bills of mortality, exclufive of London and Southwark, every fixth houfe retailed them. The bill, under the influence of the duke of Newcastle, lord Carteret, Mr. Sandys and others, the then ministry, paffed the commons with little or no oppofition, and money was immediately raised on the tax thereby impofed. In the house of lords it was vehemently oppofed by the bishops and many of the lay lords, with great force of reafoning, and by lord Chesterfield in the above fpeech, which has little of argument in it, though it goes to prove, that the practice ought to have been fuppreffed rather than tolerated. It however paffed, and notwithstanding the fubfequent laws fince made to palliate it, the evil to a great degree fubfifts at this day.

In the perufal of thefe debates, as written, we cannot but wonder at the powers that produced them. The author had never paffed thofe gradations that lead to the knowledge of men and bufinefs: born to a narrow fortune, of no profeffion, converfant chiefly with books, and, if we believe fome, fo deficient in the formalities of difcourfe, and the practices of ceremony, as in converfation to be scarce tolerable; unacquainted with the ftile of any other than academical difputation, and fo great a ftranger to fenatorial manners, that he never was within the walls of either house of parliament. That a man, under thefe difadvantages, fhould be able to frame a fyftem of debate, to compose fpeeches of fuch excellence, both in matter and form, as fcarcely to be equalled by thofe of the moft able and experienced statesmen, is, I fay, matter of astonishment, and a proof of talents that qualified him for a speaker in the most auguft affembly on earth.

Cave, who had no idea of the powers of eloquence over the human mind, became fenfible of its effects in the profits it brought him: he had long thought that the fuccefs of his Magazine proceeded from those parts of it that were conducted by himself, which were the abridgement of weekly papers written against the miniftry, fuch as the Craftsinan, Fog's Journal, Common Senfe, the Weekly Mifcellany, the Weftminfter Journal, and others, and also marshalling the paftorals, the elegies, and the fongs, the epigrams, and the rebufes that were fent him by various correfpondents, and was fcarcely able to fee the caufes that at this time increafed the fale of his pamphlet from ten to fifteen thousand copies a month. But if he faw not, he felt them, and manifefted his good fortune by buying an old coach and a pair of older horfes; and, that he might avoid the fufpicion of pride in fetting up an equipage, he displayed to the world the fource of his affluence, by a representation of St. John's gaté, instead of his arms, on the door-pannel. This he told me himself was the reafon of diftinguishing his carriage from others, by what fome might think a whimsical device, and alfo for caufing it to be engraven on all his plate.

Johnson had his reward, over and above the pecuniary recompence vouchfafed him by Cave, in the general applause of his labours, which the increased demand for the Magazine implied; but this, as his performances fell short of his powers, gratified him but little; on the contrary, he disapproved the deceit he was compelled to practice; his notions of morality were fo strict, that he would fcarcely allow the violation of truth in the most trivial instances, and saw, in falshood

of

of all kinds, a turpitude that he could never be thoroughly reconciled to: and though the fraud was perhaps not greater than the fictitious relations in Sir Thomas More's Utopia, lord Bacon's Nova Atlantis, and bishop Hall's Mundus alter et idem, Johnson was not eafy till he had disclosed the deception.

In the mean time it was curious to obferve how the deceit operated. It has above been remarked, that Johnson had the art to give different colours to the feveral fpeeches, so that some appear to be declamatory and energetic, refembling the orations of Demofthenes; others like thofe of Cicero, calm, perfuafive; others, more particularly those attributed to fuch country-gentlemen, merchants, and feamen as had feats in parliament, bear the characteristic of plainness, bluntness, and an affected honefty as opposed to the plaufibility of fuch as were understood or fufpected to be courtiers: the artifice had its effect; Voltaire was betrayed by it into a declaration, that the eloquence of ancient Greece and Rome was revived in the British fenate, and a speech of the late earl of Chatham when Mr. Pitt, in oppofition to one of Mr. Horatio Walpole, received the highest applaufe, and was by all that red it taken for genuine; and we are further

*

told

• The speech here alluded to, taking it to have been spoken as it is printed, was uttered in a debate on a bill for the encouragement and encrease of seamen, containing a claufe for a register of seamen, and was intended to take away the neceffity of impreffing for the fea-fervice, which bill, as being a ministerial measure, was vehemently oppofed. It is a reply,void of argument and loaded with abuse, to a fober reproof of a grave and experienced fenator. To judge of its merits, and as a fpecimen of the fpeaker's method of debating at that early period of his life, it is neceffary to compare it with that

to

told of a person in a high office under the government, who being at breakfast at a gentleman's chambers in Gray's inn,

to which it pretends to be an anfwer, and for that purpose both are here inserted, and first that of Mr. Walpole.

‹ SIR,

I was unwilling to interrupt the course of this debate while it was carried on with calmness and decency by men who do not fuffer the ardour of oppofition to cloud their reason, or tranfport • them to fuch expreffions as the dignity of this affembly does not ⚫ admit. I have hitherto 'deferred to answer the gentleman who ⚫ declaimed against the bill with such fluency of rhetoric, and fuch ⚫ vehemence of gefture, who charged the advocates for the ex⚫pedients now propofed, with having no regard to any intereft but their own, and with making laws only to confume paper, and threatened them with the defection of their adherents, and the ⚫lofs of their influence, upon this new difcovery of their folly and their ignorance.

1

• Nor, Sir, do I now answer him for any other purpose than to < remind him how little the clamours of rage, and petulancy of ⚫ invectives contribute to the purposes for which this affembly is < called together; how little the difcovery of truth is promoted, ⚫ and the fecurity of the nation established by pompous diction and theatrical emotions.

• Formidable founds and furious declamations, confident affer<tions, and lofty periods, may affect the young and unexperienced, and perhaps the gentleman may have contracted his habits of • oratory by converfing more with thofe of his own age than with fuch as have had more opportunities of acquiring knowledge, and more fuccefsful methods of communicating their ⚫ fentiments.

If the heat of his temper, Sir, would fuffer him to attend to those whofe age and long acquaintance with bufinefs give them an indifputable right to deference and fuperiority, he would learn, in time, to reafon rather than declaim, and to prefer juftnefs of argument, and an accurate knowledge of facts,

Gray's inn, Johnfon being alfo there, declared, that by the ftyle alone of the speeches in the debates, he could

facts, to founding epithets and fplendid fuperlatives, which ‹ may disturb the imagination for a moment, but leave no lasting impreffion on the mind.

He will learn, Sir, that to accufe and prove are very different, and that reproaches, unfupported by evidence, affect only the character of him that utters them. Excurfions of fancy and flights of oratory are indeed pardonable in young men, but in no other, and it would furely contribute more, even to the purpose for which some gentlemen appear to speak, that of depreciating the conduct of the administration, to prove the inconveniences and injuftice of this bill, than barely to affert them, with whatever magnificence of language or appearance of zeal, honefty or compaffion.'

To this fober and temperate fpeech uttered by a grave senator, who had ferved his country in various capacities, and whofe moral character was irreproachable, the following was the answer of Mr. William Pitt:

SIR,

The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the ⚫ honourable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I fhall neither attempt to palliate nor deny, but content myself with wifhing, that I may be one of those whofe follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience.

Whether youth can be imputed to any man as a reproach, I will not, Sir, affume the province of determining; but furely age may become justly contemptible, if the opportunities which it brings have paffed away without improvement, and vice appears to prevail when the paffions have fubfided. The wretch that, after having feen the confequences of a thousand errors, continues ftill to blunder, and whofe age has only added obftinacy to ftupidity, is furely the object of either abhorrence or contempt, and deferves not that his grey head fhould fecure him from infults.

• Much