ter_, founded in 1758 with Edmund Burke as
editor. To these various works, Horace Walpole, Akenside, Soame Jenyns,
Lord Lyttelton, Lord Chesterfield, Burke and others were contributors.
Dodsley is, however, best known as the editor of two collections:
_Select Collection of Old Plays_ (12 vols., 1744; 2nd edition with notes
by Isaac Reed, 12 vols., 1780; 4th edition, by W. C. Hazlitt, 1874-1876,
15 vols.); and _A collection of Poems by Several Hands_ (1748, 3 vols.),
which passed through many editions. In 1737 his _King and the Miller of
Mansfield_, a "dramatic tale" of King Henry II., was produced at Drury
Lane, and received with much applause; the sequel, _Sir John Cockle at
Court_, a farce, appeared in 1738. In 1745 he published a collection of
his dramatic works, and some poems which had been issued separately, in
one volume under the modest title of _Trifles_. This was followed by
_The Triumph of Peace, a Masque occasioned by the Treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle_ (1749); a fragment, entitled _Agriculture_, of a long
tedious poem in blank verse on _Public Virtue_ (1753); _The Blind Beggar
of Bethnal Green_ (acted at Drury Lane 1739, printed 1741); and an ode,
_Melpomene_ (1757). His tragedy of _Cleone_ (1758) had a long run at
Covent Garden, 2000 copies being sold on the day of publication, and it
passed through four editions within the year. Lord Chesterfield is,
however, almost certainly the author of the series of mock chronicles of
which _The Chronicle of the Kings of England_ by "Nathan ben Saddi"
(1740) is the first, although they were included in the _Trifles_ and
"ben Saddi" was received as Dodsley's pseudonym. _The Economy of Human
Life_ (1750), a collection of moral precepts frequently reprinted, is
also by Lord Chesterfield. In 1759 Dodsley retired, leaving the conduct
of the business to his brother James (1724-1797), with whom he had been
many years in partnership. He published two more works, _The Select
Fables of Aesop translated by R. D._ (1764) and the _Works of William
Shenstone_ (3 vols., 1764-1769). He died at Durham while on a visit to
his friend the Rev. Joseph Spence, on the 23rd of September 1764.

See also _Shadows of the Old Booksellers_, by Charles Knight (1865),
pp. 189-216; "At Tully's Head" in _Eighteenth Century Vignettes_, 2nd
series, by Austin Dobson (1894); E. Solly in _The Bibliographer_, v.
(1884) pp. 57-61. Dodsley's poems are reprinted with a memoir in A.
Chalmers's _Works of En