writers, such as Sir Thomas More, Ascham, Hooker, Spenser, archbishop Sandys, Jewel, Chillingworth, Hales, of Eton, and others, formed a new one, consisting in original phrases and new combinations of the integral parts of fentences, which, with the infusion 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 person to conduct this part of his monthly publication, and, dismissing Guthrie, committed the care of it to Johnfon.

Before this change of hands, Cave had been checked by some 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 possibly upon the indulgence that had been shewn 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 resolution of the house at length gave him to understand, that it would be prudence in him to defift from it. The thought of putting his readers on short allowance was very unpleasing 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 chose 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 designation. Every one, he knew, was acquainted with Gulliver's Travels; he therefore, in his magazine for

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for June 1738, begins the month by feigning, that the debates in the senate of Magna Lilliputia were then extant; and referring to the resolution 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 insertion 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 design, 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 proposal 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 masters of ships, in the cities, countries, and provinces therein defcribed by barbarous names opposed to those which they are meant to fignify: he also, at the end of the magazines for 1739, 1740, 1741, 1742, and 1743, gave a list of chriftian and furnames pretendedly synonimous, forming thereby a key to that otherwife 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 less authentic than those of Cave, compelled by the same neceffity that forced him to this artifice, took another course : they feigned to give the debates in the Roman senate, and by adapting Roman names to the feveral fpeeches, rendered them more plausible than they appear under Cave's management.

The artifice however fucceeded in both instances: the resolution of the commons was never enforced, and the debates were published with impunity. I will not disgrace my page by the infertion of any of those barbarous appellations which Cave had invented, and which, I dare say, were music to his ear; but content myself with saying, that Guthrie acquiefced in Cave's fiction and the nonsense which it involved, and as it was found to answer its end, Johnson fcrupled not to adopt it.

The debates penned by Johnfon were not only more methodical and better connected than those of Guthrie, but in all the ornaments of stile superior: they were written at those seasons when he was able to raise his imagination to fuch a pitch of fervour as bordered upon enthufiafm, 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 composed it, he tumbled out at the door.

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

the debates of each assembly from the other, and the various colouring which he has found the art of giving to particular speeches. The characteristic of the one assembly 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 stile 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, specious reasoning, an affectation of wit, and a disposition to trifle with subjects the most interesting. With great judgment also 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 illustration of the former part of this position, I shall here give two speeches, the one of the lordchancellor Hardwicke on the motion of lord Carteret for an address to his Majesty, beseeching 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 spirituous 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,

My Lords,

• Though I very readily admit that crimes ought to be punished, that a treacherous administration • of public affairs is in a very high degree criminal, that even ignorance, where it is the consequence of neglect, deserves the severest animadversion, and ' that it is the privilege and duty of this house to ' watch over the state of the nation, and inform his • Majesty of any errors committed by his ministers;

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yet I am far from being convinced either of the ' justice or neceffity of the motion now under confideration.

'The most flagrant and invidious part of the charge against the right honourable gentleman appears to ' consist 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 specious 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 conclusive evidence, ' where the immediate necessities 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 prosecution, or where the conduct of the accuser did not plainly • discover

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