Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/84

60 60 THE BOOKSELLERS OF OLDEN TIMES. dressed up, presented to the readers of the magazine. In 1738, the House complained of the breach of privi- lege committed by Cave, and, among other debaters, Sir William Younge earnestly implored the House to put a summary check to these reports, prophesying that otherwise " you will have the speeches of the House every day printed, even during your session, and we shall be looked upon as the most contemptible assembly on the face of the earth." After this check some expedient was necessary, and the proceedings in Parliament were given as Debates in tJie Senate of Great L illiput, and were entrusted to Johnson's pen. On one occasion a large company were praising a speech of Pitt's ; Johnson sat silent for a while, then said, " That speech I wrote in a yard in Exeter Street." It had been reprinted verbatim from the magazine, and had been drawn up entirely from rough notes and hints supplied by the messengers. When congratulated on his uniform political impartiality, Johnson replied: "That is not quite true, sir; I saved appearances well enough, but I took care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it." Cave's attention to the magazine was unremitting to the day of his death; "he scarce ever looked out of the window," says Johnson, " but for its improvement." In 1749, the first popular review was started, by Ralph Griffiths ; but before the time of the Monthly Review there had been various journals professing to deal only with literature. In 1683, had been pub- lished a Weekly Memento for tJie Ingenius, or an Account of Books, and, in 1714, the first really critical journal, under the quaint title, The Waies of Liter a- ture, and these had been succeeded by others. Still, the Monthly Review was a very great improvement,