Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/397

 Johnson's Life and Genius.

��' Sir/ said Johnson, ' I wrote it in Exeter-street. I never had been in the gallery of the House of Commons but once. Cave had interest with the door-keepers T. He, and the persons employed under him, gained admittance: they brought away the subject of discussion, the names of the speakers, the side they took, and the order in which they rose, together with notes of the arguments advanced in the course of the debate. The whole was afterwards communicated to rne, and I composed the speeches in the form which they now have in the Parliamentary debates V To this discovery Dr. Francis made answer : * Then, Sir, you have exceeded Demosthenes himself; for to say, that you have exceeded Francis's Demosthenes, would be saying nothing.' The rest of the company bestowed lavish encomiums on Johnson : one, in particular, praised his impartiality ; observ ing, that he dealt out reason and eloquence with an equal hand to both parties. ' That is not quite true,' said Johnson ; ' I saved appearances tolerably well ; but I took care that the WHIG DOGS should not have the best of it V The sale of the Magazine was

��1 Some of the speeches had been previously given in the Political Stale of Great Britain. ' These for the most part were taken by stealth, and were compiled from the information of listeners and the under-officers and door-keepers of either house ; but Cave had an interest with some of the members of both, arising from an employment he held in the post- office, that of inspector of the franks. ... I have been informed by some who were much about him that, taking with him a friend or two, he found means to procure admission into the gallery of the House of Commons, or to some concealed station in the other, and that then they privately took down notes of the several speeches. Thus furnished they would adjourn to a neighbouring tavern, and compare and adjust their notes.' Hawkins, p. 94.

2 In Appendix A to vol. i. of the Lt/e, I have examined the whole

��question of Johnson's Debates. On the above passage I say : ' Murphy wrote from memory. This dinner with Foote must have taken place at least nineteen years before this account was published, for so many years had Dr. Francis been dead. At the time when Johnson was living in Exeter-street he was not engaged on the magazine. Nevertheless, the main facts may be true enough. Johnson himself told Boswell (Life, iii. 351) that in Lord Chesterfield's Miscellaneous Works (ii. 319) there were two speeches ascribed to Chester field which he had himself entirely written. Horace Walpole (Letters, i. 147) complained that the published report of his own first speech " did not contain one sentence of the true one." '

3 Sir Robert Walpole, speaking in

(before Johnson had begun to write

the Debates), said : ' I have read

greatly

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