THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE AND HISTORICAL REVIEW. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SYLVANUS URBAN. CHAPTER VI. MY EARLY RIVALS. Why, tho' ten thousand authors fall, And why does Time in mid career Still spare his work from year to year? To live shall be thy happy lot, Lines prefixed to the Magazine for 1752. In my opening chapter I took a brief review of the periodical writers who were occupying public attention at the time when my name made its appearance on the title-page of the first of the MAGAZINES. The days of the Spectator and Tatler were past, but those papers still furnished the standard model for essays and criticisms on human life and manners, and repeated imitations of them arose from time to time. One of these was the Universal Spectator, which was going on in 1733, and discussing social ethics after that approved fashion. Other essayists alternated such subjects with the political questions of the day, which were more immediately within their province, in combination with the details of an ordinary newspaper. The government of Sir Robert Walpole was supported in the Daily Courant, the London Journal, and the True Briton; whilst the Craftsman and Fog's Journal vigorously urged the arguments of the Opposition. These political "leaders," to use the term of more modern days, appeared only once a week, excepting the first-named. The other daily papers, and the evening Posts, which were published only on the post-nights, three times a-week, were generally confined to the mere record and reporting of news, without note or comment. There were a very few monthly periodicals, but none of the literary and miscellaneous character which was eventually fulfilled by the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, and prefigured in the Gentleman's Journal of Peter Motteux c. Those existing in 1731 were either of the nature of historical registers or a Beside the Daily Courant, there was the Daily Post, the Daily Journal, the Daily Post-Boy, and the Daily Advertiser. b These were four-the old Evening Post (Berrington's), the St. James's, the Whitehall, and the London Evening Post. The General Evening Post was commenced a year or two later. See chap. i., July, p. 6. of literary reviews. Of the former description was The Political State of Great Britain, commenced by Abel Boyer in 1710-11, and continued till 1740. At this period it had a competitor called The New Political State, commenced in 1730. There was also The Compleat History of Europe, which I have already noticed in chapter iv. (Nov., p. 533). Of the literary classd were the Historia Literaria, by Archibald Bower, commenced in 1730, and closed in 1734; and "The Monthly Catalogue; being a general Register of Books, Sermons, Plays, and Pamphlets, printed and published in London or the Universities," commenced in January, 1724-5, and merged in 1732 in The London Magazine. There were also sixpenny monthlies, entitled The Present State of the Republick of Letters, (conducted by Andrew Reid from 1728 to 1736), and Miscellaneous Observations on Authors Ancient and Modern. A Literary Journal was published quarterly. A still more memorable_contemporary was The Grub-street Journal. This was a weekly paper. Its principal authors were John Martyn, M.D., F.R.S., Professor of Botany at Cambridge, and editor of a handsome edition of Virgil's Georgics, and Richard Russel, M.A., under the designations of Bavius and Maviuse. One of its features consisted of a digest of the current news, extracted from the ordinary papers, carefully shewing any variations or discrepancies that occurred in their statements, and accompanied by witty and satirical comments. This feature was supposed to have suggested to Cave the plan of the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, and he is said to have acknowledged the fact; but Cave is known to have cherished his scheme for more than one year before he put it into practice, and The Grub-street Journal began only one year before the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. If Cave sometimes pointed to that paper as his exemplar, it would be only as an argument of self-defence, when charged with wholesale piracy, and in order to justify the freedom with which we gathered our monthly bouquet-E PLURIBUS UNUM. It is admitted by the authors of The Grub-street Journals that their paper, as well as others, experienced a material diminution of readers and purchasers in proportion as those of the Magazine increased; but that for a time their proprietors cherished hopes that its success would not continue, "concluding that not only the Book-sellers who had shares in the Weekly Papers would use their utmost endeavours to hinder it, but that the Commissioners of the Stamp-office would effectually put a stop to it, by procuring the Pamphlet to be stamped." The same writer adds, that " by the rise in the number of the Magazines, and the fall in that of the Journals, &c., it is certain that, at a moderate computation, the revenue from the duties d The New Memoirs of Literature, by Michael de la Roche, which lasted from Jan. 1724-5, to Dec. 1727, had terminated before the establishment of the Magazine. The review entitled The Works of the Learned was of subsequent date, from 1735 to 1743, and for two years bore the title of The Literary Magazine, as I have mentioned hereafter. • Those signatures were used by both gentlemen, as they alternately undertook the office of "secretary" or editor. In the Memoirs of the Society of Grub-street, 2 vols. 8vo., 1738, in which the best papers were reprinted, the contributions of Martyn have the additional mark B., and those of Russel M. Those signed A. were contributed by Alexander Pope. "The Projector of this Magazine (who, having blown up so many Papers with the powder stoln from them, deserves the name of Chief Engineer of Grub-street,) has declared, that he took the first hint from our method of abridging the News."-Preface to Memoirs of the Society of Grub-street, p. xii. • Memoirs of the Society of Grub-street, 1737, Preface, p. xii. on Stamps must have sunk at least £100 a-month;" and the Commissioners are blamed for their want of vigour on this occasion. The booksellers, as in more recent questions, were divided in their councils; some of them allowing personal and individual interests to break up their combined tactics of self-defence; and we are told that, "instead of uniting their strenuous endeavours in a fair and generous opposition to this piratical Pamphlet, many, for the sake of an inconsiderable gain, sold it themselves." As the Magazine grew in demand, this was naturally more and more the case. At first, Cave had experienced no little difficulty in procuring retailers of the Magazine; and in some of his early numbers may be seen a motley list, including three ladies at the Royal Exchange, and two men that kept stalls in Westminster-hall, as follows: LONDON: Printed, and sold at St. John's Gate; by F. Jefferies in Ludgate-street, Mrs. Nutt, Mrs. Charlton, Mrs. Cook at the Royal Exchange, Mr. Batley in PaterNoster Row, Mrs. Midwinter in St. Paul's Church-Yard, A. Chapman in Pall-Mall, Mrs. Dodd, Mr. Bickerton without Temple-Bar, Mr. Crickley at Charing-Cross, Mr. Stagg and Mr. King in Westminster-Hall, Mr. Williamson in Holbourn, Mr. Montague in Great Queen Street, S. Harding in St. Martin's Lane, and all unprejudic'd Booksellers in Town and Country. (July, 1732.) Cave's principal country agents were R. Raikes at Gloucester, W. Thompson at Stamford, and J. Abree at Canterbury, old and substantial friends, with whom he had corresponded as a Post-office clerk. When the experience of a whole year had confirmed the success of the Magazine, and it was now proceeding triumphantly through its second Spring, some of the booksellers, finding that their private arts in discouraging its sale were futile, formed the resolution to oppose it by a similar publication of their own. They could scarcely have been blamed for doing this, had they proceeded in an open and straightforward course, particularly as some of them owned shares in the decimated newspapers; but, to their discredit, they endeavoured rather to supplant than to outvie the compilation of Sylvanus Urban. They closely followed his model, and even parodied his title, with the evident purpose of passing their publication off to careless customers in the place of Mr. Cave's. As his book was intituled The GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, or Monthly Intelligencerk, containing more in quantity, and greater variety, than any Book of the kind and price; so the intended substitute was called The LONDON MAGAZINE, or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer, containing greater variety, and more in quantity, than any monthly Book of the same price. Sylvanus Urban's motto, E PLURIBUS UNUM, they counterbalanced by MULTUM IN PARVO. They even thought it desirable that their book should appear to be printed in St. John's Street, as ours was at St. John's Gate; though Mr. Charles Ackers, whom they employed, did not work in that street, but in Swan Alley. Their own names, as set forth on the title-page of their first volume, (and they continued the same many years after,) were-J. Wilford, behind the ChapterHouse in St. Paul's Church-Yard; T. Cox, at the Lamb, under the Royal Exchange; J. Clarke, at the Golden Ball, in Duck-lane; and T. Astley, at the Rose, over against the North Door of St. Paul's. The stamp being then only one halfpenny, this estimate presumes a diminution of nearly fifty thousand papers a-month. April, 1732, p. 684. Cave's first number was called "or, Trader's Monthly Intelligencer." He soon dropped the word Trader's, and in Feb. 1732, he omitted the List of Fairs and Observations on Gardening that had been part of his original design, in order to make room for a larger account of the essays and controversies in the papers. The first number of the London Magazine is for April, 1732, being published at the beginning of May in that year, when the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE had arrived at its sixteenth number. Such a time was more favourable for the substitution of the imitation upon an unwary subscriber than the beginning of the year would have been: but whilst Cave's opponents adopted this insidious policy, he wisely judged that his best defence would rest in inviting the public to a fair comparison of the two compilations. He consequently acknowledged the existence of the intruder in the following manner, at the end of the register of new books given in the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE for May, 1732:— 34. The Gentleman's Magazine, or Monthly Intelligencer, Numb. XVI., for April, 1732. Printed at St. John's Gate. 35. The London Magazine, or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer, For April, 1732. Printed in St. John's Street. 7 the London Note.-A fair Comparison has been made between these two Books, an is found to have several false, imperfect, and trifling Articles, and also to be defective, where it pretends to be genuine, as appears in a Paper call'd the Gentleman's Magazine defended. This "Register of Books" was a supplemental half-sheet added to my Magazine at this period, in order to compete with the London Magazine in that respect; for at the same time that the booksellers set on foot the London Magazine, they ceased from proceeding with their Monthly Chronicle of new books already mentioned. During 1732 our Register of Books was paged distinctly from the body of the Magazine; but it was gradually compressed into a smaller compass, and included in the Magazine itself, as indeed a more summary list had been from the first. The London Magazine was conducted for some years by Mr. Isaac Kimber, a dissenting minister m. Though it did not ruin the GENTLEMAN'S, it proved in itself a successful speculation; and, as Dr. Johnson remarked, it obtained a considerable circulation, though not equal to our own. In Jan. 1736, its conductors had the good taste to drop their second title, of "GENTLEMAN'S Monthly Intelligencer," and to take instead that of Monthly Chronologer. The vigour and accuracy with which the Parliamentary Debates were reported in its pages, by Gordon, I have already acknowledged. In the course of time it was embellished with very good engravings; and it was continued upon a respectable footing for more than fifty years, being finally relinquished in 1783. The same title has been revived more than once in later times, but with less success. When the two monthly magazines were still in mortal combat, each hoping to remain the sole lord of the field,—both being "beautifully In the following announcement Cave paid the booksellers in their own coin:— "16. The Monthly Chronicle for March, 1732. Printed for J. Wilford, J. Clarke, and T. Astley. This being now discontinued, the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE will serve in its room, this Register of Books being disposed in the same manner as in that."-Register of Books, p. 2. m Isaac Kimber, born in 1692, was a preacher at Pinners' Hall and other places in London. He was editor of the Morning Chronicle from Jan. 1728 to May, 1732, and therefore may have quitted that post on purpose to undertake the London Magazine. His biography states of him, that during the latter part of his life he "was chiefly supported by his firm friend Mr. Charles Ackers, an eminent printer in London ;" which Mr. Ackers was the printer of the London Magazine. Mr. Kimber died in 1758, and his Life is prefixed to a volume of his Sermons; but there appears to have been some reason for not mentioning therein the London Magazine by name. Isaac Kimber was father of Edward, whose name is better known from his Peerages and Baronetage, and who was the author of a History of England in ten volumes, octavo. printed on a fine Dutch paper," the London Magazine " stitch'd in White covers,' ," and the GENTLEMAN's panoplied in Blue,-two attempts were made to carry out the same plan in a weekly publication. The first was The Weekly Magazine, of which the historian of the Society of Grubstreet says, alluding to the word magazine in its military sense, that it was begun to be erected in November, 1732, but was soon blown up, like white powder, without making any noise." The other appeared about three months after, under a different name, though a work of the same nature. It was called The Bee, "with the greatest impropriety imaginable," remarked the same writer, as "the compilers of a magazine live, like drones, upon the pillaged labours of the ingenious and industrious." However that might be, the introduction to the work, which is well written, sketches the design of a magazine, very much after my own model, exceedingly complete and well-conceived in all its parts, but of which the execution came miserably short. The author, Eustace Budgell, was a man of genius rather than perseverance, and was unable to engage adequate assistance to carry out all the features of his plan. Though once the associate of Addison in the production of the Spectator", he was latterly more notorious for his connection with Tindal and the infidels of that day; and he closed his unhappy career in 1736, by drowning himself in the Thames. The Bee had ceased its humming in the summer of 1735; after which its sign of the Beehive, which had hung" over-against Saint Clement's Church in the Strand," was long in vain exposed to sale at a broker's in Holborn°. The Bee was printed in the form of an octavo pamphlet, consisting of three sheets or more; and its price, like the magazines, was sixpence. In regard to the quantity of its contents, it was, however, much dearer than they, and its weekly recurrence of course increased its charge fourfold. After it had proceeded to the extent of ten numbers, its progress was for a time arrested by a notice from the Commissioners of Stamps, that each sheet of which it consisted was liable to the duty of one penny. The publishers were alarmed, and refused to proceed; but Budgell, making other arrangements, determined to persevere, and in all his subsequent advertisements he endeavoured to take advantage of this occurrence, as if it had been a personal attack upon himself from a political enemy, and a gross invasion of the liberty of the press. But the unfortunate man obtained very partial credit. And the Commissioners did not insist upon the stamp, the Bee paying only the pamphlet-duty of two shillings per sheet of letterpress, as the magazines did at that time, and not the halfpenny for every impression, which was exacted from the newspapers. At a later period, and until the comparatively recent abolition of the stamp-duty upon newspapers, (except as an equivalent for postage,) it was deemed to be the law, that no periodical containing news could be published at a shorter interval than a month without becoming subject to the newspaper-stamp. The fate of these two weekly magazines did not for some time encourage any further speculation in that form; but the success of the two monthly ones tempted many persons to increase their number. The first of these was the Ladies' Magazine, which was at once made as large as the two others together, and priced at a shilling instead of sixpence P :— Budgell's papers in the Spectator are those signed X. • Memoirs of the Society of Grub-street, p. xx. ▸ I am not now able to find any copy of this first Lady's or Ladies' Magazine. The library of the British Museum is still very imperfect in the periodical productions of |