[324] Its sale, according to Johnson, was ten thousand copies. Post, April 25, 1778. So popular was it that before it had completed its ninth year the fifth edition of some of the earliest numbers was printed. Johnson’s Works, v. 349. In the Life of Cave Johnson describes it as ‘a periodical pamphlet, of which the scheme is known wherever the English language is spoken.’ Ib. vi. 431.
[325] Yet the early numbers contained verses as grossly indecent as they were dull. Cave moreover advertised indecent books for sale at St. John’s Gate, and in one instance, at least, the advertisement was in very gross language.
[326] See post, April 25, 1778.
[327] 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 (dagger) those which are ascertained to be his by internal evidence. When any other pieces are ascribed to him, I shall give my reasons. BOSWELL.
[328] Hawkins says that ‘Cave had few of those qualities that constitute the character of urbanity. Upon the first approach of a stranger his practice was to continue sitting, and for a few minutes to continue silent. If at any time he was inclined to begin the discourse, it was generally by putting a leaf of the Magazine then in the press into the hand of his visitor and asking his opinion of it. He was so incompetent a judge of Johnson’s abilities that, meaning at one time to dazzle him with the splendour of some of those luminaries in literature who favoured him with their correspondence, he told him that, if he would in the evening be at a certain alehouse in the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell, he might have a chance of seeing Mr. Browne and another or two of the persons mentioned in the preceding note. [The note contained the names of some of Cave’s regular writers.] Johnson accepted the invitation; and being introduced by Cave, dressed in a loose horseman’s coat, and such a great bushy uncombed wig as he constantly wore, to the sight of Mr. Browne, whom he found sitting at the upper end of a long table, in a cloud of tobacco-smoke, had his curiosity gratified.’ [Mr. Carlyle writes of ‘bushy-wigged Cave;’ but it was Johnson whose wig is described, and not Cave’s. On p. 327 Hawkins again mentions his ‘great bushy wig,’ and says that ‘it was ever nearly as impenetrable by a comb as a quickset hedge.’] Hawkins’s Johnson, pp. 45-50. Johnson, after mentioning Cave’s slowness, says: ‘The same chillness of mind was observable in his conversation; he was watching the minutest accent of those whom he disgusted by seeming inattention; and his visitant was surprised, when he came a second time, by preparations to execute the scheme which he supposed never to have been heard.’ Johnson’s Works, vi. 434.
[329] ‘The first lines put one in mind of Casimir’s Ode to Pope Urban:—
“Urbane, regum maxime, maxime
Urbane vatum.”
The Polish poet was probably at that time in the hands of a man who had meditated the history of the Latin poets.’ Murphy’s Johnson, p. 42.
[330] Cave had been grossly attacked by rival booksellers; see Gent. Mag., viii. 156. Hawkins says (Life, p. 92), ‘With that sagacity which we frequently observe, but wonder at, in men of slow parts, he seemed to anticipate the advice contained in Johnson’s ode, and forbore a reply, though not his revenge.’ This he gratified by reprinting in his own Magazine one of the most scurrilous and foolish attacks.
[331] A translation of this Ode, by an unknown correspondent, appeared in the Magazine for the month of May following:
‘Hail, URBAN! indefatigable man,
Unwearied yet by all thy useful toil!
Whom num’rous slanderers assault in vain;
Whom no base calumny can put to foil.
But still the laurel on thy learned brow
Flourishes fair, and shall for ever grow.
‘What mean the servile imitating crew,
What their vain blust’ring, and their empty noise,
Ne’er seek: but still thy noble ends pursue,
Unconquer’d by the rabble’s venal voice.
Still to the Muse thy studious mind apply,
Happy in temper as in industry.
‘The senseless sneerings of an haughty tongue,
Unworthy thy attention to engage,
Unheeded pass: and tho’ they mean thee wrong,
By manly silence disappoint their rage.
Assiduous diligence confounds its foes,
Resistless, tho’ malicious crouds oppose.
‘Exert thy powers, nor slacken in the course,
Thy spotless fame shall quash all false reports:
Exert thy powers, nor fear a rival’s force,
But thou shalt smile at all his vain efforts;
Thy labours shall be crown’d with large success;
The Muse’s aid thy Magazine shall bless.
‘No page more grateful to th’ harmonious nine
Than that wherein thy labours we survey;
Where solemn themes in fuller splendour shine,
(Delightful mixture,) blended with the gay,
Where in improving, various joys we find,
A welcome respite to the wearied mind.
‘Thus when the nymphs in some fair verdant mead,
Of various flowr’s a beauteous wreath compose,
The lovely violet’s azure-painted head
Adds lustre to the crimson-blushing rose.
Thus splendid Iris, with her varied dye,
Shines in the aether, and adorns the sky. BRITON.’
BOSWELL.
[332] ‘I have some reason to think that at his first coming to town he frequented Slaughter’s coffee-house with a view to acquire a habit of speaking French, but he never could attain to it. Lockman used the same method and succeeded, as Johnson himself once told me.’ Hawkins’s Johnson, p. 516. Lockman is l’ilustre Lockman mentioned post, 1780, in Mr. Langton’s Collection. It was at ‘Old Slaughter’s Coffee-house, when a number of foreigners were talking loud about little matters, that Johnson one evening said, “Does not this confirm old Meynell’s observation, For anything I see, foreigners are fools“?’ post, ib.
[333] He had read Petrarch ‘when but a boy;’ ante, p. 57.
[334] Horace Walpole, writing of the year 1770, about libels, says: ‘Their excess was shocking, and in nothing more condemnable than in the dangers they brought on the liberty of the press.’ This evil was chiefly due to ‘the spirit of the Court, which aimed at despotism, and the daring attempts of Lord Mansfield to stifle the liberty of the press. His innovations had given such an alarm that scarce a jury would find the rankest satire libellous.’ Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iv. 167. Smollett in Humphrey Clinker (published in 1771) makes Mr. Bramble write, in his letter of June 2: ‘The public papers are become the infamous vehicles of the most cruel and perfidious defamation; every rancorous knave—every desperate incendiary, that can afford to spend half-a-crown or three shillings, may skulk behind the press of a newsmonger, and have a stab at the first character in the kingdom, without running the least hazard of detection or punishment.’ The scribblers who had of late shewn their petulance were not always obscure. Such scurrilous but humorous pieces as Probationary Odes for the Laureateship, The Rolliad, and Royal Recollections, which were all published