his friend David Garrick was manager of that theatre. The Gentleman's Magazine, begun and carried on by Mr. Edward Cave, under the name of Sylvanus Urban, had attracted the notice and esteem of Johnson, in an eminent degree, before he came to London as an adventurer in literature. He told me, that when he first saw St. John's Gate, the place where that deservedly popular miscellany was originally printed, he "beheld it with reverence." (1) I suppose, indeed, that every young author has had the same kind of feeling for the magazine or periodical publication which has first entertained him, and in which he has first had an opportunity to see himself in print, without the risk of exposing his name. I myself recollect such impressions from the Scots Magazine, which was begun at Edinburgh in the year 1739, and has been ever conducted with judgment, accuracy, and propriety. (2) I yet cannot help thinking of it with (1) If, as Mr. Boswell supposes, Johnson looked at St. John's Gate as the printing-office of Cave, surely a less emphatical term than reverence would have been more just. The Gentleman's Magazine had been, at this time, but six years before the public, and its contents were, until Johnson himself contributed to improve it, entitled to any thing rather than reverence; but it is much more probable that Johnson's reverence was excited by the recollections connected with the ancient gate itself, the last relic of the once extensive and magnificent priory of the heroic knights of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, suppressed at the dissolution, and destroyed by successive dilapidations. Its last prior, Sir William Weston, though compensated with the annual pension (enormous in those days) of 1000l., died of a broken heart, on Ascension-day, 1540, the very day the house was suppressed. - CROKER. (2) [The Scots Magazine, particularly valuable under the years 1745-6, &c. for its details of the expedition of Prince an affectionate regard. Johnson has dignified the Gentleman's Magazine by the importance with which he invests the life of Cave; but he has given it still greater lustre by the various admirable essays which he wrote for it. Though Johnson was often solicited by his friends to make a complete list of his writings, and talked of doing it, I believe with a serious intention that they should all be collected on his own account, he put it off from year to year, and at last died without having done it perfectly. I have one in his own handwriting, which contains a certain number; I indeed doubt if he could have remembered every one of them, as they were so numerous, so various, and scattered in such a multiplicity of unconnected publications; nay, several of them published under the names of other persons, to whom he liberally contributed from the abundance of his mind. We must, therefore, be content to discover them, partly from occasional information given by him to his friends, and partly from internal evidence. (1) His first performance in the Gentleman's Magazine, which for many years was his principal source Charles Edward Steuart, and in subsequent times enlivened with the original essays of many eminent persons, has been for some years past discontinued. 1835.] (1) While, in the course of my narrative, I enumerate his writings, I shall take care that my readers shall not be left to waver in doubt, between certainty and conjecture, with regard to their authenticity; and, for that purpose, shall mark with an asterisk (*) those which he acknowledged to his friends, and with a dagger (†) those which are ascertained to be his by internal evidence. When any other pieces are ascribed to him, I shall give my reasons. of employment and support, was a copy of Latin verses, in March, 1738, addressed to the editor in so happy a style of compliment, that Cave must have been destitute both of taste and sensibility, had he not felt himself highly gratified. Ad URBANUM. * Urbane, nullis fesse laboribus, Quid moliatur gens imitantium, Juxta animo studiisque felix. Linguæ procacis plumbea spicula, Intende nervos, fortis, inanibus Non ulla Musis pagina gratior, Texente nymphis serta Lycoride, Æthereis variata fucis. (1) S. J. (1) A translation of this Ode, by an unknown correspondent, appeared in the Magazine for the month of May following: It appears that he was now enlisted by Mr. Cave as a regular coadjutor in his magazine, by which he probably obtained a tolerable livelihood. At what time, or by what means, he had acquired a competent knowledge both of French and Italian, I do not know; but he was so well skilled in them, as to be sufficiently qualified for a translator. That part of his labour which consisted in emendation and improvement of the productions of other contributors, like that employed in levelling ground, can be perceived only by those who had an opportunity of com "Hail, Urban! indefatigable man, Whom num'rous slanderers assault in vain; But still the laurel on thy learned brow Flourishes fair, and shall for ever grow," &c. &c. [The following less vapid translation, attributed by Mr. Nichols to Mr. Jackson of Canterbury, appeared in the year of Johnson's death, 1784: "Urban, whom neither toil profound Of rivals let no cares infest, Of what they threaten or prepare; Thy hours still let the muses share. The leaden shafts which folly throws, Superior o'er opposing foes, Thy vigorous diligence shall rise. Exert thy strength, each vain design, Arise, for see thy task to join, Approach the muses' fav'ring train. How grateful to each muse the page, Where grave with sprightly themes are join'd; And recreate the wearied mind. Thus the pale violet to the rose Adds beauty 'midst the garland's dies; And thus the changeful rainbow throws Its varied splendours o'er the skies."] What we paring the original with the altered copy. certainly know to have been done by him in this way was the debates in both houses of Parliament, under the name of "The Senate of Lilliput," sometimes with feigned denominations of the several speakers, sometimes with denominations formed of the letters of their real names, in the manner of what is called anagram, so that they might easily be deciphered. Parliament then kept the press in a kind of mysterious awe, which made it necessary to have recourse to such devices. In our time it has acquired an unrestrained freedom, so that the people in all parts of the kingdom have a fair, open, and exact report of the actual proceedings of their representatives and legislators, which in our constitution is highly to be valued; though, unquestionably, there has of late been too much reason to complain of the petulance with which obscure scribblers have presumed to treat men of the most respectable character and situation. This important article of the Gentleman's Magazine was, for several years, executed by Mr. William Guthrie, a man who deserves to be respectably recorded in the literary annals of this country. He was descended of an ancient family in Scotland; but having a small patrimony, and being an adherent of the unfortunate house of Stuart, he could not accept of any office in the state; he therefore came to London, and employed his talents and learning as an "author by profession." His writings in history, criticism, and politics, had considerable merit. (1) (1) How much poetry he wrote, I know not; but he informed me that he was the author of the beautiful little piece, |