it, and that he received for Free-Britons and other writings, in the space of four years, no less than ten thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven pounds, six shillings and eight pence, out of the Treasury." Arnall was a most virulent and intemperate controversialist, and frequently exceeded in scurrility and abuse even the wishes of his patrons.

STREET.

35. MEMOIRS OF THE SOCIETY OF GRUBThis is a paper of considerable wit and humour, in ridicule of the host of bad writers which at that time infested the republic of letters. Most of these gentlemen had previously figured in the Dunciad, but are here more minutely held up to public contempt. The productions of Eusden, Cibber, Concanen, Curll, Dennis, Henley, Ralph, Arnall, Theobald, Welsted, &c. &c. are exposed with wholesome severity, and in a strain of the most keen and sarcastic irony. The first number of this work appeared on Thursday, January 8th, 1730, and it was continued once a week for nearly three years; the last essay, N° 138, being dated August 24th, 1732. From these papers a selection was made in the year 1737, and published in two volumes 12mo; it contains a vast variety of matter, and much information relative to the obscure literature of the age. The principal writers of these satirical effusions

were, Dr. Richard Russel, a physician, and the author of a Treatise on Sea Water; and Dr. John

*

Martyn, a celebrated botanist, who was born in London in 1699, and whose love of literature and science rendered him a very useful and distinguished character during a great part of the 18th century.

In 1720 he translated Tournefort's History of Plants, and, in imitation of this valuable work, formed a similar catalogue of plants growing in the environs of London. In 1726 he succeeded Dr. Bradley as Professor of Botany in the University of Cambridge, and in 1727 was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society. His profession was that of Physic, which he practised in the city of London, and afterwards at Chelsea. Dr. Martyn was indefatigable as an author, and published a variety of works on Botany, Medicine, &c. In the department of classical literature, he printed a translation of the Georgics and Bucolics of Virgil, with very valuable notes; his knowledge of botany, and rural economy, rendering his illustrations peculiarly pertinent and interesting: he also wrote some curious Dissertations on the Eneids of Virgil, 12mo. which were published after his death, in 1771. He retired to Streatham

* Their signatures in the Memoirs of the Society of Grubstreet are Bavius and Mævius.

in 1752, and in the year 1761 resigned his professorship at Cambridge. He was one of the writers in the General Dictionary; and, after a life of great literary exertion, he expired at Chelsea, 1768, in the seventieth year of his age.

To the Memoirs of the Society of Grub-Street, the literary world is greatly indebted; for, in fact, to this publication we owe the Gentleman's Magazine. The Memoirs " meeting with encouragement," says Sir John Hawkins, Cave projected an improvement thereon in a pamphlet of his own; and in the following year gave to the world the first number of the Gentleman's Magazine, with a notification, that the same would be continued monthly; incurring thereby a charge of plagiarism, which, as he is said to have confessed it, we may suppose he did not look upon as criminal."

36. THE SPECULATIST. Matthew Concanen, a native of Ireland, was the author of this collection. He was bred to the law; but not succeeding in this line, he resolved to try his fortune in London as a party-writer, and enlisted under the banners of administration in the "British" and "London Journals." In these papers, and in the Speculatist, he was, to adopt the language of the

Memoirs of the Society of Grub-street, Preface, p. 12. Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 32.

annotator on Pope, "the author of several dull and dead scurrilities, and, by abusing the Poet and his friend Bolingbroke, obtained an introduction into the Dunciad. He was, however, notwithstanding this promotion, by no means devoid of ability, and had he abstained from party virulence, and personal allusion, would have been viewed by posterity in a more respectable light. His poems, and his play entituled “Wexford Wells," have merit; and it tells highly to his honour, that when appointed, by the interest of the Duke of Newcastle, attorney-general of the island of Jamaica, he filled that post for seventeen years with unblemished integrity, and with the universal esteem of the inhabitants. He retired to London in December, 1748, with an ample fortune most honourably acquired, and with the expectation of enjoying the close of life in ease and affluence; in this, however, he was miserably disappointed; for the change of climate so affected his constitution, that he survived his arrival but a few weeks, dying of a rapid consumption on January 22d, 1749.

The Speculatist procured Concanen no reputation, and not much pecuniary profit. The expences of printing, indeed, were defrayed by subscription; but the subscribers had reason to complain that it was little more than a re-pub

lication of our author's former periodical papers. In N° 35 of the Memoirs of the Society of Grubstreet, dated September 3d, 1730, this conduct of Concanen is severely and justly censured. "It was but lately," says the writer," that I met with a book called The Speculatist, though by enquiry I find it has been above a month privately dispersed (in the manner proper to libels,) and hath crept about, in that blind way, as far as it had strength to go. I found it to be a great fraud and imposition on the subscribers; being no other than a wretched relique, patched up from the wrecks of British and London Journals. No doubt it will soon be (like its author) to be sold to more than will buy it. In some weeks it will be crying out for help in the advertisements, under the usual and laudable form of a few copies of the Speculatist being yet left undisposed of, may be had Concanen endeavoured to refute the charge, and his letter to this purpose is introduced into N° 38 of the Memoirs, where he asserts, that nine-tenths of the subscribers were his particular friends, and previously knew that the Speculatist was intended for little more than a re-publication. This is no apology, however, as he suffered many to subscribe who were ignorant of the circumstance. The Speculatist occupies one volume octavo.

at.

"

* Vol. 1, p. 169.