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Johnson Papers Online
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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
Letter to the Gentleman's Magazine on Political Journalism
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By Johnson, Samuel

Samuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand

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LETTER TO THE GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE ON POLITICAL
JOURNALISM (1739)
The following “letter to the editor,” the opening item in the Gentleman’s Magazine for January 1739 (IX.3–4), was first attributed to Johnson by G. B. Hill in 1887 (Life, I.139n.). Although the tone is sometimes ironic, the letter represents the first of Johnson’s serious pronouncements on matters of journalistic policy. He could still enter with gusto into a battle with journalistic rivals, as the previous item and some later ones indicate, and he was certainly far from withdrawing personally from political controversy, for his two most violent pamphlet attacks on the administration, Marmor Norfolciense and A Compleat Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage, were to appear in May of the same year (Yale, X.19–73). But here we see Johnson establishing a view of the Gentleman’s Magazine as the literate, intellectual vehicle for the cultural enlightenment of the educated middle class that it was to become, a forerunner of great nineteenth-century British and American magazines. He began speaking this way about the Gentleman’s Magazine as far back as the brash letter he sent to its proprietor from Lichfield in 1734 (Letters, I.5–7). In the present letter, he congratulates Cave for reducing the space he gives to reprinting political articles from such weeklies as the Craftsman and Common Sense, thus providing more room for original contributions, as he had advised Cave to do five years earlier. He then expresses ideals of political journalism. He condemns the hack who prostitutes his pen indifferently on either side of a question for gain while praising the serious political commentator who fearlessly defends governors against slander or (more importantly) warns the governed against encroachments on their liberties by the government. He does not hide his political bias, or his sharpness, but he argues for the intellectual high ground.
His moderate counsels of impartiality and civic responsibility are not easily reconciled with Johnson’s forthcoming publication of two fiery anti-Walpolian pamphlets. Johnson, however, always aware of genre and occasion in writing, undoubtedly saw an important distinction between the long-term educational role of “the first magazine” and that of “fugitive” political pamphlets.


Page 34

[Letter to the Editor]
Mr. Urban,
In the perusal of your monthly collections, I observe that the extracts from the weekly journalists, which made so large a part in your first pamphlets, have, by a gradual diminution, shrunk at length into a very few columns, and made way for original letters and dissertations.
This variation of your conduct naturally leads your readers to consider the present state of our periodical writings, and the circumstance of those professors1 who retail their politicks in weekly lectures.
The character of an author must be allowed to imply in itself something amiable and great; it conveys at once the idea of ability and good-nature, of knowledge, and a disposition to communicate it. To instruct ignorance, reclaim error, and reform vice, are designs highly worthy of applause and imitation. When Pythagoras was asked how a mortal might arrive at nearest resemblance to the celestial beings, he answer’d, “By beneficence and truth,”2 and surely no man has a juster title to these sublime qualities than a great genius, exhausting his time and health for the service of the publick, in discovering truth, and recommending it, by the ornaments of eloquence, to the favour of mankind.
But in the same proportion as writers of this exalted class deserve our veneration and gratitude, those who presume to thrust into the world pieces drawn up with, either an entire neglect of truth, or an indifference for it, ought to raise a


Page 35

general detestation and abhorrence.3 A hero that employs his sword indifferently, in just wars, or hired assassinations; a physician that prescribes remedies or poisons, without regard to any thing but his fee: are but emblems of the abandon’d prostitutes of the pen, who poyson the principles of nations, and publish falsehood and truth with equal assurance.
Political truth is undoubtedly of very great importance, and they who honestly endeavour after it, are doubtless engaged in a laudable pursuit. Nor do the writers on this subject ever more deserve the thanks of their country, than when they enter upon examinations of the conduct of their governors, whether kings, senates or ministers; when they impartially consider the tendency of their measures, and justify them in opposition to popular calumnies, or censure them in defiance of the frowns of greatness, or the persecutions of power.
To clear the character of a good king from the aspersions of faction, or misrepresentations of jealousy, is the duty of every man who has an opportunity of undeceiving the deluded; but it is much more his duty to warn a people against any intended encroachments upon their rights or liberties, as the happiness of twenty thousand is of twenty thousand times more value than the happiness of one.
We have two sets of political writers, supposed by some to be of opposite principles, but acknowledged by all to differ in their conduct; from one we are to expect every week a satire, from the other every day a panegyrick, on the ministry. Between the style and address of these writers there is generally acknowledged to be some difference, and indeed the ministry seem by such frequent publications little to consult the reputation of their advocates; for how far must that man be removed from the common level, whose life does not afford a more copious subject for a weekly satire, than a daily encomium!


Page 36

That men are never either wholly good or bad, is universally allowed;4 every man at some times means well, and most men are in some unhappy moments led aside from virtue. The same observation may be with equal justice applyed to wisdom and folly. A fool sometimes stumbles on the right, and the wisest man may deviate into error and mis-conduct.
For this reason, to single out any man for a perpetual mark of reproach, or theme of panegyrick, to praise or libel by the week, is a conduct to the last degree shameless and profligate, and nothing but long experience of the weaknesses into which men are driven by party rage, could make me imagine any caution necessary against such open and undisguised artifices.
I cannot but feel for these writers as much compassion as distress ought to raise when it is not the consequence of crimes, when I see the laborious drudgeries which they are forced to undergo in the recess of the Parliament, or a time of inaction, to give expression to worn-out thoughts, to say something when they have nothing to say, and to find, in the most barren months, some field of praise or satire yet untouch’d.
Some topicks indeed there are equally copious and easy, by the help of which it costs them very little pains to fill their pages. The miserable fate of the brave and resolute Catalans, the life of the great Burleigh, and the history of Bolinbroke,5 are inexhaustible funds of eloquence on one side, which can only be equalled by the fate of wicked ministers exemplified in the histories of all ages and nations. If to these wire-drawn6 common places, you do not think proper to allow any room


Page 37

in your paper, I think neither authors nor readers have reason to complain.
It is usually thought necessary, after discoursing of the malignity of a distemper, to propose a remedy. The remedy which some seem to think necessary, is a licenser of the press; but this in the opinion of others would only exasperate the evil.7 Falsehood and defamation would then circulate unconfuted, under the protection of a court, and sanction of a license. There is no reason why good actions should not be defended, or bad measures exposed; all we ask of the writers is not to repeat stale invectives, or general panegyricks, but to diversify their papers, and supply the deficiencies of political with other more general and entertaining subjects. And, if I might offer you any advice for the improvement of a book so well received, it should be, to draw up a general index to all your volumes,8 by which you will shew how many repetitions you have already been so complaisant as to admit, and enable your readers, by barely mentioning the subject of the paper, to satisfy their curiosity without superfluous extracts.


Page 38

Editorial Notes
1 Professor: “One who declares himself of any opinion or party” (Dictionary, sense 1).
2 We have not found the exact quotation, but it is typical of reports of Pythagoras in Hierocles, Iamblichus, and Plutarch’s Moralia. See, for example, John Norris, Hierocles upon the Golden Verses of Pythagoras (1682): “no man is capable of being adopted into the number of the gods, but he that has possessed his soul of truth and vertue” (p. 162). In Hierocles’s and Iamblichus’s reports, Pythagoras also preached the beneficence of the celestial gods. SJ’s library contained copies of Hierocles and Iamblichus, On the Pythagorian Life (Greene, pp. 67–68, 71). A translation of Hierocles is on SJ’s list of “Designs” (Life, IV.381, n. 1), with a note that Norris has done it. He quotes the Life of Pythagoras in Rambler 178 (Yale, V.172) and the Aurea Carmina preserved by Hierocles in Rambler 200 (Yale, V.281).
3 Cf. “On the Character and Duty of an Academick”: “Ignorance in other men may be censured as idleness, in an academick it must be abhorred as treachery” (p. 612 below).
4 “Men not wholly good or bad” is SJ’s translation (1739) of a section of Crousaz’s Commentary on Pope’s Essay on Man, Epistle IV (Yale, XVII.11).
5 Anti-ministerial papers such as The Craftsman declared that “the brave Catalans were delivered over to destruction by British perfidy” (GM, excerpting The Craftsman, June 1731: I.251–53) and that William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1520/21–98), Elizabeth I’s secretary of state, knew how to deal with the Spanish, unlike the present ministry. They also often cited Henry St. John, first viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751), a major contributor to the Craftsman. His twenty-two essays in the Craftsman for 1730–31 were collected as Remarks on the History of England.
6 Wire-drawn: threadbare, weak, despite being produced with great effort.
7 Exasperate: “To exacerbate; to heighten malignity” (Dictionary, sense 3). Although the last act of Parliament requiring licensing of all publications was allowed to expire in 1695, the government still had powers of suppression; it codified these with respect to plays in 1737 in a statute, 10 Geo II. c. 28. SJ’s Compleat Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage, published later in 1739, is an attack on this and other forms of licensing (see Yale, X.52–73).
8 A General Index of the First Twenty Volumes of the Gentleman’s Magazine appeared in 1753. SJ wrote a preface to it (see below, p. 222).
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Document Details
Document TitleLetter to the Gentleman's Magazine on Political Journalism
AuthorJohnson, Samuel
Creation Date1739
Publ. DateN/A
Alt. TitleN/A
Contrib. AuthorCave, Edward
ClassificationSubject: Periodical; Subject: Journalism; Subject: Political journalism; Subject: Politics; Subject: Faction; Genre: Letter; Genre: Magazine; Genre: Political essay
PrinterN/A
PublisherEdward Cave
Publ. PlaceLondon
VolumeSamuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand
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