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Works of Samuel Johnson
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Table of Contents
  • Audiet Pugnas vitio Parentum / Rara Juventus. Hor: Young men—the few who are left after the crimes of their fathers—will hear of battles. [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Bonae leges ex malis moribus proveniunt: Good laws spring from bad habits [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Malos tueri haud tutum: Save a thief from the gallows and he’ll cut your throat [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Quis enim virtutem amplectitur ipsam Praemia si tollas?: For who embraces virtue herself, if you take away the reward? [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Adjecere bonae paulo plus artis Athenae: Kind Athens Added a Little More Skill [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Mea nec Falernae Temperant Vites, neque Formiani Pocula Colles: Neither Falernian vines nor Formian hills mellow my cups [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Scheme for the Classes of a Grammar School
  • Advertisement for the School at Edial
  • Observations on Common Sense
  • Preface to the 1738 Volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine
  • Letter to the Gentleman's Magazine on Political Journalism
  • Appeal to the Publick
  • To the Reader. [Gentleman’s Magazine]
  • Considerations on the case of Dr T.—s Sermons abridg’d by Mr Cave
  • The Jests of Hierocles
  • Preface to the 1741 Volume of the Gentleman's Magazine
  • Review of An Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough
  • Proposals for Printing, by Subscription, the Two First Volumes of Bibliotheca Harleiana
  • An Account of the Harleian Library
  • Notice in Volume Two of Catalogus Bibliothecae Harleianae
  • Proposals for Printing, by Subscription, the Harleian Miscellany with An Account of this Undertaking
  • Introduction to the Harleian Miscellany: An Essay on the Origin and Importance of Small Tracts and Fugitive Pieces
  • Preface to the 1742 Volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine
  • Dedication for Robert James's Medicinal Dictionary
  • Preface to the 1743 Volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine
  • PROPOSALS For Printing every Fortnight, (Price Sixpence) THE PUBLISHER: CONTAINING MISCELLANIES In PROSE and VERSE. Collected by J. CROKATT, Bookseller.
  • Proposals for Printing Anchitell Grey's Debates
  • Some Remarks on the Progress of Learning Since the Reformation
  • Proposals for Printing by Subscription Hugonis Grotii Adamus Exul
  • Postscript to Lauder’s Essay on Milton’s Use and Imitation of the Moderns
  • A Letter to the Reverend Mr. Douglas
  • Preface to The Preceptor
  • The signification of WORDS how varied
  • Letter Concerning the Benefit Performance of Comus for Milton's Granddaughter
  • Proposals for printing by subscription, Essays in Verse and Prose.
  • Notice of The life of Harriot Stuart
  • Dedication to The Female Quixote
  • Dedication to Memoirs of Maximilian de Bethune, Duke of Sully
  • Dedication to Philander
  • Dedication to The Greek Theatre of Father Brumoy
  • Dedication to Henrietta, 2nd Ed.
  • Proposals for Printing by Subscription The Original Works of Mrs. Charlotte Lennox
  • Letter to the Daily Advertiser concerning James Crokatt
  • Preface to A General Index of the First Twenty Volumes of the Gentleman's Magazine
  • Preface to the 1753 Volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine
  • An Account of an Attempt to Ascertain the Longitude by Sea, by an Exact Theory of the Variation of the Magnetical Needle
  • Dedication and Preface to An Introduction to the Game of Draughts (1756)
  • Dedication to An Introduction to Geometry (1767)
  • Preface to Richard Rolt, A New Dictionary of Trade and Commerce
  • Reflections on the Present State of Literature
  • TO THE PUBLIC
  • Review of John Armstrong, The History of the Island of Minorca (1756)
  • Review of Stephen White, Collateral Bee-Boxes (1756)
  • Review of Thomas Birch, The History of the Royal Society, vols. 1–2 (1756)
  • Review of Arthur Murphy, The Gray’s-Inn Journal, 2 vols. (1756)
  • Review of Joseph Warton, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope (1756)
  • Review of James Hampton, The General History of Polybius (1756)
  • Review of Thomas Blackwell, Memoirs of the Court of Augustus (1753–56)
  • Review of Alexander Russell, The Natural History of Aleppo (1756)
  • Review of Four Letters from Newton to Bentley (1756)
  • Review of William Borlase, Observations on the Islands of Scilly (1756)
  • Review of Archibald Bower, Affidavit (1756); John Douglas, Six Letters and Review of Mr. Bower’s Answer (1757); and John Douglas, Bower and Tillemont Compared (1757)
  • Review of Francis Home, Experiments on Bleaching (1756)
  • Review of Stephen Hales, An Account of a Useful Discovery (1756)
  • Review of Charles Lucas, An Essay on Waters (1756)
  • Review of Robert Keith, A Large New Catalogue of the Bishops (1756)
  • Review of Patrick Browne, The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica (1756)
  • Review of Charles Parkin, An Impartial Account of the Invasion under William Duke of Normandy (1756)
  • Review of A Scheme for Preventing a Further Increase of the National Debt (1756)
  • Review of Conferences and Treaties (1756)
  • Review of Philosophical Transactions (1756)
  • Review of Richard Lovett, The Subtil Medium Prov’d (1756)
  • Review of Benjamin Hoadley and Benjamin Wilson, Observations on a Series of Electrical Experiments (1756)
  • Review of Johann Georg Keyssler, Travels (1756)
  • Review of Elizabeth Harrison, Miscellanies (1756)
  • Review of Jonas Hanway, A Journal of Eight Days Journey (1757)
  • Review of Jonas Hanway, A Journal of Eight Days Journey, Second Edition (1757)
  • Reply to a Letter from Jonas Hanway in the Gazetteer (1757)
  • Review of Samuel Bever, The Cadet (1756)
  • Review of the Test and Con-Test (1756)
  • Review of William Whitehead, Elegies (1757)
  • Review of A Letter to a Gentleman in the Country on the Death of Admiral Byng (1757)
  • Preliminary Discourse in the London Chronicle
  • Advertisement for Francis Barber in the Daily Advertiser
  • "Dedication to John Lindsay, Evangelical History of Our Lord Jesus Christ Harmonized
  • Introduction to the Universal Chronicle (1758)
  • Of the Duty of a Journalist (1758)
  • Advertisement Against Unauthorized Reprints of the Idler (1759)
  • Advertisement for the Public Ledger in the Universal Chronicle (1760)
  • To The Public in the Public Ledger (1760)
  • The Weekly Correspondent Number I [Public Ledger]
  • The Weekly Correspondent Number II [Public Ledger]
  • The Weekly Correspondent Number III [Public Ledger]
  • Preface to J. Elmer, Tables of Weights and Prices
  • From The Italian Library Containing an Account of the Lives and Works of the most valuable authors of Italy (1757)
  • Proposals for Printing by Subscription, Le Poesie di Giuseppe Baretti (1758)
  • Dedication to A Dictionary of the English and Italian Languages (1760)
  • Preface to Easy Phraseology, for the Use of Young Ladies Who Intend to Learn the Colloquial Part of the Italian Language (1775)
  • Advertisement [For The World Displayed]
  • Introduction (1759) [From The World Displayed]
  • Advertisement for Pilgrim's Progress
  • Letter I. [Daily Gazetteer]
  • Letter II. [Daily Gazetteer]
  • Letter III. [Daily Gazetteer]
  • Letter to the Society of Arts (26 February 1760)
  • Letter to the Society of Arts (8 December 1760)
  • Address of the Painter’s, Sculptors, &Architects to George III (1761)
  • Preface to A Catalogue of the Pictures, Sculptures, Models, Drawings, Prints, &c Exhibited by the Society of Artists of Great-Britain at the Great Room in Spring Gardens Charing Cross May the 17th Anno 1762 Being the Third year of their Exhibition (1762)
  • Review of William Tytler, Historical and Critical Enquiry into the Evidence Produced … Against Mary Queen of Scots
  • Contributions to John Kennedy, A Complete System of Astronomical Chronology, Unfolding the Scriptures
  • Proposals and Advertisement [for Anna Williams, Miscellanies in Prose and Verse] (1762)
  • Advertisement [for Anna Williams, Miscellanies in Prose and Verse] (1766)
  • Dedication to Jerusalem Delivered (1763)
  • Dedication to The Works of Metastasio (1767)
  • Dedication to Cyrus: A Tragedy (1768)
  • Review of Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller
  • Dedication for Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
  • 23 Sept. 1765 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 1–4 Oct. 1765. [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 20 Nov. 1765. [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 19 Dec. 1765. [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 24 December 1765 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 3 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 8 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 14 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 23 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 23 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 13 March 1769 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 1 October 1774 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 4 October 1774 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 13 October 1774 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 4 September 1780 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 4 September 1780 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 5 Sept. 1780 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • Dedication for George Adams, A Treatise Describing and Explaining the Construction and Use of New Celestial and Terrestrial Globes
  • Dedication to John Gwynn, London and Westminster Improved
  • Preface to Alexander MacBean, A Dictionary of Ancient Geography
  • Meditation on a Pudding
  • Hereford Infirmary Appeal
  • Dedication for A General History of Music (1776)
  • From A General History of Music, Vol. II (1782)
  • Dedication to An Account of the Musical Performance . . . in Commemoration of Handel (1785)
  • Advertisement for the Spectator
  • Dedication to Zachary Pearce, A Commentary, with Notes, on the Four Evangelists and the Acts of the Apostles
  • Letter of 16 May 1777
  • The Petition of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London, in Common Council Assembled, Friday 6 June 1777
  • Letter to Lord Bathurst, the Lord Chancellor, 8 June 1777
  • Letter to William Murray, First Earl of Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, Wednesday, 11 June 1777
  • Petition of Mrs. Mary Dodd to the Queen
  • Dodd’s Letter to the King, Sunday, 22 June 1777
  • Petition of William Dodd to the King, Monday, 23 June 1777
  • Dodd’s Last Solemn Declaration, Wednesday, 25 June 1777
  • Johnson’s Observations on the Propriety of Pardoning William Dodd, Wednesday, 25 June 1777
  • Introduction and Conclusion to Occasional Papers (1777)
  • Proposal for Printing William Shaw, An Analysis of the Scotch Celtic Language
  • Dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds, Seven Discourses
  • Preface to Thomas Maurice, Oedipus Tyrannus
  • The Case of Collier v. Flint
  • Translation of Sallust, De Bello Catilinario
  • General Rules of the Essex Head Club
  • On the Character and Duty of an Academick
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© 2023
Preface to the 1738 Volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine
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By Johnson, Samuel

Samuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand

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PREFACE TO THE 1738 VOLUME OF THE GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE (1739)
Each issue of the Gentleman’s Magazine came out early in the month following the one named on its masthead. The December 1738 number, accordingly, appeared early in January 1739. After this, an index to the 1738 volume was prepared: this timing is evident in the appearance on the last page of the index for 1753 of a short obituary of Edward Cave, who died 10 January 1754 (see Yale, XIX.291). A retrospective preface was also usually prepared for each annual volume and published with the yearly supplement in mid-January; indeed, this preface is called the “Preface to the Supplement’’ (see p. 42 below). In a chronological record of Johnson’s writings, then, these prefaces should be assigned to the year following the date of the collected volume. Johnson wrote several of these prefaces. The following piece, written in 1739 and printed on two unnumbered pages bound at the beginning of the 1738 volume, is his first. It was attributed to Johnson by Boswell (Life, I.139) and incorporated in his collected works in 1823 (Works, XI.24–28).1
Of all of Cave’s competitors, the London Magazine was the strongest, and Johnson attacks it most vehemently in his highly partisan preface. A surviving business ledger of Charles Ackers, the printer of the London Magazine, provides us with exact figures of its press runs. The first issue for April 1732 was printed in 2,500 copies, but by the end of 1733 the number was up to 6,000, and by August 1739 it peaked at 8,000. No such reliable figures exist for the Gentleman’s Magazine, but Hawkins remarks that Johnson’s authorship of the Debates in Parliament increased circulation “from ten to fifteen thousand copies a month” (Hawkins, Life, p. 78). Johnson, a more reliable source, recalled late in his life that Cave used to sell 10,000 copies of a monthly issue (Life, III.322). The Gentleman’s Magazine may have been the better seller, but as D. F. McKenzie and J. C. Ross point out, “the rapid increase in the edition size of the London Magazine . . . shows what a lucrative market there was to be exploited, and one can now understand more clearly Cave’s anger over the loss of so large a part of it.”2 Writing Cave’s


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obituary fifteen years later, Johnson still vividly remembered the battle with the London Magazine, which he described as “supported by a powerful association of booksellers, and circulated with all the art, and all the cunning of trade” (Yale, XIX.298). As McKenzie and Ross point out, Cave “used at least equal art and cunning of the trade to secure his advantages.”3
To the Reader.
The usual design of addresses of this sort is to implore the candour1 of the public; we have always had the more pleasing province of returning thanks, and making our acknowledgments for the kind acceptance which our monthly collections have met with.
This, it seems, did not sufficiently appear from the numerous sale and repeated impressions of our books, which have at once exceeded our merit and our expectation; but have been still more plainly attested by the clamours, rage, and calumnies of our competitors, of whom we have seldom taken any notice, not only because it is cruelty to insult the depressed, and folly to engage with desperation, but because we consider all their outcries, menaces and boasts, as nothing more than advertisements in our favour, being evidently drawn up with the bitterness of baffled malice and disappointed hope; and almost discovering, in plain terms, that the unhappy authors have SEVENTY THOUSAND London Magazines mouldering in their warehouses, returned from all parts of the kingdom, unsold, unread, and disregarded.2
Our obligations for the encouragement we have so long continued to receive, are so much the greater, as no artifices have been omitted to supplant us. Our adversaries cannot be denied the praise of industry; how far they can be celebrated


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for an honest industry we leave to the decision of the public, and even of their brethren the booksellers, not including those whose advertisements they obliterated to paste their invectives in our book.3
The success of the Gentleman’s Magazine,4 has given rise to almost5 twenty imitations of it, which are either all dead, or very little regarded by the world. Before we had published sixteen months, we met with such a general approbation, that a knot of enterprising geniuses, and sagacious inventors, assembled from all parts of the town, agreed with an unanimity natural to understandings of the same size to seize upon our whole plan, without changing even the title. Some weak objections were indeed made by one of them against the design, as having an air of servility, dishonesty and piracy; but it was concluded that all these imputations might be avoided by giving the picture of St Paul’s instead of St John’s Gate;6 it was however thought indispensibly necessary to add, printed in St John’s Street, tho’ there was then no printing-house in that place.7
That these plagiaries should after having thus stolen their


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whole design from us, charge us with robbery, on any occasion, is a degree of impudence scarcely to be matched, and certainly entitles them to the first rank among false heroes. We have therefore inserted their names at length in our February magazine, p. 61, being desirous that every man should enjoy the reputation he deserves.8
Another attack has been made upon us by the author of Common Sense, an adversary equally malicious as the former, and equally despicable. What were his views, or what his provocations, we know not, nor have thought him considerable enough to enquire. To make him any further answer, would be to descend too low; but as he is one of those happy writers, who are best exposed by quoting their own words, we have given his elegant remarks in our magazine for December at the foot of p. 640, where the reader may entertain himself at his leisure with an agreeable mixture of scurrility and false grammar.9
For the future we shall rarely offend him by adopting any of his performances, being unwilling to prolong the life of such pieces as deserve no other fate than to be hissed, torn, and forgotten. However, that the curiosity of our readers may not be disappointed, we shall, whenever we find him a little excelling himself, perhaps print his dissertations upon our blue covers,1 that they may be looked over, and stripp’d off, without disgracing our collection, or swelling our volumes.
We are sorry that by inserting some of his essays, we have


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filled the head of this petty writer with idle chimeras of applause, laurels and immortality; this injury we did not intend, nor suspected the bad effect of our regard for him, till we saw in the postscript to one of his papers a wild2 prediction of the honours to be paid him by future ages. Should any mention be made of him or his writings by posterity, it will probably be in words like these: “In the Gentleman’s Magazine are still preserved some essays under the specious and inviting title of Common Sense. How papers of so little value came to be rescued from the common lot of dulness, we are at this distance of time unable to conceive, but imagine that personal friendship prevailed with Urban to admit them in opposition to his judgment. If this was the reason, he met afterwards with the treatment which all deserve who patronise stupidity; for the writer, instead of acknowledging his favours, complains of injustice, robbery, and mutilation; but complains in a stile so barbarous and indecent, as sufficiently confutes his own calumnies.”
In this manner must this author expect to be mentioned.——But of him, and our other adversaries, we beg the reader’s pardon for having said so much. We hope it will be remembered in our favour, that it is sometimes necessary to chastise insolence, and that there is a sort of men who cannot distinguish between forbearance and cowardice.


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Editorial Notes
1 This edition of the Works, called the “Seventh,” was edited by Alexander Chalmers. For details, see Bibliography, II.1683–86 and I.34.
2 A Ledger of Charles Acker Printer of The London Magazine (1968), pp. 11–12.
3 Ibid., p. 8; cf. Yale, XIX.298, n. 4.
1 Candour: “Sweetness of temper; purity of mind; openness; ingenuity; kindness” (Dictionary). This is a quality much solicited in addresses to readers throughout the early eighteenth century, sometimes with much irony (see Claude Rawson, Gulliver and the Gentle Reader [1973], p. 7).
2 Hawkins, who was a contributor to the GM at this time, accepts the figure: “the increasing demand for Cave’s publication, and the check it gave to the sale of its rival, which at one time was so great as to throw back no fewer than seventy thousand copies on the hands of the proprietors” (Hawkins, Life, p. 59).
3 In a letter published in GM for February 1738 (VIII.78), “some gentlemen of Bristol” inform Mr. Urban, as Cave styled himself, that “All your magazines for January and Supplements” have had their covers pasted over with “advertisements publish’d against you by the proprietors of the London Magazine.”
4 Magazine is printed in full caps in the original, presumably to indicate the journal’s proprietary claim to the word.
5 [SJ’s note] The Weekly Magazine, the Gentleman’s Magazine and Oracle, the Universal Magazine, the General Magazine, the Oxford Magazine, the Distillers Magazine, the Country Magazine, the Manchester Magazine, the Leeds Magazine, the Dublin Magazine, and the Lady’s Magazine [a short-lived publication that appeared in 1739, not its more famous namesake]; with several other of the like kind, all dwindled to their primitive nothing; to which we may add the Bee, and Grubstreet Journal, that enemy to all works of merit.
6 A gatehouse on St. John’s Street in Clerkenwell, once part of the priory of the Catholic Order of St. John, was home to the editorial offices of the GM. A block print of the gate appeared on the cover of each number. The cover of the London Magazine featured John Pine’s engraving of St. Paul’s, the Thames, and London Bridge (Ledger of Charles Acker, p. 11).
7 The London Magazine for 1737 says, “London: Printed by C. Ackers in St. John’s-Street.” Swan Alley, site of Ackers’s printing house, was then an extension of Sutton Street, running between Goswell Street and St. John’s Street (Ledger of Charles Acker, 3).
8 Page 61 is the last of a three-page defense of the GM which opens the February 1738 number. The heading of the article gives some indication of its content and tone: “Such as see into the artifices and interested views of writers, need not be told that there has been a very strong combination of booksellers, and their dependants, the authors and printers of several news-papers, in order, by ridiculous puffs, paragraphs of buffoonery, and fallacious advertisements, to set the publick against this MAGAZINE, which is entirely independant of them: but as a great number of our country readers are unacquainted with such arts, we hope to be excused inserting the following remarks in our justification.”
9 “Observations on Common Sense” includes the footnote mentioned here (see p. 26, n. 2 above).
1 Inexpensive, coarse, blue-colored paper stock was used for proposals, advertisements, and temporary covers.
2 [SJ’s note] Common Sense Journal printed by Purser of White-Friers, March 11, 1738 [no. 58]. “I make no doubt but after some grave historian, 3 or 400 years hence, has described the corruption, the baseness, and the flattery which men run into in these times, he will make the following observation: in the year 1737 a certain unknown author published a writing under the title of Common Sense: this writing came out weekly in little detach’d essays, some of which are political, some moral, and others humourous. By the best judgment that can be form’d of a work, the style and language of which is become so obsolete, that it is scarce intelligible, it answers the title well, &c.” [p. 1: the piece, entitled “Postscript,” goes on to complain that its contents have been plagiarized by the GM].
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Document Details
Document TitlePreface to the 1738 Volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine
AuthorJohnson, Samuel
Creation Date1739
Publ. DateN/A
Alt. TitleN/A
Contrib. AuthorCave, Edward
ClassificationSubject: Periodical; Subject: Plagiarism; Genre: Preface; Genre: Magazine
PrinterN/A
PublisherEdward Cave
Publ. PlaceLondon
VolumeSamuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand
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