Note M-9 — MEMOIR OF ZEBULON MONTGOMERY PIKE. BY ELLIOTT COUES.

This is a remarkable book, which has had a very exceptional career, the end of which is not even yet. Robert Dodsley, b. 1703, d. Sept. 23d, 1764, was in early life a menial in the service of Hon. Mrs. Lowther, but became by his natural talents a wealthy publisher, as well as a prolific author. In the latter capacity he was scarcely rated as more than a hack writer in his lifetime, during which he was probably never suspected of having written an immortal book. Whether this was a stroke of his own genius or not is questionable; but he should have the full credit of the book, until an extraneous source of his inspiration can be instanced. The Œconomy of Human Life was first published anonymously in a collection of miscellanies, in 1745, and soon acquired great repute, in part at least due to the fact that it was commonly attributed to Lord Chesterfield. It ran through many editions in various styles, some of them finely illustrated. The earlier ones all preserved the author's anonymity, and in more than one reprint of very late years his incognito is formally preserved. An anonymous edition of 1806, which I have handled, consists only of Book I, Parts i-vii, entitled as follows: The | Œconomy | of | Human Life, | translated from an | Indian Manuscript, | written by an Ancient Bramin | — | London: | printed for W. Gardiner, Pall-Mall; and | Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe, Poultny. | 1 vol., 12mo, pp. i-x, 1 leaf, pp. 1-116, and many engr. head- and tail-pieces. Another, of 1809, with the authorship avowed, is as follows: The | Economy | of | Human Life. | In Two Books. | — | By Robert Dodsley. | — | With six elegant engravings by Mackenzie, | from designs by Craig and Unwins. | — | London: | [etc., 4 lines of printers' names] | — | 1809. 1 vol., 16mo, 1 prel. leaf, vignette title, pp. i-xviii, 5-188; portrait and memoir of Dodsley, and 5 full-page engravings; said to have been pub. Jan. 31st, 1809. The copy Pike had was most probably one of the cheap American reprints which appeared about this time. Dodsley's book consists of philosophical and moral reflections or aphorisms in curt, sententious style, of distinctly Oriental flavor; it is feigned to be based upon manuscripts of immense antiquity, discovered in the capital of Tibet by an emissary of the emperor of China, and in some occult manner received in England and translated. I liked the thing so much that I lately brought out a new edition myself, preserving the author's feigned origin of the book and his own incognito, transposing some of the pieces, adding a new "foreword" in antique style, and modifying the title to—Kuthumi: The True and Complete Œconomy of Human Life, etc. In this guise Dodsley's book forms No. 5 of my Biogen Series, Boston, Estes and Lauriat, 1886; 1 vol., small square 8vo, pp. i-x, 1-123.