She now copied the manuscript in a feigned hand; for as she was the Doctor’s principal amanuensis, she feared her common writing might accidentally be seen by some compositor of the History of Music, and lead to detection.
She grew weary, however, ere long, of an exercise so merely manual; and had no sooner completed a copy of the first and second volumes, than she wrote a letter, without any signature, to offer the unfinished work to a bookseller; with a desire to have the two volumes immediately printed, if approved; and a promise to send the sequel in the following year.
This was forwarded by the London post, with a desire that the answer should be directed to a coffee-house.
Her younger brother—the elder, Captain James, was ‘over the hills and far away,’—her younger brother, afterwards the celebrated Greek scholar, gaily, and without reading a word of the work, accepted a share in so whimsical a frolic; and joyously undertook to be her agent at the coffee-house with her letters, and to the bookseller with the manuscript.
After some consultation upon the choice of a bookseller, Mr. Dodsley was fixed upon; for Dodsley, from his father’s,—or perhaps grand-father’s,—well chosen collection of fugitive poetry, stood foremost in the estimation of the juvenile set.
Mr. Dodsley, in answer to the proposition, declined looking at any thing that was anonymous.
The party, half-amused, half-provoked, sat in full committee upon this lofty reply; and came to a resolution to forego the _eclât_ of the west end of the town, and to try their fortune with the urbanity of the city.
Chance fixed them upon the name of Mr. Lowndes.
The city of London here proved more courtly than that of Westminster; and, to their no small delight, Mr. Lowndes desired to see the manuscript.
And what added a certain pride to the author’s satisfaction in this assent, was, that the answer opened by
which gave her an elevation to manly consequence, that had not been accorded to her by Mr. Dodsley, whose reply began
The young agent was muffled up now by the laughing committee, in an old great coat, and a large old hat, to give him a somewhat antique as well as vulgar disguise; and was sent forth in the dark of the evening with the two first volumes to Fleet-street, where he left them to their fate.