No page more grateful to th' harmonious nine Than that wherein thy labours we survey :

Where folemn themes in fuller fplendor shine, (Delightful mixture,) blended with the gay. Where in improving, various joys we find, A welcome refpite to the wearied mind.

Thus when the nymphs in fome fair verdant mead, Of various flow'rs a beauteous wreath compofe, The lovely violet's azure-painted head Adds luftre to the crimfon-blufhing rofe. Thus fplendid Iris, with her varied dye, Shines in the æther, and adorns the fky. May 22, 1738.

BRITON.

The provocation that gave rife to this furious conteft, as it will prefently appear to have been, was the increafing demand for Cave's publication, and the check it gave to the fale of its rival, which at one time was fo great as to throw back no fewer than feventy thoufand copies on the hands of the proprietors. To revenge this injury, the confederate bookfellers gave out, that Sylvanus Urban, whom, for no conceivable reafon, they dignified with the appellation of Doctor, was become mad, affigning as the caufe of his infanity, his publication in the Magazine of fundry mathematical problems, effays and queftions on abftruse subjects, fent him by many of his learned correfpondents. Cave who for fome months had been rebutting the calumnies of his adverfaries, and that with fuch fuccefs as provoked them to the outrage above-mentioned, now felt that he had them at mercy. With that fagacity which we frequently obferve, but wonder at in men of flow parts, he feemed to antici

pate the advice contained in the second and third ftanzas of Johnfon's ode, and forbore a reply, though not his revenge, which he gratified in fuch a manner as seems to abfolve him from the guilt imputable in most cases to that paffion; this he did by inferting as an article of public intelligence in his Historical Chronicle for the month of February 1738, the following paragraph: " Monday 20. About 8 " o'clock the famous Dr. Urban, having fome time past been poffeffed with a violent frenzy, broke "loofe from his nurfe, and run all through the streets "of London and Westminster diftributing quack

bills, fwearing he would go vifit his beautiful "Garden of Eden; raving against Common Senfe *, and "the London Magazine, and finging a mad fong fet "to mufic by Peter the Wild Youth; but being at "last secured, was conveyed to his lodgings in Moor"fields, where he continues uttering horrid impreca"tions against several bookfellers and printers. 'Tis "thought this poor man's misfortune is owing to his having lately perplexed himself with biblical questions, "mathematical problems, aftronomical equations, and " methods to find the longitude."-This filly paragraph, and fuch like buffoonery, inferted in the news'papers at the charge of the proprietors of the London Magazine, is all the anfwer given to the remarks on their inimitable preface, fome paffages of which are quoted in the beginning of this magazine †."

<

.

* A party paper so intitled.

The

In the courfe of many years obfervation I am able to recollect one, and only one, inftance of this method of treating a fcurrilous adverfary. An ingenious mechanic, of the name of Newfham, who with the affiftance of the late Dr. Defaguliers, had made many confiderable improvements in the construction of

engines

The publication in the manner above-mentioned of this fenfeless and malignant fiction, and the care and attention of Cave in the compilation of his magazine, together with the affiftance he received from a variety of ingenious and learned correfpondents, enabled him in a fhort time to triumph over his rivals, and increased the fale thereof to a number that no other could ever equal.

It was no part of Cave's original defign to give the debates in either houfe of parliament, but the oppofition to the minifter, and the spirit that conducted it, had excited in the people a great eagerness to know what was going forward in both, and he knew that to gratify that defire was to encrease the demand for his pamphlet. Indeed the experiment had already been made, for the fpeeches in parliament had for fome time been given in the Political State of Great Britain, a publication above spoken of, and though drawn up by perfons no way equal to fuch an undertaking, were well received. Thefe for the most part were taken by stealth, and were compiled from the information of lifteners and the under-officers and door-keepers of either houfe; but Cave had an interest

engines for extinguishing fires, had obtained a patent for one in particular which conjoined in one and the fame machine the active powers of both the hands and feet: an ignorant and impudent pretender invaded his right, and the more to exasperate him, wrote with his own hand and fubfcribed a letter to Mr. Newsham, made up of the fouleft abuse and a difcuffion of the principles of mechanics in language, which for its nonfenfe and bad spelling conveyed no ideas. Mr. Newfham printed and difperfed fome thoufand copies verbatim et literatim of this letter, and without a fingle remark thereon funk the reputation of his adverfary fo low as ever after to be irretrievable.

with

with fome of the members of both, arifing from an employment he held in the post-office, that of inspector of the franks, which not only gave him the privilege of fending his letters free of postage, but an acquaintance with, and occafions of accefs to many of them.

Of this advantage he was too good a judge of his own intereft not to avail himself. He therefore determined to gratify his readers with as much of this kind of intelligence as he could procure and it was safe to communicate his refolution was to frequent the two houfes whenever an important debate was likely to come on, and from fuch expreffions and particulars in the course thereof as could be collected and retained in memory, to give the arguments on either fide. This refolution he put into practice in July 1736. His method of proceeding is variously reported; but I have been informed by fome who were much about him, that taking with him a friend or two, he found means to procure for them and himself admiflion into the gallery of the houfe of commons, or to fome concealed station in the other, and that then they privately took down notes of the feveral speeches, and the general tendency and fubftance of the arguments. Thus furnished, Cave and his affociates would adjourn to a neighbouring tavern, and compare and adjust their notes, by means whereof and the help of their memories, they became enabled to fix at least the fubftance of what they had fo lately heard and remarked.

The reducing this crude matter into form, was the work of a future day and of an abler hand, viz. Guthrie, the hiftorian, a writer for the bookfellers, whom Cave retained for the purpose: the fpeeches thus compofed were given monthly to the public,

and

and perused and red with great eagerness; those whe contemplated them thought they discovered in them not merely the political principles, but the ftile and manner of the speaker; the fact is, that there was little discrimination of the latter between the fpeeches of the best and the worst orators in either affembly, and in most instances the perfons to whom they were ascribed were here made to fpeak with more eloquence and even propriety of diction than, in the place of debate they were able to do: Sir John Barnard, for inftance, a man of no learning or reading, and who by the way had been bred a quaker, had a stile little better than an ordinary mechanic, and which abounded with fuch phrases as, if fo be-fet cafe-and-nobody more fo―and other fuch vulgarifms, yet was he made in the magazine to debate in language as correct and polished as that of Sir William Wyndham or Mr. Pulteney; though it must be confeffed that fo weighty was his matter on fubjects of commerce, that Sir Robert Walpole, as I have been credibly informed, was ufed to fay, that when he had answered Sir John Barnard, he looked upon that day's business in the house of commons to be as good as over.

The vigorous oppofition to the minifter, and the motion in both houfes of the thirteenth of February, 1740-1 to remove him, were a new era in politics; and, as the debates on that occafion were warmer than had ever then been known, the drawing them up required, in Cave's opinion, the pen of a more nervous writer than he who had hitherto conducted them. Johnfon, who in his former publications in prose, had given no very favorable specimens of stile, had by this time, by the ftudy of the best of our old English

writers,