It is one of the minor ironies of literary history that the man who did so much to insure the survival of the poems and plays of others has had his own almost entirely forgotten. For Dodsley was not always a bookseller. When he escaped his country apprenticeship and fled to London to work as a footman, Dodsley had his heart set on literary distinction; and it was first as poet and later as playwright that he came to the attention of the Town. Although a few of his poems are as ingratiating as Dodsley himself is reported to have been, most are now aesthetically irretrievable. His dramas, in contrast, remain interesting. Two of the best--_The Toy-Shop_ (1735) and _The King and the Miller of Mansfield_ (1737)--were much more popular than his earlier poems and for a time made him seem the equal of fellow dramatist Henry Fielding. So great was the vogue of these two works that Dodsley has been described as the principal developer of the sentimental or moralizing afterpiece.[1] Both works are short afterpieces intended to complement or contrast with the full-length play on the day's bill and both moralize conspicuously; the two plays could, however, hardly be more different in tone and technique. _The Toy-Shop_ grew out of Dodsley's admiration of and consequent desire to emulate the witty raillery of Augustan satire. When he sent Pope his newly minted collected poems, _A Muse in Livery_ (1732), Dodsley also included an orphan muse in the packet. In February of 1733 Pope politely responded that he liked the play and would encourage John Rich to produce it, but that he doubted whether it had sufficient action to engage an audience. Dodsley apparently did all he could to strengthen his acquaintance with Pope, including publishing a laudatory _Epistle to Mr. Pope, Occasion'd by His Essay on Man_ in 1734; and the following February when Rich finally produced _The Toy-Shop_ at Covent Garden, some thought that Pope was the author and Dodsley's alleged authorship a diversion. Understandably, Dodsley was delighted to have his play even momentarily mistaken for the work of Alexander Pope. _The Toy-Shop_ was enormously popular. "This little Performance, without any Theatrical Merit whatsoever," the _Prompter_ wrote on 18 February, "received the loudest Applauses that I have heard this long while, only on Account of its General and well-Adapted Satire on the Follies of Mankind."[2] Dodsley's afterpiece was performed thirty-four times during the 1735 season. In print it was even more in demand. For his benefit performance on 6 February, Dodsley advertised that "Books of the Toy-Shop will be sold in the House."[3] There were at least six legitimate editions of the piece within the year. It was pirated, translated into French, and subsequently anthologized in almost every collection of English farces.[4]