_Cibber's Lives of the Poets_ (Vol. v., p. 25.).--I have not Croker's
_last_ edition of Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ to refer to, to see what
is there said respecting Cibber's title to the authorship of this book;
but I find the following MS. note on the fly-leaf of the first volume of
my copy of the _Lives of the Poets_:--
"Steevens says that not the smallest part of the work called
'Cibber's _Lives of the Poets_' was the compilation of Cibber;
being entirely written by Mr. Shiells, amanuensis to Dr. Johnson,
when his Dictionary was preparing for the press. T. Cibber was in
the King's Bench, and accepted of ten guineas from the booksellers
for leave to prefix his name to the work, and it was purposely so
prefixed as to leave the reader in doubt whether he or his father
was the person designed."
The American edition of the German _Conversations-Lexicon_, at vol. iii.
p. 190. makes the same statement, but without giving any authority. The
name of Robert Shiells, a Scotchman, is here given as the author of the
_Lives of the Poets_.