omissions; place of birth and a few anecdotal footnotes supplied by SJ.
• SOMERVILLE. No "Life," nor is there an "Advertisement" to explain the omission.
• SPENSER. John Hughes, "The Life of Mr. Edmund Spenser," The Works of Spenser, 6 vols. (1750), 1:[i]-xvi. Bell [v]-xviii. Reprint of JH (first published in 1715).
• SWIFT. John Hawkesworth, "An Account of the Life of the Reverend Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin," The Works of Dr. Jonathan Swift, 12 vols. (1756), 1:[1]-71; Lord Orrery, Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift, 3rd ed. (1752); Deane Swift, An Essay upon the Life, Writings, and Character, of Dr. Jonathan Swift (1755), which includes [AP] "The Appendix. The Family of Swift" (separately paginated [1]-52); Laetitia Pilkington, Memoirs, 2 vols. (Dublin, 1748); and Samuel Johnson, Rambler No. 60. Bell [v]-vi: SJ 5 / JH 2 / OR 5 / DS 7-8 / OR / DS 7-8 / vi-vii: JH 2-3 / DS 11 / vii-viii: JH / DS 12 / viii-ix: JH / AP 35 / ix-x: JH 3-4 / LP 1:55 / JH / x-xi: JH 4-5 / DS 26 / xi-xii: JH / DS / JH 5-6 / OR 10 / JH / OR 5 / JH / xii-xiii: OR / JH / OR 6-7 / xiii-xiv: JH / OR / xiv-xx: JH 6-12 / OR 21 / xx-xxi: JH / AP 49 / xxi-xxiii: JH 12-14 / OR 20 / DS 101-102 / OR 21 / xxiii-xxiv: DS 102-103 / OR / xxiv-xxv: DS 104, 112 / xxv-xxviii: JH 14-16 / DS 87 / xxviii-xxix: JH / DS 90 / xxix-xxxiii: JH 16-20 / xxxiii-xxxiv: DS 163 / JH / DS 163-164 / JH / xxxiv-xxxv: DS 322 / xxxv-xl: JH 20-24 / DS 326 / JH / xl-xli: DS 326-327 / xli-xliv: JH 25-27 / DS 258 / xliv-lxiv: JH 27-41 / lxiv-lxv: DS 191 / lxv-lxxii: JH 41-46 / (lxxii-lxxiii): DS 93, 94-95 / lxxii-lxxxi: JH 46-53 / (lxxxi): DS (189) [sic for 217] / lxxxi-ciii: JH 53-68 / DS 90 / ciii-cvii: JH 68-71 / cviii-cx: OR 3-4, 213, 43-44 / cx-cxvii: DS 359, 360-364, 365-366, 367, 368-369, 371-373 / cxvii-cxxxiv: LP 1:40-48, 49, 50, 51, 52-53, 54-55, 59-60, 61-67, 72-74, 56-57, 34-35, 36-37. Quotation of JH, with the marginal annotations in JH pointing towards some but not all of the passages in OR and DS for interpolation; prefatory remarks on biography from SJ. Acknowledgement: SJ, OR, DS, LP all mentioned.
• THOMSON. Patrick Murdoch, "An Account of the Life and Writings of Mr. James Thomson," The Works of James Thomson (1762), pp. [i]-xx; and Joseph Warton, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Mr. Pope (1756). Bell [v]-xiv: PM i-ix / (xiv-xvii): JW 1:41-49 / xiv-xxx: PM ix-xx. Reprint of PM; long quotation in a footnote of JW's critical assessment of The Seasons. Acknowledgement: "an ingenious and elegant writer (Essay on the writings and genius of Pope)" for JW (xiv).
• TICKELL. TC 5:17-23; and SJ. Bell [v]: TC 17 / SJ 1 / TC / SJ 4, 14 / [v]-vi: TC 18 / SJ 14 / vi-vii: TC 18, 19 / SJ 6 / vii-viii: TC 20 / SJ 13 / TC / SJ 17 / TC 22 / SJ 9 / viii-ix: TC 22 / SJ 10 / ix-x: TC 22-23 / x-xii: SJ 10-11 / TC 19 / SJ 16 / TC / SJ / TC 19, 23 / SJ 17. Quotation and paraphrase; organization of TC followed, with numerous insertions from SJ, both of fact and critical judgment.
• WALLER. Percival Stockdale, "The Life of Edmund Waller," The Works of Edmund Waller, Esq. in Verse and Prose (1772), pp. [i]-lxv; [HR] Lord Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1707); Lord Clarendon, The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon (Oxford, 1759); Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke, Memorials of the English Affairs (1732); [PR] "Preface to the second

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  Part of Mr. Waller's Poems; printed in the year 1690," The Works of Edmund Waller, Esq. in Verse and Prose (1772), pp. 229-234; Sir Francis Atterbury, "An Account of the Life and Writings of Edmond [sic] Waller, Esq.," Poems, &c. Written upon Several Occasions, and to Several Persons (1711), pp. [i]-lxxxii; TC 2:240-264; BB 6:4099-4115; and AO 2:24-25. Bell [v]: PS [i], vi / AO 2:25 / PS / FA iii / PS / FA / PS vi, vii / BB 4099 / [v]-vi: PS / AO 2:24 / PS / FA vii / vi-vii: PS viii, xii, ix / BB 4101 / FA xii / PS xiv / FA / vii-viii: PS xiv-xv, xiv / FA xi / PS xiii / FA / ix: PS xiv, xii-xiii, xii, xxii / TC 245 / ix-x: FA xix / BB [L] / PS / FA xix-xx / x-xii: PS xxii, xxv, xxvi, xxviii, xxv-xxvi, xxx, xxxi, xxxii, xxxiii, xxxiv / xii-xiv: BW 70 / xivxxx: HR 2.i:247-253, 257-260 / xxx-xxxi: PS xlvi, (xlvii), xlvii, xlviii, li / BB [Y] / PS lii / TC 253 / BB 4111 / xxxii: PS lv, liii, lvi, lviii / TC / PS / TC / PS / TC / PS / xxxii-xxxiii: PS lx, lxi / TC 254 / PS (lxi) / TC / PS (lxi), lxii / BB 4113 / PS / xxxiii-xxxvi: LC 24-25 / PS lxiv / xxxvi-xxxvii: PR 229, 230 / xxxvii-xxxviii: PS lxv, lxiii, lxv. Quotations from PS serve as a frame, with BB guiding the compiler to almost all the other sources. Threads from AO, FA, BB and TC are interwoven; BW, HR, LC and PR are good for lengthy interpolations. Acknowledgement: specific editions are cited for BW (xii) and HR (xiv); AO is mentioned (vi); PS is cited twice (ix, xxxvii).
• WATTS. "The Preface, with Some Account of the Author's Life and Character," The Works of the Late Reverend and Learned Isaac Watts, 6 vols. (1753), 1:iii-x. Bell [v]-xviii. Reprint. Acknowledgement: "Taken from the Account of Dr. Watts's Life and Character prefixed to the quarto edition of his works in six vols. printed in 1753" ([v]).
• WEST, Gilbert. SJ. Bell [v]: SJ 1-4, 9 / [v]-vi: SJ 5-6, 10, 5-6. Paraphrase of SJ, abridged and rearranged; one judgment from SJ quoted. Acknowledgement: "says Dr. Johnson" for the quoted opinion (vi).
• WEST, Richard. "Advertisement": "The life of Mr. West was so short, and the events of it so few, that it was judged better to insert the anecdotes which remain of this hopeful youth in the preceding account of his friend than to reserve them for a detached article" ([1]). The friend was Thomas Gray, with whose poems West's are bound.
• YOUNG. BD 12:511-516; [LY] "The Life of the Rev. Dr. Edward Young," The Works of the Author of the Night-Thoughts, 5 vols. (1773), 5:[v]-xvi; and [WY] other title-specific prefaces within the 1773 edition. Bell [v]: BD 511 / [v]-vii: BD 511-512 / LY vii / vii-viii: BD 513 / viii-ix: WY 1:73 / LY ix-x / BD 514 / LY ix / ix-xi: LY x-xi, xii / WY 5:[3] / xii: BD 515 / WY 5:[83] / BD / LY / xii-xiii: BD / (xiii): LY (xiii) / xiii-xiv: BD 515-516 / xiv-xv: LY xv / BD 516 / LY xv-xvi. Quotation and paraphrase of BD (itself a reprint of "The Life of the Late Celebrated Dr. Edward Young," The Annual Register [1765], pp. 31-36), with interpolations from LY, WY, and at least one other source. This collation is incomplete; I have been unable to trace several passages. Acknowledgement: LY and BD are cited (ix, xii), along with "the Annals of the Drama" (ix).

Just who produced these compilations may never be known. Over the course of six years it is likely that Bell employed more than one compiler.[45] Except for the revision of Denham's life, a job which called for close supervision and was probably tackled in London, my guess is that the writers who supplied Bell's prefaces worked in or near Edinburgh. A distinct Scotticism

crops up in several lives, one that James Beattie warned was a sure sign of North British origins. It is the insertion of the definite article in reference to a year: "in the 1713," for example, instead of "in 1713" or "in the year 1713."[46]

A Scottish identity is commensurate also with some rare and fleeting moments when the compiler turns political censor. The evidence is found in deviations from otherwise straightforward transcriptions of source material. Two cases in point involve William III. In the life of Swift, the source text accounts for one of the King's miscalculations by his being "a stranger to our constitution"; Bell's compiler rejects the inclusive pronoun and makes William "a stranger to the English constitution." In the life of Hughes, Bell's source extols at some length "The House of Nassau," a pindaric which "displays the Heroick Exploits of that Illustrious Family, than which none have ever distinguish'd themselves more eminently in Defence of the Sacred Rights and Liberties of Mankind"; the compiler, while copying the other praises of this ode, balks at the encomium.[47] Silence in place of the Williamite paean suggests a cool (if not necessarily Jacobitic) distance from the orthodox, anglo-centric view of the Bloodless Revolution, and the disavowal of constitutional affiliation signals a Scottish reflex.

Only two of Bell's lives qualify as something more than compilations. Each of the lives, except for the mere reprints, is original in one sense: nowhere previously had the collated materials been joined in this fashion. But fresh information crops up in two lives, those of Hammond and Cunningham, which, interestingly, were composed consecutively (see Table 1). In the Hammond preface the veil of impersonality is dropped momentarily when the writer laments having missed a tantalizing chance at some crucial information. Another flicker of disclosure comes from the date on Mallet's life, "March 1780." Although this cryptic log, unique to Bell's prefaces, serves no obvious purpose, its relation to the date of printing (April 8 for Mallet) could indicate that the writers, rather than stockpiling prefaces for eventual use in the series, worked on the basis of a timely delivery, supplying the work close to when it was called for at the printing house.

No single pattern accounts for all the prefaces. They range from straightforward reprints to compilations spliced together phrase by phrase. At times one source is used to footnote another, as when a single excerpt from Warton's Essay runs its course beneath the otherwise uninterrupted reprint of Murdoch's life of Thomson; in other cases, as in the life of Waller, the sources

are thoroughly interwoven. Quotation outweighs paraphrase as a means of copying, and paraphrase rarely wanders far from the source text. The truth was, as Rogers points out, an "unavoidable minimum of bare fact simply had to be retailed," and Johnson himself was often restricted to "close paraphrase, diversified by elegant variations of expression" (170). Unlike Johnson, Bell's compiler in many cases made no effort.

The phrases, sentences and paragraphs from the source texts are seldom reworked for the sake of uniformity. Rarely is it necessary; the occasional effect is a bouncing back and forth between text and footnote, where careful adjustment could have produced a seamless narrative. In places, however, the effect is jarring. None of the roughness is smoothed from the Annual Register's portrayal of Churchill, "this thoughtless man . . . entirely guided by his native turbulence of temper" (xiii); but in tacking on the saccharine excerpt from Chrysal even the compiler seems skeptical about "the credit due to the story" (xiii). There are a few incongruities as well amongst the critical judgments retrieved from disparate sources, a problem found in the life of Akenside. The authors of BB, Bell's main source, find fault with Akenside's odes, but are willing to grant that "still there is in them a noble vein of poetry, united with manly sense, and applied to excellent purposes" ([F]). Johnson, on the other hand, Bell's complementary source, offers no palliatives: "Of his odes nothing favourable can be said" (SJ 23). Rather than try to reconcile the difference, the compiler quotes them both and leaves the verdict to the reader: "In this diversity of opinions the reader will determine for himself" (xiv-xv).

One potential slip never occurs. When a source directs its readers to an earlier text of the author, and where Bell's would serve just as well, the compiler always plugs Bell. In the life of Addison a reference to "Mr. Tickell's 4to. edition" is changed to "in this edition" (ix; TC 3:308). In place of a specimen of King's poetry served up in BB the compiler advises: "The reader will find it, with Dr. King's whole other poems, in this edition of his Poetical Works in two volumes" (xix; BB [H]). By such advertising alerts the compiler escapes the charge, with its commercial overtones, that Bell levelled at Johnson: his lives ignored the edition to which they were attached.

A recurrent impulse is for Bell's compiler to suppress uncomplimentary criticisms. It would have been unthinkable for Johnson not to speak his mind on Tickell's "Kensington Gardens," or to sanitize the passage in the manner of Bell's compiler. But then, his bluntness was a luxury the proprietors could afford. Since their initial policy was not to sell the Prefaces without all fifty-six volumes of poetry, they did not need to worry about anyone deciding against the purchase of Tickell's poems as a consequence of browsing through the preface. Bell enjoyed no such leverage, and conceivably may have instructed his compiler to be wary of disparaging criticisms. Why discourage a reader from enjoying the book she or he just bought (or was about to purchase), especially when the collection was being published serially and a new volume would be offered for sale the next week?

Instantly squelched was any hint that the works of a particular poet were inadequate by themselves to form a saleable commodity. With Gray, perhaps, it could be admitted that "the joint stock of both [Gray and Richard West] would hardly fill a small volume" (xiii; Mason 184), but not with other poets: the intimation that Garth's "works will scarce make a moderate volume" was surgically obliterated (xiii; TC 3:270), and the unlordly conclusion that Roscommon's works "are not sufficient to form a small volume" was amended to read "hardly sufficient" (xi; TC 2:349).[48] Neither was it allowable for the shortcomings of the prefaces to be discussed, except for the customary sighs over the lack of sources or the uneventfulness of a poet's life. When Sewell wishes there were "a larger, as well as a better" critical assessment of John Philips than his own (12), Bell's compiler omits the confession from his transcription (xvii).[49]

The compiler of Young's life avoided negative comments in several ways when copying from BD. The following passage was a cue to omit: "[T]here is a laboured stiffness of versification; and this is the more remarkable, as Dr. Young ever took very great pains to polish and correct the harshness of his numbers" (12:512). Another tack was to discredit the source: "By certain fastidious critics they have been stigmatized as a mere string of epigrams" (viii). If an adjective was not to the compiler's liking, a more favorable one could be substituted, as when "elegance" is substituted for "terseness" (viii; 12: 513). All in all, omission was simplest. When TC criticizes Smith's drama as too "luxuriously poetical" of language, yet monotonous of character (4:312), Bell's compiler declines the opinion (xii). And the incentive to change copy-texts near the end of the life of Roscommon was sharpened by this withering summation: "The grand requisites of a poet, elevation, fire, and invention, were not given him, and for want of these, however pure his thoughts, he is a languid unentertaining writer" (TC 2:352-353).

It is clear why negative criticism might be shunned, less so why a facet of a poet's life should be viewed as a detraction. Nevertheless, the compiler concealed one aspect of Dryden's life. Where "preternatural intelligence" was concerned the age was, as Johnson put it, "very little inclined to favour any accounts of this kind" (Roscommon 7). Concurring, Bell's compiler shields the reader from "superstitious" incidents in the life of Dryden, passing silently over the section in TC dealing with the poet's astrological calculations and fears about the life of his son Charles. Having agreed with one source to portray Young as "pious but gloomy" (x), the compiler later resists the phrase "notwithstanding this gloominess of temper," retouching it to read "so far was he from gloominess of temper" (xiv; BD 12:516).

Yet if Bell's purpose was to gloss over passages damaging to the poet's character or reputation, it was not carried out consistently. Many passages

eligible for deletion on that account are retained. And whereas the praise in a source text is gently heightened on occasion, this happens less often than one might expect. It was easier, on the whole, merely to copy. In one extraordinary case an encomium in the source text is toned down. The compiler of Young's life, otherwise anxious to expunge the negative, actually reins in "the writer of Dr. Young's life" for going "too great a length when he says, 'We may assign [The Revenge] . . . a place in the first rank of our dramatic writings'" (ix).[50]

Although a niche in Bell's market undoubtedly was occupied by neophyte book-buyers, old and young, the ambitious plan of The Poets of Great Britain argues against belittling its audience as Thomas Tyrwhitt did, who claimed that the engravings in Bell's edition were a decoy for young and undiscriminating purchasers.[51] The scope of the lives runs counter to the condescension aired by another work published when Bell's series began to appear, The Beauties of Biography, intended "for the use of Schools." Its editor asserts that most biographical entries are "too voluminous, and more circumstantial than is required for young People, who do not reap the greatest advantage from dwelling long on the same subject."[52] By that measure Bell's reader was fully adult, an impression confirmed by comparison of Bell's edition of John Philips, for instance, with two previous ones: Poems Attempted in the Style of Milton (1762) and Poems on Several Occasions (1763), published respectively by the Tonsons and the Foulis brothers. Bell reprints George Sewell's life, folding in sections from both the text and notes in BB, and passages from SJ. The earlier compilations were far simpler. Except for a single paragraph from Sewell, the Tonsons derived their account from BB, leaving out a few passages and all the notes but one. The Foulis brothers simply reprinted Sewell, adding only some brief notes. Both prefaces were "defective" by Bell's standard, yet were deemed suitable by one of the century's most thriving bookselling firms and perhaps the finest university printers in Britain.[53] Bell taxed his readers' attention at a higher rate: in contrast to

roughly 2675 and 5450 words in the Tonson and Foulis lives, Bell's compilation ran to about 9050.[54]

The life of Gray, neither the longest nor shortest of the bunch, may serve as a final measure of Bell's investment in his prefaces. No edition, of course, could match William Mason's with its page ratio of 416:112 between preface and works.[55] Several other editions of Gray, however, published in 1774, 1775, 1776, and 1779, also joined some form of biographical preface to the poet's works. Once again, by a significant margin Bell's was the most thorough. The word count for these lives, respectively, was 1025, 850, 1450, and 1025, to Bell's 5050.[56] What is more, to the "Life of Thomas Gray" proper Bell's compiler added a copy of Gray's last will and testament, and J. Taite's poetic tribute, "The Tears of Genius." Not surprisingly in view of the options, when a life was selected to accompany Gilbert Wakefield's "classical" edition of Gray in 1786, Bell's won the palm.[57]

Even without hiring a Johnson to write his prefaces, Bell invested heavily in this feature of his edition, both materially and symbolically. The more extensive the lives, obviously, the greater the capital outlay required for printing materials (paper and ink), labor (in compiling as well as printing), and distribution (weight and bulk in shipping). Just as important as publishing a substantial preface, however, was the appearance of publishing a substantial

preface, one in keeping with the breadth of the full undertaking. The number of pages counted; quantity became a tangible index of value. With this kind of symbolic capital tied up in his prefaces, Bell could not risk their being seen as a perfunctory gesture.

IV
Conclusion

While Bell succeeded in one of his primary objectives, that of acquainting the reader "at once with the poet and the man," it is less clear how far he progressed towards a "connected system of biography." In his prefaces there is neither a uniform biographical approach nor a consistent critical voice. As a lot they are altogether too miscellaneous.

No matter what their peculiarities and varied degrees of competence, however, these reprints and compilations gave readers a considerable body of English literary biography. If little new in the way of fact or criticism was to be discovered, Bell could not be faulted for scrimping on them. Where sources were meager, the lives were necessarily brief; otherwise the compilers sought the fullest accounts available and often supplemented these with other materials. At their worst Bell's lives were equal to the kind of "advertisement" Johnson was asked to write; at their best they approximated the most informative biographies extant of their respective subjects. Yet the question of how they stack up against Johnson's Prefaces or other authoritative sources, though crucial, gives way to another when the focus shifts from the compiler to the bookseller: what sort of book was Bell trying to place in his readers' hands?

Prefixing lives to cheap octavo and duodecimo volumes of poetry had been a fairly casual matter, as the editions of Philips and Gray demonstrate. Bell's model was the life-and-works formula, not of the cheap reprint, but of the complete and authoritative edition. Into his small and relatively inexpensive books Bell transplanted lives which had made their debut in folio (Cowley, Donne) and quarto (Thomson, Swift). This stately ideal exemplifies the standard attempted by Bell's series; each author was to be accorded a substantial biographical account. It was an unprecedented enterprise.

If "system," finally, is taken to mean "any complexure or combination of many things acting together," as Johnson defined the term, then the lives in Bell's edition fit the bill. Cast in the same prefatory role, together they provided the purchaser with a broad glimpse of "this particular class of writers," and by so doing contextualized the works of the British poets.

Notes