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120 life was virtuous, and his end was pious. Theophilus Cibber, then a prisoner for debt, imparted, as I was told, his name for ten guineas. The manuscript of Shiels’, he adds, ‘is now in my possession.’

In some of its details this account has been amended and corrected. Cibber, it appears, did actually supervise and edit the work, striking out the Jacobite and Tory sentiments which Shiels had plentifully interspersed in the Lives that he contributed. For this labour of revision Cibber received twenty guineas. Shiels, on the other hand, wrote the chief part of the book, and received almost seventy pounds. Cibber and Shiels, as might be expected, quarrelled, and Shiels, who was for a time one of Johnson’s dictionary amanuenses, doubtless communicated to Johnson his version of the affair.

That Shiels is entitled to the chief credit of the work cannot be doubted. Internal evidence, as it is called, would alone be sufficient to establish his claim. Here, for instance, is a description of Edinburgh society,