debating-society kind; these, with the interchange of personalities between political writers, include the bulk of the articles then thought worthy of reprinting. They are, it need scarcely be said, infinitely inferior to that series of essays which has delighted many generations of English readers, of which the "Spectator" is the best known type and representative. There was one important and obvious difference. In the latter case the writers were essayists proper, not newsmongers, and, further, the contributions were throughout, or nearly so, in the "Spectator" class of journals, the work of a few hands, authors of eminence and genius. Such men as Steele, Johnson, Addison, and Savage were certainly not to be compared with the mob of hack writers who then flooded the newspapers with their puerilities and personalities.
Of the remaining available space three or four pages were generally devoted to poetry, or what passed as such in that age. There are many lovesick and monotonous epistles to Celia, Lavinia, and other fair ones; sundry imitations and translations of the classics, decidedly better in quality; odes to envy, melancholy, and the rest, varied occasionally by an apostrophe to a bee, or a favorite spaniel, or the month of May; and much other mediocre versification. The debates in Parliament formed also an important item in the list of contents. The series of articles of this description furnished to the Gentleman's Magazine under the title of "The Senate of Lilliput" was Johnson's best-known contribution to that journal. His reproductions of the speeches must have been often very free versions, for Boswell remarks that "sometimes he had nothing more communicated to him than the names of the several speakers, and the part which they had taken in the debate." Generally, however, the monthly Parliamentary article was founded on the notes of Guthrie and others. Some readers may possibly not be aware of the obstacles existing at this period to the publication of the discussions in Parliament, when fictitious names and other expedients were resorted to in order to avoid prosecution. The disguises were of various kinds, often of an anagrammatic character. In the Gentleman's Magazine, for example, hurgo stood for lord, and Hurgoes Hickrad, Castroflety and Brustath, represented Lords Hardwick, Chesterfield and Bathurst, while in the Clinabs, or Commons, we have such barbarous disguises as Snadsy, Gandahm, Feauks, Pulnub, for Sandys, Windham, Fox, and Pulteney. Degulia did duty for Europe, Blefuscu for France, Dancram for Denmark, and London and Westminster were known as Mildendo and Belfaborac. In the Scots Magazine the names of the speakers took a classical form. Sir R. Walpole was M. Tullius Cicero, the Earl of Halifax M. Horatius Barbatus, and so on. Afterwards, when Johnson found that people believed the speeches to be genuine, he resolved to write no more of them, considering that he was thereby being accessory to the propagation of falsehood.
A chapter of casualties is usually added, and notices of the preferments and promotions for the month, ecclesiastical, civil, and military. There is also a page or more of births, marriages, and deaths, with lists of new books, bankrupts, and (strange to modern ears) captures at sea, prices of grain (not at Mark Lane, but at Bear Key, the then market) and stocks, bills of mortality, etc., etc.
From this brief inventory of contents it is obvious that to many readers, especially in the country (and the circulation was large in the provinces), these journals would serve very much the purposes of the modern newspaper. In many cases, probably, the monthly number would be the chief: medium of communication with the outer world. And the change is worth remarking that not only have magazines now ceased to supply news, but some newspapers even, so-called, confine themselves to criticism and discussion.
In looking over these records of our grandfathers' time many curious peculiarities come to light. In matters of taste and public interest, in the use and meaning of words, in the spelling of many words and places, and in various other literary fashions, there are things worth a passing notice, and often suggestive of the social changes which have since passed over society. Orthography, to begin with presents many variations from the present practice. The following are examples taken at random: ambergreece, head ach, grainery, conveeners, goal always for gaol, rhadishes, hypocacuanae, tyger, burrows for boroughs, or, as the Scotch have it, burghs, waste instead of waist. A whole series of words have double l's besides other peculiarities, such as sollicitors, sallad, sellery, collyflower, and the like. In the names of places there are also numerous differences — Air for Ayr, Eaton for Eton, Killichranky, Petersburgh always without the prefix "St.;" Turky, Paisly, and such words without the penultimate letter;
