University of Virginia Library

Gleanings from the Scots Magazine (1739-1800)
by
Arthur Sherbo

Very little has been written about the Scots Magazine (hereafter SM), begun in January 1739 and with a name change in the early years of the next century.[1] The truth of the matter is that for most of the eighteenth century the monthly numbers of the periodical, except for domestic affairs and much of the poetry, were nothing more than a reprinting of all manner of articles, letters, reviews and what-have-you from English periodicals, mainly from the Gentleman's Magazine (hereafter GM). Sometimes the source

was identified; more often, not. Hence, one might read an interesting bit of literary criticism in the book review section of the SM without realizing that it was taken, usually verbatim, from the GM. Many monthly numbers were also eked out by the reprinting of current periodical essays: The Rambler, The Idler, The Adventurer, The Inspector, The World—and others. Hence, the suspicion that something in the SM in its first sixty-two years appeared there for the first time and was otherwise unknown must always be a suspicion, something particularly true when the author of the piece in question was not a Scot. Despite this, the SM is worth studying, both for itself and as an example, in some areas, of what may be found in other eighteen-century periodicals. The National Union Catalogue lists twenty-three locations, and the entire run, ninety-seven volumes, is available on film from University Microfilms of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The editors of the Yale edition of Dr. Johnson's Rambler were able to cite an unpublished dissertation which recorded reprintings of the Rambler in various contemporary periodicals, including fifty in the SM, seventeen more than in the GM, incidentally. No similar study exists for the distribution of the Adventurer essays, that joint effort of John Hawkesworth, Johnson, Joseph Warton, and a fourth party responsible for but seven out of a total of one hundred and forty. It is of no little interest that the SM reprints thirty-five Adventurer essays in their entirety, with Number 16 in the Preface to the volume for 1752, there praised for "the promoting of religion and virtue." Roy M. Wiles has pointed out that the SM reprinted Rambler No. 14 in the Preface of the 1750 volume, praising it as "that periodical masterpiece of learning and genius."[2] In addition, the SM gives the translations of all the mottoes for the reprinted essays. What I find interesting, and possibly informative, is that only five essays are by Johnson, five by Warton, one by the fourth man and the rest, twenty-four in number, by Hawkesworth. Johnson's essays are Numbers 81, 95, 115, 137, and 138, on plagiarism, the story of the Admirable Crichton, on the age of authors, on "Writers not a Useless Question," and on "Their Happiness and Felicity." Did the editors of the Scots Magazine who had reprinted fifty of Johnson's Ramblers know that the essays signed "T" were by Johnson? And if so, did they, for whatever reason, deliberately favor Hawkesworth so heavily over him? The odds are that they did not know the identity of "T," and what one is left with is some probable evidence of taste, i.e., that the SM editors believed their readers would prefer Hawkesworth's tales and moral essays to Warton's critical papers and Johnson's varied efforts.[3] Should a similar examination of the appearance of the Adventurer in other periodicals be undertaken, one might have a more reliable index to the popularity of certain of the essays. Since the GM was at hand, I checked it. The first four Adventurers are briefly summarized therein and eighteen essays are reprinted, with thirteen by Hawkesworth, three by

Johnson, one by the fourth man, and Number 90 contributed by George Colman. Duplication exists in Number 23, "Scheme of a new Memorandum-Book for the Use of the Ladies, with a Specimen," by the fourth man; in Johnson's account of the Admirable Crichton (Number 81); and in Numbers 30, 52, 61, 100 and 140, by Hawkesworth. Johnson's other two are Number 69, "Idle Hope," and Number 108, "The Uncertainty of Human Things." [The others by Hawkesworth are 5, 10, 38, 46, 114, 121, 132, 140. I have taken titles from those given in Alexander Chalmers, The British Essayists . . ., vols. 19-21 (1866).] Warton and Johnson joined Hawkesworth rather late in the game, with Johnson's first essay being Number 34 and Warton's Number 49, the admittedly scanty evidence of reprintings in the SM and the GM showing that only five of Warton's twenty-three critical essays were thought worth reprinting in the SM and none in the GM, while Johnson did not fare too much better.

Mary E. Knapp's David Garrick. A Checklist of His Verse, Robert Brittain's "Christopher Smart in the Magazines," and Norma Russell's Bibliography of William Cowper to 1837 [4] all overlook items that appeared in the SM. Miss Knapp does not record the appearance in the SM for August 1790 (p. 402) of Garrick's "Occasional Prologue Written and Spoken by Mr. Garrick, on Reading his Farce of Lethe to their Majesties, After he had Quitted the Stage, 1777," a first printing of the poem, as it precedes by one month its appearance in the European Magazine in September 1790, recorded by Miss Knapp. One "poem" attributed to Garrick in the SM is not mentioned in the Checklist and will be discussed below. Robert Brittain's listing of Smart's poems in the periodicals does not include the following: Chaucer's Recantation, a specimen of the Seatonian Prize poem On the Power of the Supreme Being, The Brocaded Gown and Linen Rag, The Widow's Resolution, The Duellists, the epigrams On Squab and On Snaggle (both attributed to Smart by Brittain), Fashion and Night, The Snake, the Goose, and Nightingale, Mrs. Abigail and the Dumb Waiter, To Health, and Stanzas on the Distressed Portuguese (these last two from The Universal Visiter).[5] Five of the reprinted poems are fables, possible evidence of the popularity of that genre in general or Smart's fables in particular. Four of Cowper's poems and an extract from The Task entitled "The Bastille" appeared in the SM in 1789, and one poem, The Negro's Complaint in 1792 (p. 32). The four poems in 1789 are On Mrs. Throckmorton's Bulfinch in April (p. 196), The Morning Dream in May (p. 246), On the Queen's Visit to London,[6] and The Lily and the Rose in July (p. 342); the extract from The Task appeared in September (p. 444). What is

interesting about the appearance of the poem on the bullfinch is that in the GM for February 1789 (pp. 162-163) it is not signed or attributed, whereas in the European Magazine (hereafter EM) printing it follows the Song, "The poplars are fell'd," termed "By Mr. Cowper," while it, the bullfinch poem, is "By the Same." The SM, like the GM, but unlike the EM, has the Latin epigraph "Lugete Veneres Cupidinesque,"[7] and makes the fullest attribution, i.e. "By Mr. Cowper." Both GM and SM have the accepted full title of the poem; the EM has merely On the Death of a Lady's Bullfinch. The text of The Morning Dream in the SM is identical to that in the EM, both in May 1789, differing with the November 1788 GM text in thirteen places. The text of The Lily and the Rose appeared in the June 1789 EM; that in the SM is identical, following the EM by one month. The poem on the Queen's visit is identical in the EM and SM, both appearing in July. [SB, 34 (1981), 233-240.] The SM text of The Negro's Complaint is a curious one, and in what follows I give its readings first, then that of the GM, and last that of the Oxford edition. Note that Norma Russell records the December 1793 GM appearance of the poem (p. 136) but not the prior appearance in the January 1782 SM. Indeed, the earliest periodical appearance of the poem recorded in her bibliography is that in The Arminian Magazine for January 1783 (p. 134). The variants, other than those of spelling and punctuation are: Sitting/Lolling/Lolling (l. 22); Blacks/backs/backs (l. 23); sweets/sweet/sweets (l. 24); Fetters/Fetters/Matches (l. 30); that/which/which (l. 31); for/of/of (l. 32); Is/Are/Are (l. 36); should/would/would (l. 38); these/their/their (l. 39); whirlwinds/whirlwind/whirlwinds (l. 40); sorrows that we/miseries which we/miseries we have (l. 43); bought/brought/brought (45); smart/mart/mart (l. 46); nation/nations/nation (l. 49). SM and Oxford agree in three readings, ll. 24, 40, and 49. SM and GM agree on the "Fetters" of l. 30, noted as a 1793 edition reading "and quoted by T. Wright from a MS." (Oxford edition, p. 372). How, one may ask, could the January 1782 SM give the "Fetters" reading a year before the 1793 edition unless, possibly, it had had access to the MS quoted by Thomas Wright? If the GM took the "Fetters" reading from the SM, why did it not follow the SM text in a number of other readings? And if the SM did have access to the MS, what is one to make of the other variants from the received text, many of which variants can be proved to be inferior or actual errors? What remains are two unique readings that need explanation, the "sitting" of l. 22 and the "sorrows that we" of l. 43. Are these also MS readings, and if so, why were they not quoted by Wright? In any event, the textual apparatus of the Oxford version of this poem needs some revision.

Since many books, periodicals, single poems, essays, reviews and miscellaneous information conveyed by the printed word exist in small numbers or are inaccessible except at considerable expenditure of time and money, their

appearance in reprinted form in some more readily available work is especially welcome. For example, all libraries are not fortunate enough to contain full or lengthy runs of the Monthly Review and the Critical Review, two of the most important eighteenth-century periodicals for the reviewing of literature. One of the most important, or at least well-known and long-expected, publications of 1765 was Samuel Johnson's edition of Shakespeare's plays with its justly famous Preface. Now, the Preface came in for much critical attention in the Monthly and in the Critical, and if one did not have access to the issues for 1765, he might get some of this criticism in books on Johnson. However, access to the SM for 1765 would not only give the Preface in full but also, in footnotes marked "M" or "C," the quoted comments of the reviewers of the two periodicals in question. Another example. While the pamphlet The Chronicle of the Kings of England. Written in the manner of the ancient Jewish historians. By Nathan Ben Saddi, a priest of the Jews, published in 1740 and usually ascribed to Lord Chesterfield, is not a terribly rare book as it went through a number of editions, those with access to the SM would find the entire text of the pamphlet reprinted in the Appendix to Volume X for the year 1748. What is more, a number of periodical essays not always immediately at hand were impressed into service, so that readers of the SM will find essays from Sir John Hill's Inspector, Christopher Smart's Student and his Universal Visiter, as well as from the Universal Spectator, the British Magazine and others.[8]

Another way in which periodicals may be of help, and the SM was of such help, is in fixing the date of the first publication of a work. Thus, the catalogue of new books in the SM for October 1773 announced the publication of the late Tobias Smollett's Ode to Independence, noting that a few copies of the poem "were thrown off at Glasgow." Since certain "Observations" that accompany the published poem are dated "Glasgow, February 23d, 1773," the first publication of the poem had to fall between that date and October 1773, the SM giving the necessary terminus ad quem.[9] On occasion, rarely in the SM but in at least one instance, attribution of authorship, mistaken or correct, of a particular piece is first made in the periodical in which it is first printed. A Song, "Say Phoebe, why is gentle Love," first appeared in the SM for October 1769 and was there attributed to Alexander Pope. Gilbert Wakefield accepted the poem as Pope's but it has not been reprinted in later editions.[10]

I made mention above of a "poem" by Garrick which is not in Miss Knapp's Checklist of his verse, probably because it is not a poem by eighteenth-century standards. It is entitled "Inscriptions on the DEITY. By David Garrick, Esq;" which, with its headnote, I quote in its entirety, as it appeared in the 1779 poetry section:

There is no discussion of Garrick's religious views in the recently published definitive biography.[11] While one cannot be sure of this attribution, and while its very presence in the highly derivative SM arouses the suspicion that it had probably appeared elsewhere earlier, it should be known if only to be proved uncanonical. So, too, with an anecdote in the 1797 SM (pp. 722-723), the gist of which is that a beautiful young lady saw Garrick in the part of Romeo, became enamoured of him, wrote for a tête-à-tête, saw him as Scrub in The Beaux Stratagem, and then wrote again "forbidding him ever to be seen in her presence, for that she would have no connection with one, who, like Proteus, could appear in so many different shapes, and all to the life." This may be apocryphal, but then much anecdotal literature is.

As one finds, or thinks he finds, "new" pieces, his suspicion grows that he

may be overlooking some obvious possibilities—after canvassing the usual places. Besides the poems already discussed there are unnoticed poems, and now I proceed alphabetically, by James Granger, John Hawkesworth, Thomas Lyttelton, George Lyttelton, William Pitt, Charlotte Smith, William Somerville, and a Mr. Waller (not Edmund), author of a poem on Addison. Most of these deserve little more than mention of their titles and quotation of their first lines, although with some a word or two of explanation will be in order.

"Verses to the Author of the Man of Feeling, Found in a blank leaf of the book which belonged to the late Mr. Granger, author of the Biographical History of England" appeared in 1785 (p. 46). Beginning "Whilst other writers, with pernicious art, / Corrupt the morale, and seduce the heart," the poem hymns the virtues of Henry Mackenzie's novel. Granger lived in relative obscurity and is remembered almost exclusively for his Biographical History. I found no connection between Mackenzie (1745-1831), whose novel was published in 1771, and Granger (1723-1776), nor need there have been, of course. Two poems by John Hawkesworth must be thought of as companion pieces, both printed in the 1774 SM on the same page (430). "On Freedom" begins, "Freedom's charms alike engage"; "On Friendship," "Friendship is the joy of reason." The latter poem appeared ten years later in the Westminster Magazine (1784, p. 383).[12]

Two Lord Lytteltons, father and son, George and Thomas, are represented by a poem each, the father's being short enough to quote in its entirety. It is, like so many others in the century, an occasional poem, "By Lord Lyttelton, after reading Junius's last letter addressed to Lord Mansfield":

The Latin is from the second book of the Aeneid, part of the confrontation of Priam and Pyrrhus, the former of whom hurled his "weak and harmless spear" (Loeb) at his executioner. Junius's last letter to Lord Chief Justice William Mansfield, the fifty-eighth of the Junius letters, is dated 21 January 1772. Lyttelton's poem is marked "Hillstreet, Feb. 2." In his letter Junius accuses Mansfield of violating the law by allowing bail to "a felon, under the circumstances, of being taken in the fact, with the stolen goods upon him, and making no defence,"[13] Thomas, Lord Lyttelton, the so-called "bad Lord Lyttelton," sowed a not inconsiderable crop of wild oats in Italy, thought fertile ground for such activity in the eighteenth century. He married in June 1772, but about two years later he deserted his wife and carried off a barmaid to Paris (DNB). A volume of his verse was published in 1780, a year after his death. The poem in the 1792 SM (p. 340) is unsurprisingly titled "Ode to Miss Butts, the Maid of the Pump-room at Bath" and begins "Tho' royal Bladud's healing spring / To palsied age relief can bring." The poet implores Miss Butts to grasp the day, to give up toiling for gold, and to take her joys within Strephon's arms.

William Somervile, best remembered for his poems The Chace and Hobbinal, or Rural Games, collected his Occasional Poems . . . in 1727, with pride of place accorded "An Ode, humbly inscrib'd to his Grace the Duke of Marlborough, Upon his Removal from all his Places." But a similarly titled poem in the 1742 SM (p. 116), "To his Grace the Duke of Argyle [John Campbell, second Duke of Argyle], upon his being restored to his places" has, I believe, gone unnoticed. It begins "Intrepid in the field, in senates wise, / You set with honour and with honour rise." Argyle had served with distinction under Marlborough, but I can find nothing about places being lost that had to be restored. Pope, incidentally, praises Argyle as statesman and solder: "Argyle, the State's whole Thunder born to wield, / And shake alike the Senate and the Field" (Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue II, ll. 86-87).

Charlotte Smith, better known as a novelist although her sonnets received some praise, is represented by three poems in the pages of the SM, only one of which, "Chloe's Picture," "In vain they sweet's ambrosial, fair flow'r" (1793, p. 282), which appeared one month later in the GM (p. 655), being unknown. It is dated "Brighton, June 24."[14]

The prose piece by John Hawkesworth mentioned above is a long "Letter from Dr. Hawkesworth, To a Young Lady Just Entering Upon the World," published in the July 1796 SM (pp. 451-454), almost fifty years after it was written, for it is dated from Bromley, Kent, Hawkesworth's home, "14th Dec. 1748." In brief, Hawkesworth advises the young lady to gain the good will of others, to be punctual, to treat servants courteously but not familiarly, and to honor and obey her parents. She should not speak ill of others, flatter, undertake to keep secrets, and ask too much bounty of her father. In conclusion he wrote that "no real present happiness need to be forfeited to purchase the future; for virtue and piety, at once secure every good of body and mind both in time and eternity." With the injunction that she peruse his letter frequently, he signed, "I am, dear Miss, Your affectionate friend, Jno. Hawkesworth." One other prose piece, a letter "From Mr. [Samuel] Foote" to an unnamed "dear H*******," whom I take to be Archibald Hamilton, one of the executors of Foote's will[15] appeared in the December 1797 number (pp. 865-866). It is dated "Paris, Sept. 27"; the year date, ascertainable from the statement "Dunkirk is totally demolished," is 1765.[16] As the number of extant letters by Foote is not great, I quote it in its entirety.

The letter would seem, then, to be authentic, for, among other things, David Hume was in Paris at this time, having arrived there in October 1763 and not leaving until 1766 (DNB). Wilkes, touring Italy, returned to Paris in the autumn of 1765 (DNB). He and Foote were old friends. Foote was born in 1720, and hence the quoted reference to "after forty" was true of him in 1765. And evidently this was one of the many times that he felt less than charitably about Garrick. "The dauphin is dangerously ill," Foote wrote on Sept. 27, 1765; the dauphin died on Friday, December 20, some two months later (GM, p. 589). I have not identified Miss S of the seven asterisks; the Latin tag is from Horace's Ars Poetica (ll. 451-452).

Finally, although the literature on Dr. Johnson is so vast, three additional bits should be added, as two of them almost surely have been ignored by Johnsonians, while the third, in the realm of anecdotal literature, may have surfaced in some obscure place I have overlooked, for I have gone to the usual sources. The March 1739 SM (pp. 131-133) printed the third of S. Toupee's "Letter[s] relating to the Stage," one in which he devoted half of the space to Henry Brooke's Gustavus Vasa, the play Johnson defended in his early (May 1739) Compleat Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage, to give it a shortened title. Toupee had nothing good to say about Brooke or his play, during the course of his remarks pointing out that the January 1739 GM contained some verses in praise of Brooke, "with notes." The poem in

the GM (p. 40), by George Ogle, "from his Imitation of Hor. E.3.L.I.," praises Brooke's modesty, with a note to the effect that he was thirty years old before his friends could prevail upon him to have his poem Universal Beauty published. Another note states that Brooke "has several pieces by him that came as near as any to Milton in manner and stile," while the last of the four notes is on "A tragedy, whose merits the publick will have an opportunity of judging this winter," i.e. Gustavus Vasa. Toupee writes, penultimately, "Here, Sir, at present, ends the history of the tragedy of Gustavus Vasa; a piece ruined in its success by nothing but the author's impatient thirst of praise, in not waiting till it was found its due." The fullest account of Johnson's Compleat Vindication does not mention the GM poem, nor, more importantly, the adverse criticism of the play and its author.[17]

The anecdotes about Johnson that appeared in October 1797 (pp. 721-722), with one exception, appear not to be known. The first of these has Johnson at Lord Lansdowne's seat in Wiltshire in the company of the late Mr. Cumming, the Quaker. Johnson repeated part of his letter to Chesterfield, but refused to repeat the performance for a late-comer, saying, "I told the circumstance first for my own amusement, but I will not be dragged in as a story-teller to a company."

Perhaps less credence may be given to the next anecdote, one about Dr. Johnson's night clothes.

I suspect this to be apocryphal.

Others with other interests will doubtless find matters of some importance, small or great, in the volumes of the SM. Some seven pages (215-221) of F.A. Pottle's Literary Career of James Boswell (1929) are given over to Boswell's contributions to the SM. Perhaps there are other well-known Scots contributions waiting to be identified.

Notes