THE LIVES OF THE POETS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, to the time of Dean Swift. Compiled from ample materials scattered in a variety of books, and especially from the MS. notes of the late ingenious Mr. Coxeter and others, collected for this design, by Mr. Cibber. [SHIELS, Robert.] Biography

Five volumes, 12mo, pp. [ii], ii, 354; [iv], 353; [iv], 353, [1] advertisement; [ii], ii, 356; [vi], 354; internal tear in pp. 287-8, and marginal tears in pp. 309-12, in volume II, but without loss of text; else a clean and sound copy, in old half calf, neatly rebacked. Sole edition of this series of biographies of English poets, supposedly compiled by Theophilus Cibber (1703-58), son of Colley. In fact, as is now known, most of the real work was done by Robert Shiels (d. 1753), and Cibber acted as a general editor: Shiels resented Cibber's interference in matters of style (and in toning down his Jacobitism), and at one point had to be dissuaded from challenging Cibber to a duel. The first volume's title page acknowledges use of the collections made by Thomas Coxeter whose library of verse by English poets was apparently rich in his notes but still implies that the collection was put together solely by Cibber. Later volumes, however, describe the work as 'by Mr. Cibber, and other Hands'. The authorship of the lives may be a matter of dispute between Shiels and Cibber, but they were not the only contributors to the text. As is well known, Robert Shiels was one of the team of amanuenses (five out of six of them Scots) who were employed by Samuel Johnson in the compilation of his Dictionary (1755). Thus Shiels would naturally have been aware, not only of the existence of Johnson's Life of Savage (1744), but of its author and indeed he makes use of it in volume V, candidly acknowledging that his biography (pp. 32-66) is largely taken from that account, written by 'a gentleman, who knew him intimately, capable to distinguish his follies, and those good qualities which were often concealed from the bulk of mankind by the abjectness of his condition' (p. 32). It is indeed striking to compare the vocabulary and phrasing of Johnson's biography with that of Shiels, and find how often the latter merely rephrases (or indeed reproduces) the original biography. This book was issued in parts (25 in all for the main part of the text), as is clear from the signatures, which specify not only which volume we are in, but also to which number the signature belongs. The published parts consist of three signatures each, i.e. 72 pages, to which the title pages and contents leaves were added at the end. This is the only edition of this work: a few copies of a 'second edition' of volume I are known, but that may be a reissue. Provenance. Name stamp (probably late 19th c) of Arthur St. G. Patton, in each volume.