Linguæ procacis plumbea spicula, Intende nervos fortis inanibus Participes operæ Camœnas. Non ulla mufis pagina gratior Utilibus recreare mentem. Texente nymphis ferta Lycoride Æthereis variata fucis. It was published in the Magazine for March 1738, and imitated in the following stanzas in that for the month of May following: Hail Urban! indefatigable man, Whom num'rous flanderers affault in vain; What mean the fervile imitating crew, The The fenfelefs fneerings of an haughty tongue, Unheeded pass: and tho' they mean thee wrong, Exert thy powers, nor flacken in the course, No page more grateful to th' harmonious nine Where folemn themes in fuller fplendor shine, Thus when the nymphs in fome fair verdant mead, Adds luftre to the crimson-blushing rose. Thus fplendid Iris, with her varied dye, May 22, 1738. The provocation that gave rife to this furious conteft, as it will presently appear to have been, was the increasing demand for Cave's publication, and the check it gave to the fale of its rival, which at one time was so great as to throw back no fewer than seventy thoufand copies on the hands of the proprietors. To revenge this injury, the confederate booksellers gave out, that Sylvanus Urban, whom, for no conceivable reason, they G 2 they dignified with the appellation of Doctor, was become mad, affigning as the cause of his infanity, his publication in the Magazine of fundry mathematical problems, effays and questions on abstruse subjects, sent him by many of his learned correfpondents. Cave who for fome months had been rebutting the calumnies of adverfaries, and that with such 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 anticipate the advice contained in the fecond and third ftanzas of Johnfon's ode, and forbore a reply, though not his revenge, which he gratified in fuch a manner as feems 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 1758, the following paragraph: "Monday 20. About 8 "o'clock the famous Dr. Urban, having fome time "paft been poffeffed with a violent frenzy, broke "loose from his nurse, 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 song set "to mufic by Peter the Wild Youth; but being at "laft fecured, was conveyed to his lodgings in Moor"fields, where he continues uttering horrid impreca"tions against several booksellers 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 me"thods to find the longitude."- This filly paragraph, and fuch like buffoonery, inferted in the news-papers at * A party paper fo intitled. • the the charge of the proprietors of the London Magazine, is all the answer given to the remarks on their inimitable preface, some paffages of which are quoted in the beginning of this magazine.' 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 increafed 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 house 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, G 3 In the course of many years obfervation I am able to recollect one, and only one, inftance of this method of treating a fcurrilous adversary. 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 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 subscribed a letter to Mr. Newfham, 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 dispersed fome thousand 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. taking, were well received. These for the most part were taken by stealth, and were compiled from the information of lifteners and the under-officers and doorkeepers of either houfe; but Cave had an intereft with fome of the members of both, arifing from an employment he held in the poft-office, that of infpector of the franks, which not only gave him the privilege of fending his letters free of postage, but an acquaintance with, and occafions of access 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 fafe to communicate: his refolution was to frequent the two houses 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 some who were much about him, that taking with him a friend or two, he found means to procure for them and himself admiffion into the gallery of the house of commons, or to fome concealed ftation in the other, and that then they privately took down notes of the several speeches, and the general tendency and substance 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 substance 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 that |