Siegener Periodicum zur Internationalen Empirischen______Literaturwissenschaft Herausgegeben von Reinhold Viehoff (Halle/Saale) Gebhard Rusch (Siegen) Rien T. Segers (Groningen) Jg. 19 (2000), Heft 1

Peter Lang Europäischer Verlag der Wissenschaften SPIEL Siegener Periodicum zur Internationalen Empirischen Literaturwissenschaft

SPIEL: Siegener Periodicum zur Internationalen Empirischen Literaturwissenschaft

Jg. 19 (2000), Heft 1

Peter Lang Frankfurt am Main • Berlin • Bern • Bruxelles • New York • Oxford • Wien Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme

Siegener Periodicum zur internationalen empirischen Literatur­ wissenschaft (SPIEL) Frankfurt am Main ; Berlin ; Bern ; New York ; Paris ; Wien : Lang ISSN 2199-80780722-7833 Erscheint jährl. zweimal

JG. 1, H. 1 (1982) - [Erscheint: Oktober 1982]

NE: SPIEL

ISSNISSN 2199-80780722-7833 © Peter Lang GmbH Europäischer Verlag der Wissenschaften Frankfurt am Main 2001 Alle Rechte Vorbehalten. Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Siegener Periodicum zur Internationalen Empirischen Literaturwissenschaft

SPECIAL ISSUE / SONDERHEFT SPIEL 19 (2000), H. 1

Historical Readers and Historical Reading

Historische Leser und historisches Lesen

ed. by / hrsg. von

Margaret Beetham (Manchester) & Sophie Levie (Utrecht)

Siegener Periodicum zur Internationalen Empirischen Literaturwissenschaft

Contents / Inhalt SPIEL 19 (2000), H. 1

Margaret Beetham (Manchester) and Sophie Levie (Utrecht) Introduction 1

Frédéric Barbier (Paris) History, the Historian and Reading 4

Stephen Colciough (London) Recording the Revolution: Reading Experience and the History of the Book 36

Berry Dongeimans (Leiden) and Boudien de Vries (Leiden) Reading, Class and Gender: the Sources for Research on Nineteenth Century Readers in the Netherlands 56

Margaret Beetham (Manchester) In Search of the Historical Reader; the Woman Reader, the Magazine and the Correspondence Column 89

Titia Ram (Utrecht) The Gentleman's Magazine; or Speakers’ Corner 105

Marita Keiison-Lauritz (Amsterdam) Towards a History of Gay Reading: A Study of Two Early Twentieth Century Periodicals 126

Laurel Brake (London) Gender and the Historical Reader: The Artist and Cleveland Street 141

Lledeke Plate (Utrecht) Women Readers Write Back: Rewriting and/as Reception 155 10.3726/80987_105

SPIEL 19 (2000), H. 1, 105-125

Titia Ram (Utrecht)

The Gentleman’s Magazine; or Speakers’ Corner

Das Londoner The Gentleman’s Magazine (1731-1914) wurde gegründet von Edward Cave, einem Provinzler aus Rugby, Warwickshire, der Anfang 20 war, als er nach London kam, um dort als Drucker zu arbeiten. Das Magazin kombiniert ein ganz neues Format mit den alten Werten des herrschenden literarischen Establishments. Als eine Art Reader’s Digest “avant la lettre”, eine Sammlung von Zusammenfassungen und Übersetzungen aus anderen Zeitschriften und Zeitungen begonnen, entwickelte es sich bald zu einem Forum zeitgenössischen Gedankenguts, geschrieben hauptsächlich von seinem eigenen Lesepublikum. Mit außergewöhnlichem Gespür für die neuen Anforderungen der periodischen Presse, gründete Cave mit The Gentleman ’s Magazine das erste moderne Periodikum, in dem die Rolle des Beiträgers und des (provinzialen) Lesers so drastisch verändert waren, dass es beträchtlichen Einfluss auf die Demokratisierung des Lesepublikums im allgemeinen ausübte. Der vorliegende Aufsatz will eine Übersicht über die Erforschung und Identi­ fizierung des lesenden und schreibenden Publikums geben und eine Reihe neuer Schlussfolgerun­ gen hinzufugen. Dabei stützt er sich auf eine Analyse der Anzeigen auf den Umschlägen des Perio­ dikums, einen Index der Anfangszeilen aller Gedichte der Jahrgänge 1731 bis 1754 und auf Hin­ weise im Periodikum selbst.

The London miscellany The Gentleman’s Magazine (1731-1914) was established by Edward Cave, a provincial from Rugby, Warwickshire, who came to work in London as a printer in his early 20s. It was the first “magazine” in terms of a miscellany in which many different subjects were discussed. It combined this radically new format with the old values of the reigning literary establishment. Cave was a cunning business-man who made use of laws in the printing trade, his provincial network of business-contacts, and his job with the General Post Office to make his periodical the cheapest of its kind. His tactics totally alienated him from the London printing-trade, but made The Gentleman’s Magazine the most popular periodical within a matter of a few years. It started out as a collection of summaries and translations from other periodicals and newspapers, but soon developed into a platform for contemporary thought, with contributions written mainly by its own readers. In the identification of this reading public, and thus its writers, many problems arise because we are dealing with an eighteenth-century periodical, in which 90 percent of the poems and articles were contributed anonymously or pseudonymously. Nevertheless, extensive research made it possible to draw several conclusions regarding the identity of its audience (cf. Ram 1999). 106 Titia Ram

Edward Cave

When Edward Cave established The Gentleman’s Magazine in February 1731, he launched what would soon become England’s most popular and influential eighteenth- century monthly periodical. Its force was twofold. On the level of its contents, it was its representativeness and its conservativeness rather than its innovativeness which ensured its popularity. On the level of organisation, however, its unprecedented and progressive policy was what made it commercially feasible and with 15,000 copies monthly, the best­ selling miscellany within a matter of a few years. The Gentleman’s Magazine soon be­ came an institution in the cultural field which was of influence on the shaping of the eighteenth-century canon, and which prompted lasting transformations in the periodical press. Cave was of considerable influence in the cultural opening up of the provinces, and an instigator of changes in the intellectual world. The Gentleman’s Magazine was a peri­ odical in which old values, prodesse & delectare, and the force of the old establishment were still very powerful. But at the same time, new laws, sharp commercial insight, and the principle of quick and easy accessibility were what shaped this new type of periodi­ cal, and gradually took over domination in the literary field from the old establishment. With extraordinary insight in the new demands in the periodic press, Cave founded The Gentleman’s Magazine, the single most important embodiment of the modem periodical, in which the role of the contributor and the (provincial) reader was altered so drastically, that it was of considerable influence on the democratization of the reading audience in general. Edward Cave, who was the eldest son of a cobbler from Rugby, Warwickshire, was not a very amiable person. He was authoritative and demanding, and did not tolerate any leadership but his own. After he had moved to London where he began his career as a licensed printer, he envisioned his plan to begin a revolutionarily new type of periodical, based on commercial motivations and the conviction that he could outwit his London colleagues in trade, who wanted to have nothing to do with this country upstart. With the establishment of The Gentleman’s Magazine, he used several laws in the printing trade to his own advantage and the ruin of his colleagues, such as the lapse of the Licensing Act in 1695, the passing of the Copy Right Act (Act for the Encouragement of Learning) of 1709, and the Stamp Acts of 1712. After 1695, when printing was no longer restricted to London and the university cities, printing-presses were set up throughout the country, and Cave set up an impressive network of provincial contacts, with whom he traded in news from the provinces (Barker 1981, 28 ff.; Carlson 1938, 8 ff). A loop-hole in the Copy Right Act, which did not provide for summaries and translations, became the foundation of his periodical, as the entire format of The Gentleman’s Magazine was based on it, and its huge success was a direct result of it. In its first decade or so, it consisted in its en­ tirety of summaries and translations. As such, The Gentleman’s Magazine started out as a kind of Reader’s Digest “avant-la-lettre”. Everything in it had been printed earlier else­ where, and because of this, Cave could make smart use of different Stamp Acts issued after 1712. These caused an increase in the price of all newspapers and periodicals be­ cause any publication carrying news was obliged to be printed on paper carrying a Id. stamp per sheet, per copy (Harris 1978, 84), which could only be bought at one central The Gentleman’s Magazine; or Speakers’ Comer 107

issuing point, the London Warehouse of the Commissioners of Stamps, at Serle Court, Lincoln’s Inn. This made is difficult for printers from the provinces to run a newspaper and the Acts caused several newspapers and periodicals to become bankrupt. However, this actually made The Gentleman’s Magazine even cheaper than it already was, since it consisted of earlier published material in its entirety, therefore did not contain any “news”. It thus did not have to be printed on stamped paper, and could be sold for a price which was relatively much lower than that of the publications carrying news. In addition to that, advertisements were printed on the wrappers of The Gentleman’s Magazine, instead of in the periodical itself, ensuring even more text for the reader’s money. Most other periodicals, such as the literary periodical The Grub-street Journal (1730-1737), printed advertisements in the periodical itself, taking up to one-third of the available space, which was usually one sheet, selling for 2d., whereas The Gentleman’s Magazine cost 6d. for which the reader bought three-and-a-half to four sheets of text, without any advertisements. The Grub-street Journal and other periodicals, for instance the Monthly Chronicle (1728-1732) and the Weekly Register (1730-1734), owned by the same conger that ran The Gentleman’s Magazine's biggest rival, The London Magazine (1732-1785), blamed their bankruptcy directly on Cave, who even got his material for free. From the 1720s onwards, Cave was employed by the General Post Office as an Inspector of the Franks, a position which he retained until he was pensioned. This gave him free access to all the material printed in England, and enabled him to distribute his own periodical free of charge throughout the country, illustrating one of the extremely clever ways in which he unscrupulously (mis)used circumstances to his own benefit, regardless of the fact that he duped others by doing so. In December 1737, “Bavius” of The Grub-street Journal ac­ cused Cave of “having blown up so many Papers with the Powder stoln [sic] from them, [that he] deserves the name of Chief Engineer of Grub-streef\ and commented that the contents of The Gentleman’s Magazine “were collected from above forty Papers, for the copy of which [...] more than twenty guineas had been paid by the Proprietors; and more than two hundred for the Stamps; he [Cave], with the assistance only of a low-priced Operator, heaped together monthly; freeing himself at once from two heavy burthens, Copy-money, and the Stamp-duty. The only charge then remaining being that of paper and print” (Barker 1981,26). Thus, Cave profited greatly from laws which threw others into despondency, and, abus­ ing both the law and his confrères, he was able to print a periodical that was much cheaper than the others. So cheap, that it was an instant success, and many periodical readers immediately switched allegiance from whatever newspaper or periodical they were reading, and bought The Gentleman’s Magazine instead, which, as it promised on its title page, contained “More in Quantity, and greater Variety, than any Thing of the Kind”. Every monthly issue consisted of 48 to 64 octavo pages, with articles on politics, re­ ligion, science, culture, and literature. The Poetical Essays contained two to six pages of poems, and the Historical Chronicle domestic and foreign news, much useful informati­ on, such as stocks, prices of grain, tea, and other commodities, and lists of births and deaths of eminent London citizens. It aimed at a readership consisting of working, educa­ 108 Titia Ram ted gentlemen who did not have the amount of leisure of the rich and famous written about in its Historical Chronicle, but did have a broad interest in news, politics, science, and culture. Its interests were so varied that it is difficult to come up with a subject that was not discussed in it. Starting out as a Reader’s Digest, it soon developed into an original periodical written almost entirely by its own audience. The beginning of this development can be traced back to 1734, when some ten articles written by correspondents were printed, around 3% of its total output of 310 articles for that year.1 In 1735, the number of correspondents’ contributions had already risen to a little over 10%, and by 1737 almost half of the arti­ cles was written by its readers. In the years after 1737 correspondence averaged 73% of the total, culminating in a grand total of 94% in 1754.2 The development from a monthly collection of summaries and abbreviations into a platform for contemporary thought and culture was not a result of an important modifica­ tion in editorial policy, however. It appears to have been a natural transformation that needed time to grow and mature and that had not been constructed by Cave before the foundation of his magazine, but developed after it. Soon after its establishment, readers began to submit their own material for publication in The Gentleman’s Magazine, and it appears that Cave decided immediately to make use of their offers. As he was entangled in a war with the periodical proprietors he stole his material from, what would be more convenient, and cheap, than to have the readers compose their own miscellany? He de­ cided to explicitly invite his readers to write their own periodical, which they gladly did. Within ten years of its establishment, The Gentleman’s Magazine had developed from a monthly digest of existing material into a magazine conducted in a way unimaginable a decade earlier.

Sylvanus Urban

Eighteenth-century periodicals were usually written by an omniscient pseudonymous author, a censor morum who tells his audience how to conduct their lives. This was often accomplished in the form of a dialogue, or a letter to the editor which was answered in the periodical. The correspondents of these epistles were mostly fictitious, and they were really written by the editor. The spectatorial tradition was clearly designed to serve a moral end:

1 It is not possible to determine the exact number of articles submitted by correspondents, since most articles are not signed. Some articles may be either written by the magazine’s editors, or by correspondents. 2 Percentages o f Original Articles: 1731: < 1 1736: 27 1741:38 1746: 78 1751: 84 1732: < 1 1737: 47 1742: 48 1747: 83 1752: 93 1733: < 1 1738: 70 1743:61 1748: 82 1753: 93 1734: 3 1739: 50 1744: 78 1749: 73 1754: 94 1735: 11 1740:55 1745: 74 1750: 88 The Gentleman’s Magazine; or Speakers’ Comer 109

“Reformist essays such as those of the Spectator point towards actions or attitudes that readers should change or adopt. The public rhetoric of the Spectator means that the proper conclusion of essays lies in the effect on the lives of those who read them” (Knight 1993, 46). But there was one drawback to this genre, because “Like other “literary” periodicals of the eighteenth century, the essay serial was dis­ tinctly a class publication, in that the general public was little touched by it Its readers belonged exclusively to the leisure classes” (Graham 1966, 143). This was exactly where Edward Cave with his best-selling Gentleman’s Magazine stepped in. It was expressly designed for a broader reading audience, consisting of rea­ ders, not exclusively of the leisured, but also of the “middling classes”, those “who had enough money and leisure time to acquire a small but solid library and prints or paintings to decorate their houses, and to enjoy periodic visits to the theatre, art exhibits and con­ certs” (Brewer 1997, 93). Cave’s pseudonym, “Sylvan us Urban”, referred to this target audience. In an era when urbanity was virtually synonymous with being a gentleman, the “Urban“ part in a pseudonym used in a magazine published in Europe’s metropolis was not surprising. The “Sylvanus” part in Cave’s pseudonym was less obvious, but it was very deliberately chosen by Edward Cave. With this pseudonym, he referred to his provincial network, and told his reader that his magazine was not strictly meant for the London rea­ der/contributor, but also for the gentleman from the provinces, thus opening up the met­ ropolitan cultural discussion to the entire Kingdom. Regardless of the fact that most readers of The Gentleman’s Magazine addressed their mail to “Sylvanus Urban”, he did not give wise advice to his readers like the censor mo- rum in the spectatorial periodical. He did not tell them how to solve their problems, or how to run their lives. Sylvanus Urban did not answer correspondents’ mail at all. In­ stead, he let other readers respond to questions posed by their peers, creating an interac­ tive forum for his readers, who were real people from London and the provinces: “under the leadership of Defoe and Cave, the letter to the editor had been trans­ planted to the weekly journal and the monthly miscellany, where it quickly came to enjoy an abundant new life, with this difference in the miscellany, however, that Cave’s correspondents tended to be real rather than imaginary. To an unprece­ dented degree, The Gentleman’s Magazine made contact with a genuine writing audience” (Mayo 1962, 322). In The Gentleman’s Magazine, letters by contributors were answered by other contribu­ tors without any explicit interference by the editors. The lack of a censor morum in the form of an authoritative figure with a superior education, and its replacement by censores morum in the form of peers, is very significant on a cultural level, since it is indicative of a move towards increasing cultural independence of the reading audience. In Cave’s magazine, the opinion of the reader, even of a reader with less than a university educa­ tion, was taken seriously. It is one of the first examples of a platform specifically created for those with less than the highest education. Readers were invited to vent their opinions on scientific, religious, cultural and literary matters, instead of being told what to think and how to act by a person who by definition “knows better”. 110 Titia Ram

Whereas other periodical proprietors were complaining about the behaviour of their audi­ ence, like “Mr. Stonecastle”, who in 1735 objects that “As a Weekly Author, nothing gives me more Chagrin than the Importunity of my Correspondents, who all eager to have their Productions appear in print, never fail insisting to have them inserted in my nexi journal”3 Cave repeatedly requested his audience to send in their correspondence, as we can read for instance in the Introduction to the fifth edition for 1731: “On the Republication of this Volume it may be expected we should add something to the foregoing Introduction. All we have to say is, That as this Undertaking has met with uncommon Success, ‘tis but just, and our indispensable Duty to pay the most grateful Acknowledgements to the Publick from whom we have received such Encouragement. We likewise own our Obligation to divers ingenious Correspon­ dents by furnishing us with several Pieces of Poetry and other useful Hints, have not a little contributed to the Embellishment of the Work; and as it has been our Endeavour from the Beginning to improve our Scheme, and store our Magazine with such Variety of Matter as might be adapted to the Taste and Humour of all our Readers, so we shall assiduously apply ourselves to what we judge will yield them the best Entertainment; and take it as a Favour of such persons as will correct any Mistakes of the Publick Papers we may possibly fall into; or shall please to com­ municate any pieces of Wit or Entertainment proper to be inserted, directing to the Author at St John’s Gate” (G.M. 1731, introduction). Cave took seriously a reading audience hitherto largely unnoticed, and at the same time conveniently created a way to earn more money by tapping in to a new resource: the provincial reader. His reading audience did not need much encouragement to be persua­ ded to write their own periodical. Within five years after its establishment, many corre­ spondents gave their opinion on matters written about by other correspondents, answered questions posed by their peers, and sent in their poetry for publication. The immense popularity of The Gentleman’s Magazine was largely due to the fact that Cave knew how to provide for these (new) needs of a (new) reading audience. It was unprecedented in the creation of a “Speakers’ Comer” for anyone who felt a need to write and be read. Not only did the amateur reader find a place where he could express his opinions on scientific, moral, religious, philosophical, and cultural matters, The Gen­ tleman ’s Magazine was also the best place for any aspiring poet to have his poetry pu­ blished. As such, it helped emancipate the reading audience in Britain, and gave the reader a voice.

The Reading Audience

Who exactly were the readers/writers that were given a voice by Edward Cave? The diversity and relative cheapness of The Gentleman’s Magazine was an obvious ploy to bind the cost-conscious, i.e. working, consumer. As we can read in the Introduction to 1731, its purpose was

3 Universal Spectator, N° 329, January 25, 1735. Quoted in Mayo 1962, 320. The Gentleman’s Magazine; or Speakers’ Comer 111

“in the first place is to give Monthly a View of all the Pieces of Wit, Humour, or Intelligence, daily offer’d to the Publick in the News-papers, (which of late are so multiply’d, as to render it impossible, unless a man makes it a business, to consult them all) and in the next place we shall join therewith some other matters of Use or Amusement that will be communicated to us. [...] it often happens, that many things deserving Attention, contained in them, are only seen by Accident, and others not sufficiently publish’d or preserved for universal benefit and Information. [...] This Consideration has induced several Gentlemen to promote a Monthly Collection, to treasure up, as in a Magazine, the most remarkable Pieces on the Subjects above­ mention’d, or at least impartial Abridgments thereof, as a Method much better cal­ culated to preserve those Things that are curious, than that of transcribing” (G.M. 1731, introduction). Apart from being very cheap and varied, The Gentleman’s Magazine offered to be of service to its audience by being a “Reader’s Digest” for those who did not have the time to make it “a business” to read everything that is printed each month, i.e. it offered to select the most interesting pieces from the press, for the use and entertainment of people who did have to work for a living, but also had a broad cultural interest and wished to participate in the cultural debate. Since it was meant to be read by a broad, non-speciali- zed public, its interest in the arts, history, medicine, astronomy and mathematics was rather amateurish. This does not mean that the magazine was not read by specialists. We know from correspondence that the medical sections were enjoyed also by medical doc­ tors, and that literati wrote many of the articles on literature. But the entire periodical was very accessible and specifically meant to be read by any amateur of moderate learning. As its title suggests, The Gentleman *s Magazine was obviously more interested in catching the male reader’s eye than in getting women’s attention. But women were defi­ nitely not discouraged from reading it, as can be gathered from the many letters and po­ ems printed in it which were written by women. There are even some remarks explicitly mentioning the fact that since many women read the miscellany, it would be nice if the gentlemen who submitted poetry in Latin or Greek would also send in an English transla­ tion with their work, to oblige those who were not skilled in those languages, including men without a classical education: “Mr Urban, the following Translation, if you have no better, you are desired to in­ sert in your next, for the Sake of the Ladies and some truly English Gentlemen who understand no Latin” (GM 1742, 214). The title-page of The Gentleman’s Magazine contained two mottoes, which also tell us much about its target reading audience. The first, prodesse & delectare, alluded to the aim of the magazine to instruct and delight, but rather instruct with delight, than either instruct or delight. The articles focussed on the instructive element without exception, and delight for the sake of enjoyment was condemned just as often. The meaning of the second motto, e pluribus unum, is twofold. First, in 1731 when the magazine was estab­ lished, it referred to the fact that therein all the other periodicals were joined and made into one, in which all the useful and entertaining elements were combined. Later, when The Gentleman’s Magazine became an increasingly original periodical, the motto ob­ tained a more symbolical meaning, as it now joined the voices of readers from all over the country, and even beyond, into one great national outlet of contemporary thought. 112 Titia Ram

Another helpful clue in the identification of the reading audience of any periodical can be found in its advertisements. The kinds of advertisements that were used, and the kinds that were not, offer significant pointers regarding the intended reading audience of the magazine. By the end of the year, when the reader had collected twelve monthly issues of The Gentleman’s Magazine, a Supplement, an Index, a title page, and the loose engrav­ ings that came with it from the 1740s onwards, he would bring his collection to a book binder who would then bind them into a yearly volume. In this process, the monthly blue wrappers were disposed of. It is very unusual for any eighteenth-century periodical wrappers to survive, but the Bodleian Library in Oxford has a collection of forty wrap­ pers of The Gentleman’s Magazine dating from the period 1740-1748, hitherto unnoticed. Analysis of these wrappers has provided some very valuable information concerning the reading audience of Cave’s magazine, and his position in the eighteenth-century English publishing field.4 The forty wrappers comprise a little over 45 per cent of the total number of wrappers from these years.5 They contained 353 different book advertisements, and five different advertisements for non-literary material, such as Tomlinson Busby’s “soft Cake Soap”, sold a few doors away from St John’s Gate, where Cave lived and the miscellany was printed at St John’s Lane, and lottery tickets, sold by a man with the very appropriate name of J. Hazard. Some advertisements appeared only once, but many virtually each month over these nine years. On average twenty-five advertisements were printed on each wrapper, of which usually ten were new ones. When the advertisements are compa­ red to those in other English eighteenth-century periodicals, we see that a strikingly high number of advertisements concern books. It was customary, even in the specifically liter­ ary periodicals, to advertise non-literary articles such as soap, oil, stationary, and espe­ cially medicines. We also find many notices concerning run-away maids and apprentices, and lost horses. There were no such advertisements on the wrappers of The Gentleman’s Magazine, nor were there any for medicines, whereas The Grub-street Journal, like most periodicals from this period, lavishly advertised with remedies against, for instance, ve­ nereal diseases. A possible explanation for this discrepancy could be that The Gentle­ man's Magazine may have been subsidised by the Walpole administration, thus having less need to earn an additional income through the sale of advertisement space6, but the main cause probably was that the editors did not want to offend its target-reading audi­ ence. A very specific group of readers The Gentleman’s Magazine aimed at were the cler­ gy. Theology in all its aspects is one of the most thoroughly discussed subjects in the articles, and a large share of the advertisements was also on this subject. A remark on the wrapper for February 1831, when The Gentleman’s Magazine had existed a century, - confirmed that the clergy were indeed a large part of its audience:

4 For all the advertisements from this period, see Ram 1999, 539-605. 5 In total, 117 wrappers were printed (nine years, thirteen wrappers per year, for twelve months and one Supplement). 6 In his article “Stating the Facts Right About Defoe’s Review”, Downie 1993, 14; Downie explains that Defoe’s Review did not need to place as many advertisements as the other peri­ odicals for this reason. For Cave’s possible funding by Walpole, see Ram 1999, 10-14. The Gentleman’s Magazine; or Speakers’ Comer 113

“to the interest of the Clergy attention has always been paid; and, as articles of pe­ culiar interest to that respectable and numerous body are to be found in each num­ ber, the continuance of their support may be rationally expected”. But the editors were not always this specific in referring to their target audience. Never­ theless, much useful information about the reading audience can be deduced when the articles in The Gentleman’s Magazine, the names of the authors of the poems and arti­ cles, but also the advertisements are analysed. The 353 book advertisements can be clas­ sed in six different categories, which I labelled “History & Ancients”, with 86 titles; “Religion”, with 83 titles; “Science”, 72 titles; “Education”, 46; “Literature”, 36; and “Miscellaneous”, with 30 titles. Within the literary section, I adhered to the eighteenth- century usage of the term, in the sense in which it is used in the Index of The Gentle­ man ’s Magazine. This means that apart from poetry, drama, and novels, many other cate­ gories which now do not fall in this section are included here. Far more often than liter­ ary titles do we see advertisements for religious, semi-scientific and educational titles, and these were also discussed more often in the articles in The Gentleman’s Magazine. More attention was paid to edifying and educational aspects than to entertainment, both in the magazine itself and in the advertisements. The advertisements in The Gentleman’s Magazine were clearly much more on infor­ mative titles than they were on entertaining ones. The percentage of educational, reli­ gious, and “morally responsible” texts was extremely high. The advertisements were clearly aimed at people with a certain status, people who employed servants and had a moral responsibility over others: educators like clergymen and teachers, but also hus­ bandmen and tradesmen. Judging from the advertisements, The Gentleman’s Magazine was a periodical meant to be read not only by educated gentlemen who had an authorita­ tive, educative role in society, but also by those who wanted to educate or “better” them­ selves (so they could appear educated), as can be concluded from the high percentage of titles in which it was expressly stated that they are suited to those of “the meanest capaci­ ties”. Furthermore, the advertisements also indicate that The Gentleman’s Magazine was read by people from the provinces, as many advertisements were by provincial publishers (“sold by the booksellers of Norwich”, etc.). Edward Cave himself was a provincial self-made man who had struggled from early life to be accepted by his “betters”. In his youth he was not accepted by his schoolmates, who were all “above him in rank” but apparently not in intelligence (Johnson 1754, 54- 58). Then, as a printer from the province, he was not allowed into any London conger of publishers. The ideology of wanting to help those without the formal education or the right status or place of birth, seeps through in the management of The Gentleman’s Ma­ gazine, which is clearly designed for those with less than the university education and high rank in life, (but also for those with it) or those living in the provinces. All these different people, the educated and the less educated, the young and the old, Londoners and people from the provinces, were Cave’s target audience, as can be deduced from the kind of advertisements that feature on the wrappers. 114 Titia Ram

The Poetical Essays

Another rich source of information on the reading audience of The Gentleman’s Maga­ zine is the periodical itself. As The Gentleman’s Magazine was for the most part written by its own readers, its reading audience can be ascertained through identification of its writers. The contents of Cave’s miscellany can be divided into three groups: prose essays on miscellaneous subjects, poems, and news and editorial articles. The news was taken from other periodicals and written by professional editors, as were the editorial articles. These writers were not really part of the reading-audience of Cave’s miscellany. How­ ever the authors of the essays and poems were readers, and generally, those who wrote prose essays also contributed poems. Exactly 5,019 poems (Ram 1999, 185-514)7 were published in The Gentleman’s Magazine during its first twenty-four years of existence, the period when Edward Cave stood at its helm, and roughly 90 per cent of those were contributed anonymously. We do not know with certainty by how many different poets the 5,019 poems in The Gentleman’s Magazine were written. Notwithstanding many obvious drawbacks in attri­ bution of authorship in an eighteenth-century periodical, it is possible to draw many general conclusions regarding authorship, and thus readership, of the poems in Cave’s magazine. Although we do not know exactly how many poems were written by men, and how many by women, we do know that the vast majority of them were written by men. Although we do not know the occupation of all the poets, we do know that a high per­ centage were written by clergymen and schoolteachers, that most were written by ama­ teurs from the provinces, and only some by professional poets from London. Combined with the information on the reading audience that can be gathered from editorial remarks and the advertisements, it is possible to draw a surprisingly clear picture after all. Some poems were published anonymously, others under a pseudonym, and of some 10% of the poems the real name of the poet accompanied the poem. Some poets were unknown in the eighteenth century, and are still in the twentieth. Some were marginal authors at the time, but were included in the canon later in the century, like Samuel Johnson and Mark Akenside. Some, like Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope, were part of the establishment in the eighteenth century, and their works are still considered canonical in the 1990s; and some, like Colley Cibber and Richard Glover, were of considerable renown in the eight­ eenth century, but are now largely unknown to the general public. Over the years, several scholars have added names to the small list of known authors, beginning with John Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century (1812- 1815).8 Over the last four years, I compiled a “First-Line Index” of all the poems in The Gentleman’s Magazine, 1731-1754. Using sources such as D.F. Foxon’s English Verse 1701-1750 (1975), Robert Dodsley’s Collection of Poems by Several Hands (1748- 1758), Francis Fawkes’s Poetical Calendar (1763), Moses Mendez’s Collection of the Most esteemed Pieces of Poetry (1767), and George Pearch’s Collection of Poems

1 See the “Index of First Lines from The Gentleman's Magazine, 1731-1754”. In: Ram 1999. 8 See also Carlson 1938, Bond 1940, Pailler 1975, Kuist, 1982, Sherbo 1984, 1989, Montluzin 1992. The Gentleman’s Magazine; or Speakers’ Comer 115

(1768),9 I found many poems that had hitherto not been attributed to The Gentleman’s Magazine. Of these, some poems were by relatively well-known authors, such as Paul Whitehead, Matthew Prior, Thomas Warton, Edward Moore, Edward Young, William Collins, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Patrick Delaney, Thomas Sheridan, and John Locke. Most of these poets, however, have been largely forgotten by the general public.10 Overall, the poems were written by gentlemen amateurs, many of whom lived in the provinces. Poems were sent to the editors by both men and women, by young and old, by people with a university degree, but also by people without a classical background. Po­ ems were sent in from all over the country, from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and there are even a few poems from Italy, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Poets generally sent in their own poetry, but sometimes poems were submitted by friends or admirers. Poems were sent in by and of living authors, but also of deceased poets. There are some 250 poets, together responsible for roughly 500 poems, whose names were given in the poetical pages of The Gentleman’s Magazine. Regrettably for the twentieth-century scho­ lar, it is very likely that some authors whose poems were printed with their real names, also had some poems printed anonymously, or under a pseudonym, obscuring the data about the poets’ identity and how many of their poems were printed. Alexander Pope’s poems for instance, were partly printed with his name, but large parts of his “Essay on Man” were printed anonymously. But Pope’s poetry is very traceable. The fact that fragments were accompanied by the remark “From The Essay on Man”, is enough for anyone with a moderate knowledge of eighteenth-century poetry to conclude that this is by Pope. Similarly, many poems by Jonathan Swift were published under a pseudonym, generally “Dean S—t”. Together with the frequent hint that this poet is Irish, it is not too hard to determine that this must be Jonathan Swift. But most poetry in The Gentleman }s Magazine was written by unknown amateur poets, of which it is impossible by the mere title of the poem to conclude by whom it was written. There are several ways to find out things about them, however, both from clues given in the magazine itself, and from other sources. Many poems in The Gentleman’s Magazine were written by personal friends of the editors, illustrative of how the network of cross-dependancies around Cave and his peri­ odical worked. Anna Williams for instance, was a very close friend of Samuel Johnson, Cave’s editor and literary critic from 1738 until the end of the 1740s, as were Elizabeth Carter, David Garrick, Constantia Grierson, Mary Masters, Samuel Richardson, Richard Savage, Christopher Smart, John Boyle, 5th Earl of Cork & Orrery, and John Douglas, who all contributed poetry to the magazine. Other evidence of networks of friends and acquaintances around the magazine can be found among the contributors of many poems and scientific articles. Thomas Birch was one of Cave’s earliest paid critical advisers and through him some contributors were acquired. He was one of the editors of Bayle’s General Dictionary, which was published by Cave. Birch’s friend and editorial assistant, the Rev. John Lockman, wrote the life of Samuel Butler for the General Dictionary, and

9 Foxon 1975, Dodsley 1748-1758, Fawkes 1763, Mendez 1767, Pearch 1768. 10 The biographical information in my Index is far from definite, but its goal is to offer a useful tool for the study of the poetry in The Gentleman's Magazine and in the eighteenth century in general. 116 Titia Ram contributed poetry to The Gentleman’s Magazine, without payment like the other con­ tributors (Carlson 1938, 15). John Peter Bernard was also a friend of Birch and contribu­ tor to the General Dictionary, who also furnished The Gentleman’s Magazine with arti­ cles. George Sale, bom in Kent, was an orientalist who practised as a solicitor in London. He contributed all the oriental biographies to the General Dictionary, and wrote many articles for The Gentleman’s Magazine. The association of these four men with Cave through their involvement with the General Dictionary gives testimony of part of the intricate network around Edward Cave and The Gentleman 's Magazine. This network has remained largely unnoticed by scholars of the periodical, but offers some very interesting clues as to how The Gentleman’s Magazine functioned as an institution in the literary world. Especially in the early 1730s, when The Gentleman’s Magazine had only existed for a short time, Cave was assisted by a very large number of business acquaintances and friends, both from the provinces and London, who as a group made the magazine into the successful miscellany it had become by the end of the decade. Around 1750, William Rider, John Smith, Adam Calamy, and John Canton wrote sci­ entific and theological essays and poems for The Gentleman’s Magazine. All four were youths from Mr Watkins’s Academy of Spital Square who sent in contributions to Cave while studying there. These were not the only very young men writing for Cave, as some students of John Eames were also contributing articles and poetry (Carlson 1938, 18).11 Eames was master of the Fund Academy, Tenter Alley, Moorfields, a Dissenting school. Another scientific correspondent for The Gentleman’s Magazine was Peter Collinson, who lived at Windermere. He was an antiquary and natural scientist. Another contributor to The Gentleman’s Magazine was Cromwell Mortimer, a physician, who wrote several articles on distemper in homed cattle for The Gentleman’s Magazine in the 1740s. Peter Whalley was the son of Peter Whalley of Rugby, Cave’s home town. He wrote several historical works, literary biographies, and An Enquiry into the Learning of Shakespeare (1748), several pieces of which were printed in The Gentleman’s Magazine. John Ryland, a lawyer and West Indian merchant and businessman (Clifford 1979, 32), was married to the sister of John Hawkesworth who was literary editor on Cave’s staff, and also a friend of Samuel Johnson. John Payne, an accountant turned publisher (Ibid., 33), contributed some poems and worked together with Cave on many printing projects. But these friends, acquaintances and editors aside, most poems were sent in by and of poets that had no personal ties to Cave’s magazine. Some of these sent in their poetry using their own name, such as William Boyce, composer to the Chapel Royal; William Kenrick, son of a stay maker at Watford, who became a notorious hack of a very dubious character; William Whitehead, who was very popular in the eighteenth century, both as a poet and as a playwright; William Broome, a well-known Greek scholar and poet, who assisted with Elijah Fenton in Pope’s translation of the Iliad; William Bickerstaff, an antiquary, undermaster and curate from Leicester; Samuel Bowden, a physician from Frome; the Rev. James Miller and John Ward, both minor authors; Anthony Alsop, a poet and classical scholar who published a translation of iEsop’s fables in 1698, and whose poems were printed in Cave’s miscellany posthumously. All these poets were more or

11 Carlson does not mention names of students that wrote for Cave. The Gentleman’s Magazine; or Speakers’ Comer 117

less renowned in the eighteenth-century, unlike Richard Yate, an early contributor to The Gentleman *s Magazine who lived at Clarely, Shropshire (which is where his poems were sent from), the 80 year-old Rev. John Sackette from Folkestone, who with 50 poems in 24 years was the most-printed non-anonymous poets in The Gentleman’s Magazine, and most of the other authors whose pieces were printed in the magazine. Of the known poets, fifteen were women. Mary Barber, Elizabeth Carter, and Mary Masters were all personal friends of Cave’s, who was printer and publisher of their vol­ umes of poetry. Jane Brereton’s daughter, Charlotte, also sent poetry to The Gentleman’s Magazine. Some poems were printed posthumously, including examples by Anne Finch, Countess of Winchelsea and Constantia Grierson whose son, George Abraham Grierson, was a friend of Samuel Johnson. Laetitia Pilkington, Elizabeth Rowe, and Charlotte Len­ nox were renowned authors, and by Margaret Woffington, a well-known Irish actress at the time. About one, Mary Rowland, nothing is known. The poems of two foreigners were especially popular in The Gentleman’s Magazine. One of these was Voltaire, whose poems in French, some in translation, and parts of several prose essays were printed.12 The Dutch Willem van Haren’s “Aan de Groot- Britannische natie, grootmoedig volk!” (“Ode to the British Nation”), “Lof der vrede” (“Love of Peace”), “Aan zijne Groot-Britannische Majesteit” (“To his Brittannic Maj­ esty”), “Aan de koninginne van Hongaryen” (“Ode to the Queen of Hungary”), and “Le­ onidas” were translated by one of Cave’s hacks, Samuel Boyse, and (partly) printed in The Gentleman’s Magazine. Most poets did not use their real names when they submitted their poetry to The Gen­ tleman’s Magazine, however. Among the poems that were contributed anonymously and which were not attributed to the magazine before, are many by clergymen. The Rev. Thomas Gibbons was a dissenting minister from Reak, Cambridgeshire, who attended Mr Eames’s academy in Moorfields, and lived and worked in London for the rest of his life. Jabez Earle was a presbyterian minister from Yorkshire who also moved to London, where he was a lecturer at different Presbyterian chapels. Henry Taylor was a theological writer from South Weald, Essex, who was educated at Queen’s College, Oxford. James Sterling was educated at Trinity College, and migrated to Maryland around 1744, where he became a preacher in Kent County. Samuel Wesley the younger was the brother of the famous Methodists John and Charles Wesley. His sister, Mehetabel Wright-Wesley also had two poems printed in The Gentleman’s Magazine for October 1733.13 Other anonymous women were Esther Clark- Lewis, bom in Holt, Wiltshire; Mary Monck, whose poetry appeared in The Gentleman’s Magazine posthumously; and Henrietta Knight, Lady Luxborough. Her Edstone neigh-

12 “On Reading the King of Prussia’s Dedication”, GM 1753, 45 with translation; “Under M. van Haren’s Picture”, GM 1747, 97; “To Mr de Haren“, GM 1745, 48, translation; “Mr Voltaire’s Letter to his Prussian Majesty”, GM 1740, 406, translation; “No Title” GM 1746, 216; “Epitre a sa Majesté Frédéric II”, GM 1740, 406; “Extempore left on Mad. de Pompadour’s Toilet”, GM, (1746), 216, translation; “Upon King Stanislaus’s Election”, GM 1733, 600, translation; “One Scene of Zaire” GM 1733, 261, translation. 13 Lonsdale 1984, 165, mistakenly refers to “A Riddle” as being first published in Poems on Several Occasions (1862). 118 Titia Ram bour William Somervile also published in Cave’s periodical, as did several other mem­ bers of the English nobility, such as John Hervey, Baron Hervey of Ickworth, Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, George Lyttelton, first Baron Lyttelton, William Pulteney, Earl of Bath, and the Irish Robert Nugent, Earl Nugent. But the nobil­ ity accounted for only a very small percentage of poems in The Gentleman’s Magazine, whereas most were written by “ordinary” men who did not make it into the Dictionary of National Biography. Some who did were Henry Baker, Edward Lovibond, William Dun- combe, Noel Broxholme, Robert Long, John Byrom, John Winstanley, Thomas Tickell, James Arbuckle, and Richardson Pack.

Pseudonymous Authors

Roughly 875 different pseudonyms appear in the poetical sections 1731-1754. Like the authors who wrote under their real name, some pseudonymous poets wrote several po­ ems, some only one. Again, it is not possible to draw any definite conclusions about aut­ horship based on these data, because some authors possibly used several pseudonyms, also wrote anonymously, or used their real name on other occasions. What also obscures the data about the pseudonymous poets is the fact that some pseudonyms were used by different authors, as for instance “Britannicus”, who is not always Mark Akenside, and “Amasius”, who is Dr John Swan, but also an unidentified author, according to a note in The Gentleman’s Magazine for January, 1739 (41). Christopher Smart used the pseu­ donyms “C.S”, “C.S. ¿Etat 16”, “Mr Lun”, “S.”, and “Z.A.”. The unknown Foster Webb is “Lycidas”, “Telarius”, and “Vedastus”; Robert Brereton “Br-n”, “R o-b -n ”, and “Ro- -br—on”. Of the 875 different pseudonyms (which are counted as different authors), about 100 were female and 775 male names. It is assumed that the poems written under a fe­ male pseudonym were indeed mostly written by women, and those under a male pseu­ donym by men, but the possibility must be taken into account that women might have used a male pen name, and vice versa. Some poets used pseudonyms that (appear to) say nothing about the poet, such as “Chloe”, or “Eugenio”. Other poets give small clues, such as those by lovers, “Amoret”, “Arthur Amorous”, “A. Trueblue”, “Constans”, “N. Lovemore”, and “Obediah Love- more”, and other amiable creatures such as “Frank Friendly” and “Frank Neitherside”. We also find lots and lots of “friends” in all kinds of disguises, such as a friend of the Anglican Church, “Philo-ecclesise-Anglise”, of English religion in general, “Philo-theo- britannicus”, and of religion in general, “Philotheos”. There was a friend of marriage, “Philogamus”, of song, “Philomelos”, and of the city, or of Cave, “Philorbanus”. All these were pseudonyms which revealed but little information about the author’s identity, but some pseudonyms incorporated clues which revealed more. Although they usually concealed the true identity of the poet, they did provide us with many useful hints regard­ ing for instance age, sex, occupation, or place of residence of the author, and thus help to make the picture of the reading (and writing) audience of The Gentleman *s Magazine more clear. The Gentleman’s Magazine; or Speakers’ Comer 119

Some pseudonyms tell us something about the age (and/or) sex of the author, such as “A Young Lady”, “A Youth”, “Young Gentleman”, and “Young Lad”, whereas others were even more general, such as “Somebody”. Some were a little more specific, however, such as a “Young Lady in Norfolk”, and a “Young Lady in Northumberland”, or “Young Gent, from Cambridge”, and a “Youth of Cambridge”. It also occurred that poets gave clues in the pseudonyms themselves about their occupation or educational background, such as for instance “Clericus”, or “J.S. Academicus”, “A Physician”, and students, for instance “Camillus, a Student in Physick”, or “Cheshire, a Student of Cambridge”. Over twenty different occupations were given from different strata of eighteenth-century soci­ ety. Some were from less educated groups, such as a “Kettle-bender”, a “Farmer”, and a “Brick-layer”. There were also many poetical clergymen: “J.H. a Curate near London”, “A Minister of Devonshire”, a “Scotch Clergyman”, a “Young Clergyman from Worces­ tershire”, Laurence Sterne, who used the semi-pseudonym “Rev. Mr. St—n”, and many more. Some poems were written by noblemen, such as the Earls of Middlesex and Orrery who wrote under the pseudonyms “E. of M~dd~x” and “E. of O— y”. In all, 77 poets gave away their occupation, of which 34 were pseudonymous, and 43 gave their real name. In total, 33 of these, or 43%, were men of the cloth, such as minis­ ters, curates, or people who named themselves the “Reverend” so-and-so. We come ac­ ross 26, or 34%, academics: students, M.A.’s, M.D.’s, etc. The nobility was represented by 8 members, or 10%. There were also 3 men who probably had their occupation in law, “Lawyer”, “Jury-Man”, and “Togatus”. A bit lower on the educational scale we find a “Tradesman from Chester”, and “Cantius, a Yeoman of Kent”. The military was also represented, with a “Gentleman in the Fleet”, and “Soldado”. Of all the place names given with poems, 41 were sent in with anonymous poems and 197 either given with the pseudonym, as for instance “J.G.S. from Canterbury”, or refer­ red to in the pseudonym itself, such as for instance “A Scots Poet, A.B. Aberdeen”. Sev­ enteen poets who signed their poetry with their real name also gave their place of abode. Of the sum total of 230 place names that were given in The Gentleman’s Magazine, 184 were English, and twenty-two Irish/Scottish/Welsh. Eight poems were sent in from America, and four from respectively Belgium, Holland, Italy, and Jamaica.14 Although no poems were sent in from France, twelve (translations of) French poems were printed, by Messieurs D’Ardene, des Barreaux, Demaucroix, Favier, Fuzelier, Jallange, Peselier, and Ricaut,15 apart from the (translations of) poems by Voltaire. Of 38 poems which were accompanied by a topographical clue, I have not been able to determine with cert­ ainty what their origin is, because the clue given is so meagre that it leaves open many possibilities, such as “R—mp-n” which could be Rampton or Rimpton, “C -n” which

14 Although only one poem is sent from Holland (Rotterdam) many more poems from Dutch authors are printed in The Gentleman’s Magazine, by Willem van Haren, (see above), and a Mr “Schaemwell-Peninck”, probably a misspelling for Schimmelpenninck. 15 From D’Ardene’s Fables Nouvelles, GM 1748, 372, translation; des Barreaux, “An Hymn” GM 1743, 436; Demaucroix, no Title, GM 1753, 242, with translation; Favier, “Epigram on M. Vol­ taire”, GM 1748, 280, translation; Fuzelier, “In Praise of Coffee” GM 1742, 438, translation; de Jallange, “Voltaire vange”/ “Voltaire revenged”, GM 1750, 230, with translation; “Idylle”, GM 1750, 279, with translation; Peselier, “Reason taken Captive”, from Fables Nouvelles, GM 1748, 470. translation; Ricaut, “Ode upon Water”, GM 1748, 280, translation. 120 Titia Ram

could be Cairn or Clurni, although probably someone from Clunn would have signed “Cl- nn”, and someone from “C--g”, which leaves open almost twenty different possibilities. What is most striking when we take a look at the poems that are from England is the fact that the farther one is removed from London, the fewer poems were sent in. Of the 184 English poems, 63 (34%) came from the South East (of which eleven from London, and twenty-two from what is now called “Greater London”). Twenty-five poems (14%) were sent in from East Anglia, twenty (11%) from the South West, thirty (16%) from the West Midlands, and twenty-two (12%) from the East Midlands. Farther north there was a significant decrease in the number of poems sent in: eleven (6%) from Yorkshire & Humberside, five (3%) from the North East, and eight (4%) from the North. Outside of England, five (3%) poems were sent in from Wales, five from Ireland, and twelve (7%) from Scotland. Nonetheless a mere eleven of the 5,019 poems were from London proper, whereas 143 were from the rest of England (as far as we know). This leads to the conclusion that most of the total supply of poetry in The Gentleman’s Magazine was sent in from the provinces. These data again confirm the hypothesis that The Gentleman’s Magazine was a periodical which was read mainly by a provincial reading-audience, and place Edward Cave as a very important mediator between culture from London and that of the provin­ ces.

Cave & Dodsley

In studies of the eighteenth century, Edward Cave is usually described as a minor figure, the proprietor of The Gentleman’s Magazine and employer of Samuel Johnson, but never as important in his own right. Although The Gentleman’s Magazine is cited as “the ex­ emplar for wit and taste” in mid-century, it is not even mentioned in the section “The Role of Journals” in Blackwell’s Companion to the Enlightenment (Sgard 1991, 253- 255). The Encyclopedia of the British Press describes Cave simply as “publisher/editor”, and The Gentleman’s Magazine as “intended to be a monthly amalgam of the best news, essays and information from the many daily and weekly newspapers.” (Griffiths 1992, 149, 262) In the Oxford Companion to English Literature, Cave is mentioned as “a Lon­ don printer and publisher, chiefly remembered as the founder of The Gentleman’s Maga­ zine, to which his friend Dr Johnson contributed extensively” (Drabble 1985, 179). But when Johnson came to work for Cave in the late 1730s, he was a hack writer from Lich­ field, hired by Cave to perform menial editorial tasks. What is often forgotten is the fact that it was Cave who created the circumstances that enabled writers like Johnson to be­ come part of the literary establishment, and have their works published with the most important publisher of them all, Robert Dodsley. Cave’s revolutionary ideas concerning periodical literature were not welcomed with applause by the literary establishment. When he launched The Gentleman’s Magazine in February 1731, he angered many pro­ fessional agents in the London literary world to such a degree, that he triggered off a periodical war which was to last for a decade. After it had simmered down, the world of The Gentleman’s Magazine; or Speakers’ Comer 121

periodicals had undergone many changes, and the English literary field would never be the same again.16 Despite the fact that Cave’s was the most read and probably most influential perio­ dical on the market at the time, Robert Dodsley remained the unchallenged ruler in the world of publishing, with Cave operating in the fringes of it, acting as a mere feeder, a breeding ground for talent, which, once proven successful, was taken over by Dodsley, witnessed for instance by the careers of Akenside, Johnson, and Sterne, who all took their business to him once their career was on the way. Dodsley published established authors, and Cave jingles by unknown amateurs (who regularly sent in poems by established authors, which were also printed in The Gentleman’s Magazine). Dodsley’s efforts at establishing literary periodicals, the Public Register in 1741, and The Museum: or, Liter­ ary and Historical Register in 1746-1747, failed miserably, but his Collection of Poems by Several Hands, printed in six volumes 1748-1758, is generally regarded, both by con­ temporary and twentieth-century commentators, as one of the most representative sources of the literary establishment of that period. In his recent article, “Trafficking in the Muse: Dodsley’s Collection of Poems and the Question of the Canon” (Ribeiro & Baskar 1996, 296-313), Michael F. Suarez challenges this assumption, and poses that the poems in Dodsley’s Collection were not there because they were so representative of the poetry of the period, but because they were written by an “in-crowd”, as “over 85 per cent of the poems in the first edition of the Collection may be said to come from ‘in-house’ sources” (Ibid., 300). That is, they were written by authors who had already published with Dod­ sley or his close associate Mary Cooper, or they had previously been printed in Dodsley’s periodicals The Museum or Public Register, or in his anthology Philomel Being a Col­ lection of English Songs (1744). Suarez goes on that “the miscellany [...] may have been conceived as a quick way to sell the substantial backlog of poems left over from his aborted periodical” (Ibid., 300). Apparently, it was not the desire to compile a representa­ tive anthology which induced Dodsley to publish his Collection, but a drive to make some quick money from left-over poems. Notwithstanding the sloppy layout of the first edition, it was a huge success, and soon grew into a carefully edited six-volume anthol­ ogy containing 226 poems, of which “47 per cent are either written by peers or are dedi­ cated or addressed to peers”, making the Collection into one with a “deliberately highbrow tenor” (Ibid., 306). Dodsley’s Collection was considered as “representative” right from its first publica­ tion, and within a decade after the definitive edition of 1758, several other publishers felt that it was in need of supplementation. In 1763, Francis Fawkes published The Poetical Calendar, containing a Collection o f scarce and valuable Pieces of Poetry: With Variety of Originals and Translations, by the Most eminent Hands. Intended as a Supplement to Mr Dodsley’s Collection (my emphasis). This 12-volume edition was followed, in 1767, by Moses Mendez’s A Collection o f the Most esteemed Pieces of Poetry, that have ap­ peared for several Years. With Variety of Originals, By the late Moses Mendez, Esq; And other Contributors to Dodsley’s Collection, to which this is intended as a Supplement

16 For a discussion on the periodical war in the 1730s, see Ram 1999, Chapter 4. 122 Titia Ram

(my emphasis), in one volume, and a year later by George Pearch’s A Collection of Po­ ems, being two additional Volumes to Mr Dodsley s Collection (my emphasis). According to Suarez, Dodsley’s contained some strange gaps for an anthology of “re­ presentative poetry”, witnessed for instance by the “virtual absence of works by Young, Prior, Gay, Swift, Pope, and Smart” (Ibid. 298). But these “strange gaps” are also in the Supplements. Edward Young features in none of the Supplements, but his poetry is in The Gentleman’s Magazine. Matthew Prior is in none of the Supplements, John Gay is only in Fawkes, Jonathan Swift is in none, Alexander Pope only in Fawkes, and Christopher Smart in Fawkes and Pearch. All these poets, published poetry in The Gentleman’s Ma­ gazine, except John Gay, but his name was mentioned repeatedly in the prose essays on literature. “Representativeness” sometimes relies on economic motives or motives of conven­ ience rather than on ideological grounds, whether or not a poem is “good” or “well- known”. Cave’s entire editorial policy was based on commercial incentives, and he cer­ tainly printed some poems because it was so cheap to publish poetry written by hacks, or by amateurs who did not ask money for their writings, or to get rid of his “backlog”, as Dodsley did. Nevertheless, there are much less ulterior motives working in the Poetical Essays of The Gentleman’s Magazine, then there are in the Collection and the Supple­ ments. The poems in Cave’s periodical were printed because the authors who wrote them, or the readers who submitted them, thought they were beautiful poems. If the au­ thor/reader liked the poem, it was printed. Dodsley published poems of a “deliberately highbrow tenor”, there are sixteen poems by Francis Fawkes in his own Calendar, and over 40 poems by Johnson in The Gentle­ man ’s Magazine, all for reasons other than representativeness. Though the Collection, the Supplements, and The Gentleman’s Magazine are all representative sources of the state of poetry in the eighteenth century, and The Gentleman’s Magazine is more so than others. Of course, the anthologies are valuable depositories of contemporary poetry, regardless of the fact that the editors of all of them had their own personal motivations in printing particular poems, and omitting others. But there are several compelling reasons why The Gentleman’s Magazine is more representative of the state of poetry in the eighteenth century than the anthologies. The most obvious one is the sheer number of poems in The Gentleman ’s Magazine. More poems means more authors, means a more varied and complete view of the state of poetry, even if we take into account the fact that many poems by the same author does not always say something about his popularity with a large audience. Secondly, Cave’s periodical was much less carefully edited than the anthologies. The editors of the an­ thologies chose which authors to print, whereas the authors themselves, and the reading audience, chose what poems were printed in The Gentleman’s Magazine. It was read and written by a very large audience, and poems were printed in it by representatives of a very large section of the English population: men, women, students, older people, dele­ gates of the entire “middling” and upper classes. The procedure of selection, if any, was much less strict in The Gentleman’s Magazine than it was in the anthologies. As a result, more “bad” poems appeared in The Gentleman’s Magazine, but this is exactly why it is so much more representative than the anthologies. To get a true feeling of the state of poetry in the eighteenth century, one should read The Gentleman’s Magazine, rather than The Gentleman’s Magazine; or Speakers’ Comer 123

the carefully edited anthologies, however inconvenient leafing through twenty-four or more volumes which contain not only poetry, but also essays on politics, science, relig­ ion, and art, may be. It is actually quite odd that Dodsley’s Collection, and the additions made by Fawkes, Mendez and Pearch have been “invariably trusted as definitively representative of the mid-century” (Lonsdale 1984, XXIV-XXXVI), and as “the most convenient way of ex­ amining the state of English poetry at the death of Pope” (Dyson & Butt 1950, 165).17 Dodsley was certainly of paramount importance in the formation of the eighteenth- century canon. Apart from maybe publishing too much “highbrow” poetry, he was the one, who, together with Fawkes, Mendez, Pearch, and others, separated the wheat from the com, whereas The Gentleman’s Magazine published poetry without discriminating between good and bad, or highbrow authors such as Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, and many, many much obscurer authors. In this act of separating what they considered the “good” from the “bad” poems, the compilers of these anthologies may even have used The Gentleman’s Magazine as a source to find representative poems for their collections, and probably also the other way around. Forty-two of the 226 poems in Dodsley’s Collection, or a little under 20%, were also printed in The Gentleman's Magazine. Most of these were first printed in Cave’s periodi­ cal, and afterwards appeared in Dodsley. The case with the Supplements is similar, most poems were published in The Gentleman’s Magazine years, often even (more than) two decades before they were published in Fawkes, Mendez, or Pearch. Fawkes’s anthology contains 513 poems in all, of which 107, or a little over 20% were also printed in The Gentleman’s Magazine. Thirteen of the poems of Moses Mendez’s collection are also in The Gentleman’s Magazine, which amounts to a little over 15%, while 64 of 326, or almost 20% of the poems in Pearch’s collection are also in The Gentleman’s Magazine}* The poetry published in The Gentleman’s Magazine is generally written by entirely obscure or marginal writers. With only a few exceptions the poems were written by un­ known, often provincial, amateurs who wrote poetry in their leisure time. The Gentle­ man ’s Magazine created a platform for the modem, often provincial reader with some­ times less than a university education and traditional ideas about culture and literature. Regardless of their obscurity, however, many poems that were published in The Gentle­ man’s Magazine reappear in eighteenth-century anthologies, such as Dodsley’s Collec­ tion, and Fawkes’s, Pearch’s, and Mendez’s Supplements, and as such The Gentleman’s Magazine was of influence on the canonization of eighteenth-century poetry. But more important than its role as a canonizing periodical is its representative function. To find the genesis of the eighteenth-century canon, the poems that remained after the wheat was separated from the com, one must indeed turn to Dodsley, the Supplements by Fawkes, Mendez and Pearch, and some other eighteenth-century anthologies. But to find the sub­

17 Quoted in Suarez, “Trafficking in the Muse”, 299. Suarez quotes seven other similar remarks made by different authors on anthologies in the eighteenth century. 18 I collected this information by cross-checking all first lines and titles from Forster’s Supple­ ments to Dodsley’s Collection of Poems, (Oxford Bibliographical Society: 1980) which con­ tains all poems from Fawkes’s, Mendez’s, and Pearch’s collections, to those in The Gentle­ man ’s Magazine, 1731-1783. 124 Titia Ram

stratum of eighteenth-century poetry, these sources are not enough. For representative poetry, in order to really get a taste of what kind of poems the eighteenth century pro­ duced, regardless of quality, gender, money, connections, etc., the twentieth-century reader must turn to the pages of The Gentleman’s Magazine. Convenient as the 12° Col­ lection and Supplements may be, they do not contain the wide variety of authors from so many strata of society, the variety in subject matter and quality that one finds in the po­ ems in The Gentleman’s Magazine, the most representative source of them all.

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Author*s address: Titia Ram Pieter Pijperstraat 39 3812 CH Amersfoort titia_ram@wish. net