writers, fuch as Sir Thomas More, Afcham, Hooker, Spenfer, archbishop Sandys, Jewel, Chillingworth, Hales, of Eton, and others, formed a new one, confifting in original phrases and new combinations of the integral parts of fentences, which, with the infufion of words derived from the Latin and accommodated to our idiom, were fuch an improvement of the language as greatly tended to enrich it: Cave therefore thought him a fit perfon to conduct this part of his monthly publication, and, difmiffing Guthrie, committed the care of it to Johnson.

Before this change of hands, Cave had been checked by fome intimations from the clerks of the house of commons, that his printing the debates had given offence to the speaker, and might subject him to cenfure this he, for fome time, regarded but little, relying poffibly upon the indulgence that had been fhewn as well to the publishers of the Political State of Great Britain, who were the first that ventured on this practice, as to himself; but a refolution of the house at length gave him to underftand, that it would be prudence in him to defift from it. The thought of putting his readers on fhort allowance was very unpleafing to him, and this, with the apprehenfion that the fale of his Magazine might be affected by the omiffion of a kind of intelligence which they had been accustomed to, drove him to many contrivances to evade the prohibition, out of which he chofe one that scarce any man but himself would have thought of: it was the giving to the public the debates in the British senate under a fictitious defignation. Every one, he knew, was acquainted with Gulliver's Travels; he therefore, in his magazine VOL. I.

H

for

for June 1738, begins the month by feigning, that the debates in the fenate of Magna Lilliputia were then extant; and referring to the refolution of the house of commons, above-mentioned, whereby he was forbidden to infert any account of the proceedings of the British parliament, he pretends to doubt not but his readers will be pleased with the infertion of what he calls the appendix to captain Gulliver's account of Lilliput, in their room. A change of fictitious for real names of perfons, countries, and provinces, was abfolutely neceffary for the carrying on this defign, and accordingly, by tranfpofing the letters and otherwise anagrammatizing proper names, he has, through the medium of nonfenfe, given light to that which he would be thought to conceal.

Farther to aid his reader as to the names of countries, &c. he published, at the end of his magazine for 1738, a fictitious propofal for printing, by fubscription, a work, intitled, Anagrammata Rediviva, or the art of compofing and refolving anagrams, with a reference to the bookfellers, agents, and mafters of fhips, in the cities, countries, and provinces therein described by barbarous names opposed to those which they are meant to fignify: he alfo, at the end of the magazines for 1739, 1740, 1741, 1742, and 1743, gave a list of chriftian and furnames pretendedly fynonimous, forming thereby a key to that otherwise unintelligible jargon which Cave, by this fubterfuge, had introduced into the debates.

The proprietors of the London Magazine, who also gave the debates, but from documents lefs authentic than thofe of Cave, compelled by the fame neceffity

that

that forced him to this artifice, took another course : they feigned to give the debates in the Roman fenate, and by adapting Roman names to the feveral speeches, rendered them more plausible than they appear under Cave's management.

The artifice however fucceeded in both inftances: the refolution of the commons was never enforced, and the debates were publifhed with impunity. I will not disgrace my page by the infertion of any of thofe barbarous appellations which Cave had invented, and which, I dare fay, were mufic to his ear; but content myself with faying, that Guthrie acquiefced in Cave's fiction and the nonfense which it involved, and as it was found to answer its end, Johnson fcrupled not to adopt it.

The debates penned by Johnson were not only more methodical and better connected than thofe of Guthrie, but in all the ornaments of stile fuperior: they were written at thofe feafons when he was able to raise his imagination to fuch a pitch of fervour as bordered upon enthusiasm, which, that he might the better do, his practice was to shut himself up in a room affigned him at St. John's gate, to which he would not fuffer any one to approach, except the compofitor or Cave's' boy for matter, which, as fast as he compofed it, he tumbled out at the door.

Never were the force of reafoning or the powers of popular eloquence more evidently difplayed, or the arts of fophiftry more clearly detected than in these animated compofitions. Nor are they more worthy of admiration for these their excellencies than for that peculiarity of language which difcriminates

the debates of each affembly from the other, and the various colouring which he has found the art of giving to particular fpeeches. The characteristic of the one affembly we know is Dignity; the privilege of the other Freedom of Expreffion. To fpeak of the first, when a member thereof endowed with wisdom, gravity, and experience, is made to rife, the ftile which Johnson gives him is nervous, his matter weighty, and his arguments convincing; and when a mere popular orator takes up a debate, his eloquence is by him represented in a glare of false rhetoric, fpecious reasoning, an affectation of wit, and a difpofition to trifle with fubjects the most interesting. With great judgment alfo does Johnfon adopt the unrestrained oratory of the other house, and with equal facility imitate the deep-mouthed rancour of Pulteney, and the yelping pertinacity of Pitt.

As an illuftration of the former part of this pofition, I fhall here give two fpeeches, the one of the lordchancellor Hardwicke on the motion of lord Carteret for an addrefs to his Majefty, befeeching him to remove Sir Robert Walpole from his prefence and councils for ever; and the other of lord Chesterfield on a bill, intitled An act for repealing certain duties on fpirituous liquors, and on licences for retailing the fame, and for laying other duties on fpirituous liquors and on licenfes for retailing the 'faid liquors.' That of lord Hardwicke is as follows:

• My Lords,

Though I very readily admit that crimes ought to be punished, that a treacherous adminiftration of public affairs is in a very high degree criminal, 'that even ignorance, where it is the confequence of neglect, deferves the fevereft animadverfion, and that it is the privilege and duty of this houfe to < watch over the state of the nation, and inform his Majefty of any errors committed by his minifters; yet I am far from being convinced either of the justice or neceffity of the motion now under confi'deration.

The most flagrant and invidious part of the charge against the right honourable gentleman appears to 'confift in this, that he has engroffed an exorbitant degree of power, and ufurped an unlimited influence over the whole system of government, that he difposes of all honours and preferments, and that he is 'not only first but fole minifter.

But of this boundless ufurpation, my lords, what proof has been laid before you? what beyond loud exaggerations, pompous rhetoric, and fpecious appeals to common fame? common fame which at ( leaft may fometimes err, and which though it may 'afford fufficient ground for fufpicion and enquiry,

was never yet admitted as conclufive evidence, ' where the immediate neceffities of the public did not preclude the common forms of examination, ' where the power of the offender did not make it dangerous to attack him by a legal profecution, or

' where the conduct of the accuser did not plainly H 3 • discover