its authorship was generally known, and the
pamphlet refers to Richardson by name. Sale's bibliography gives further
details (_Samuel Richardson: A Bibliographical Record_, New Haven, 1936,
pp. 131-32), including the suggestion of the _Monthly Review_
(X, 159-60) that the author was Alexander Campbell, who also wrote
_A Free and Candid Examination of Lord Bolingbroke's Letters on History_
(1753). The pro-Bolingbroke and deistic sentiments of the _Critical
Remarks_ lend color to this attribution. Nichols' _Literary Anecdotes_
(II, 277) says under the year 1755 that William Bowyer printed a few
copies of two pamphlets on _Grandison_, one by Francis Plumer and one by
Dr. John Free. To Plumer is attributed _A Candid Examination of the
History of Sir Charles Grandison_ (April 1754; 3rd ed., 1755), and the
inference might then be that Free was the author of the _Critical
Remarks_, even though the date 1755 given by Nichols is not right, since
these two are the only known early _Grandison_ pamphlets. But Free's
orthodox religious views seem to eliminate him as a possibility. Whoever
the author was, his references to Henry and Sarah Fielding are decidedly
friendly, and he speaks well of Mason, Gray, Dodsley, and Pope.

The _Remarks_ represents a type of pamphlet occasionally called forth by
works which engaged the general attention of the town, such as the great
novels of the period; thus before the _Grandison_ pamphlets we have
_Pamela Censured_, _Lettre sur Pamela_, _An Examen of the History of Tom
Jones_, _An Essay on the New Species of Writing Founded by Mr.
Fielding_, and _Remarks on Clarissa_. Usually these fugitive essays are
hostile to the work they discuss, and represent the attempt of some
obscure writer to turn a shilling by exposing for sale a title page
which might catch the eye with a well known name. The J. Dowse who sold
the _Critical Remarks_ was an obscure pamphlet-shop proprietor, not a
prominent bookseller. Richardson and his correspondents were of course
irritated at both the _Grandison_ pieces: Mrs. Sarah Chapone was
indignant at the _Critical Remarks_, venturing the absurd suggestion
that Fielding might be the author (Victoria and Albert Museum, Forster
Collection, Richardson MSS., XIII, 1, ff. 102-03, letter of 6 April
1754); and Lady Bradshaigh and Richardson considered the more favorable
_Candid Examination_ an unfriendly work (Forster Collection, Richardson
MSS., XI, ff. 98, 100-02). Yet these obscure