As to the payment for periodical writing in that day, we are told by an author who recollected the _Monthly Review_ for fifty years, that in its most palmy days only four guineas a sheet were given to the most distinguished writers, and as late as 1783, when it was reported that Doctor Shebbeare received as much as six guineas, Johnson replied, “Sir, he might get six guineas for a particular sheet, but not _communibus sheetibus_;” and yet he afterwards explains the fact of so much good writing appearing anonymously, without hope of personal fame, “those who write in them write well in order to be paid well.” Of all the booksellers of the Johnsonian era, Robert Dodsley, however, was _facile princeps_. Born in the year 1703, he commenced life as a footman, but a poem entitled _The Muse in Livery_, so interested his mistress, the Hon. Mrs. Lowther, that she procured its publication by subscription. After this he entered the service of Dartineuf, a celebrated voluptuary, the reputed son of Charles II., and one of the most intimate friends of Pope. Here he wrote a dramatic satire, _The Toy Shop_, with which Pope was so pleased, that he interested himself in procuring its acceptance at Covent Garden. The piece was successful, and Pope, adding a substantial present on his own account of one hundred pounds, Dodsley was enabled to open a small bookseller’s shop in Pall Mall, then far from enjoying its present fashionable repute. In this new situation, without any apprenticeship whatever, he soon attracted the attention not only of celebrated literary men, but his shop became a favourite lounge for noble and wealthy _dilettanti_. In 1738, began his first acquaintance with Johnson, who offered him the manuscript of _London, a Satire_. “Paul Whitehead had a little before got ten guineas for a poem, and I would not take less than Paul Whitehead,” and without any haggling, the bargain was concluded. Busy as he soon began to be in his shop, Dodsley did not neglect original composition. He produced several successful farces, and in 1744, edited and published the work by which his name is best known now, _A Collection of Plays by Old Authors_, which did much to revive the study of Elizabethan literature, and was most fruitful in its influence on later generations.