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work that should comprehend intelligence of both these kinds, we know of no exemplar in this country, earlier than the year 1716, when an effay towards fuch a one was made in the publication of a book, entitled The Historical Register, containing, an impartial relation of all transactions foreign and domeftic, by a body of men, from whom few would have expected any thing of the kind. In fhort, the editors of the Historical Register, were the members of a fociety, affociated about the year above-mentioned, for the purpose of infurance from fire, which, from the badge affumed by them, obtained the denomination of the Sun-fire-Office, and is ftill fubfifting in a flourishing ftate. One of the managing perfons in this fociety, was, if my information mifleads me not, a man of the name of Povey, who, by the way, was a great improver of that useful ject, the Penny Poft, and died within my memory. Having a scheming head, a plausible tongue, and a ready pen, he prevailed on his fellow-members to undertake the above publication, foreign as it was to the nature of their inftitution. In Strype's continuation of Stow's Survey, I find the following article refpecting this fociety: All perfons taking out policies for insurance, must pay two fhillings and fix-pence per quarter; and, besides their infurance, fhall have a book, called the Hiftorical Register, left every quarter at their houfe.'

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The Hiftorical Register gave alfo an account of the proceedings of Parliament: the first volume contains

* The original inventor thereof was one Mr. Dockwra, a citizen of fuch eminence, that he ftood for the office of Chamberlain, against Sir Wm. Fazakerley.

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the fpeeches in both houses, on the debate on the Septennial Bill; but, fo great is the caution obferved in drawing them up, that none of those in the House of Lords are appropriated, otherwife, than by such words as thefe: A noble Duke ftood up, and faid,'

This speech was anfwered by a Northern Peer,' and other fuch vague defignations. In thofe in the House of Commons, the names of the speakers, Mr. Shippen, Mr. Hampden, Sir Richard Steele, and others are given, without any artifices of concealment.

This publication was continued to the year 1737, inclusive, and may be fuppofed to have been fuperfeded by the Gentleman's Magazine, which was then rifing very fast in its reputation.

From the Historical Register the hint was taken, of a publication, entitled the Grub-street Journal,* which, befides a brief account of public occurrences, contained criticifins and cenfures of dull and profane

• Mention is often made, in the Dunciad and other modern books, of Grub-street writers and Grub-ftreet publications, but the terms are little understood: the following historical fact will explain them: During the ufurpation, a prodigious number of feditious and libelious pamphlets and papers, tending to exafperate the people, and encreafe the confufion in which the nation was involved, were from time to time published. The authors of these were, for the most part, men whofe indigent circumftances compelled them to live in the fuburbs and moft obfcure parts of the town; Grub-street then abounded with mean and old houfes, which were let out in lodgings, at low rents, to perfons of this defcription, whofe occupation was the publishing anonymous treafon and flander. One of the original inhabitants of this street was Fox the Martyrologist, who, during his abode there, wrote his Acts and Monuments. It was alfo rendered famous by having been the dwelling-place of Mr. Henry Welby, a gentleman of whom it is related in a printed narrative that he lived there forty years without being feen of any.

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or immoral books and pamphlets, as alfo, original effays and letters to the editors. The chief conductors of it, were, Dr. John Martyn, then a young physician, afterwards profeffor of botany in the university of Cambridge, and Dr. Ruffel, also a phyfician; the former affumed the name Bavius, and the latter Mævius. Its first publication was in January, 1730, and it meeting with encouragement, 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 fame would be continued monthly, incurring thereby a charge of plagiarism, which, as he is faid to have confeffed it, we may suppose he did not look upon as criminal *.

Johnson had not by his letter, herein before inserted, fo attached himself to Cave, as not to be at liberty to enter into a closer engagement with any other perfon : he, therefore, in 1736, made overtures to the Rev. Mr. Budworth, then master of the grammar-school at Brerewood, in Staffordshire, and who had been bred under Mr. Blackwall, at Market Bosworth, to become his affiftant; but Mr. Budworth thought himfelf under a neceffity of declining them, from an apprehenfion, that thofe convulfive motions to which Johnson through life was subject, might render him an object of imitation, and poffibly of ridicule, with his pupils.

It may be remembered that in a preceding page, Johnson is faid to have refided for fome months, in the year 1734, in the house of a perfon named

* Memoirs of the Society of Grub-street. Preface, page xii. et feqq.

Jarvis,

Jarvis, at Birmingham. To this circumftance, by a conjecture not improbable, may be referred an important event of his life. At that time there dwelt at Birmingham a widow, the relict of Mr. Porter a mercer, who dying, left her, if not well jointured, fo provided for, as made a match with her to a man in Johnfon's circumstances defirable: report fays, fhe was rather advanced in years; it is certain that he had a fon and daughter grown up; the former was in the laft war a captain in the navy, and his fifter, lately dead, inherited from him a handfome fortune, acquired in the courfe of a long fervice. Of her perfonal charms little can now be remembered: Johnfon has celebrated them in an infcription on her tomb at Bromley; but, confidering his infirmity, and admitting the truth of a confeffion, faid to have been made by him, that he never saw the human face divine,' it may be queftioned, whether himself was ever an eye-witness to them. The infcription further declares her to have been of the family of Jarvis, and gives colour to a fuppofition that he was either a fifter or other relation of the Jarvis above-mentioned.

With this perfon he married, his age being then about twenty-seven. Her fortune, which is conjectured to have been about eight hundred pounds, placed him in a state of affluence, to which before he had been a ftranger. He was not fo imprudent as to think it an inexhaustible mine; on the contrary, he reflected on the means of improving it. His acquifitions at fchool and at the univerfity, and the improvement he had made of his talents in the ftudy of the French and Italian languages, qualified him, in an eminent degree, for an inftructor of youth in claffical litera

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ture; and the reputation of his father, and the connections he had formed in and about Lichfield, pointed out to him a fair profpect of fucceeding in that useful profeffion.

There dwelt in the above-mentioned city, a very refpectable gentleman, Mr. Gilbert Walmfey, register of the ecclefiaftical court of the bishop thereof, to whofe house, in his fchool and alfo in his university 'vacations, Johnson was a welcome guest: the fame perfon was alfo a friend of captain Garrick, who had for fome time been refident at Lichfield, and, by con'fequence, of Mr. David Garrick, his fon. His character is fo well pourtrayed by Johnfon, and reprefents in fuch lively colours his friendship for him, that it would be injuftice to omit the infertion of it, as given in the life of Edmund Smith:

• Of Gilbert Walley, thus prefented to my mind, let me indulge myfelf in the remembrance. I knew ' him very early; he was one of the first friends that literature procured me; and, I hope that, at leaft, my gratitude made me worthy of his notice.

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He was of an advanced age, and I was only not a boy; yet, he never received my notions with contempt. He was a whig, with all the virulence and 'malevolence of his party; yet difference of opinion did not keep us apart: I honoured him, and • he endured me.

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He had mingled with the gay world, without exemption from its vices or its follies, but had never neglected the cultivation of his mind; his belief of revelation was unfhaken; his learning preferved his principles; he grew firft regular, and then pious.

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