Chambers, George III. is reported to have said, when he signed the
commission, that "he was happy he had it in his power to reward a man
of genius, and a person of such distinguished merit." The King had
signed the document, and the office fees alone remained to be paid,
when Mr. Pitt died, and a new and opposite ministry succeeded. Sir
Walter, however, obtained the appointment, though not from the favour
of an administration differing from himself in politics, as has been
supposed; the grant having been obtained before Mr. Fox's direction
that the appointment should be conferred as a favour coming directly
from his administration. The duties were easy, and the profits about
1,200_l._ a year, though Sir Walter, according to arrangement,
performed the former for five or six years without salary, until the
retirement of his colleague.


EDITIONS OF DRYDEN AND SWIFT.


Sir Walter's next literary labour was the editorship of the _Works of
John Dryden_, with Notes. Critical and Explanatory, and a Life of the
Author: the chief aim of which appears to be the arrangement of the
"literary productions in their succession, as actuated by, and
operating upon, the taste of an age, where they had so predominating
an influence," and the connexion of the Life of Dryden with the
history of his publications. This he accomplished within a
twelvemonth. Sir Walter subsequently edited, upon a similar plan, an
edition of the _Works of Swift_.--Neither of these works can be said
to entitle Sir Walter to high rank as a biographer.