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THE HISTORY OF POMPEY THE LITTLE; _or, the Life and Adventures of a Lap-Dog. London: Printed for M. Cooper, at the Globe in Paternoster Row, MDCCLI_.
In February 1751 the town, which had been suffering from rather a dreary spell since the acceptable publication of _Tom Jones_, was refreshed and enlivened by the simultaneous issue of two delightfully scandalous productions, eminently well adapted to occupy the polite conversation of ladies at drums and at the card-table. Of these one was _The Memoirs of a Lady of Quality_, so oddly foisted by Smollett into the third volume of his _Peregrine Pickle_. This was recognised at once as being the work of the frail and adventurous Lady Vane, about whom so many strange stories were already current in society. The other puzzled the gossips much longer, and it seems to have been the poet Gray who first discovered the authorship of _Pompey the Little_.