_Robert Dodsley._--In all the biographies, this amiable and worthy man is
said to have been born at Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. Does he anywhere
state this himself? If not, what is the evidence in favour of such
statement? Not the parish register of Mansfield certainly. I have often
thought that a Life of Dodsley _in extenso_ might be made an interesting
vehicle for illustrating the progress of an individual from the humble rank
of a livery servant to the influential position of a first-class London
bookseller in the Augustan age of English literature; including, of course,
all the reflex influences of the society of that period. There is plenty of
matter; and I think a well-known correspondent of "N. & Q." and _Gent's
Mag._, whose initials are P. C., would know where to find and how to use
it.