Towards the beginning of 1762 he was
hard at work on several compilations for Newbery, for whom he wrote or
edited a 'History of Mecklenburgh', and a series of monthly volumes of
an abridgement of 'Plutarch's Lives'. In October of the same year was
published the 'Life of Richard Nash', apparently the outcome of special
holiday-visits to the then fashionable watering-place of Bath, whence
its fantastic old Master of the Ceremonies had only very lately made his
final exit. It is a pleasantly gossiping, and not unedifying little
book, which still holds a respectable place among its author's minor
works. But a recently discovered entry in an old ledger shows that
during the latter half of 1762 he must have planned, if he had not,
indeed, already in part composed, a far more important effort, 'The
Vicar of Wakefield'. For on the 28th of October in this year he sold to
one Benjamin Collins, printer, of Salisbury, for 21 pounds, a third in a
work with that title, further described as '2 vols.
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