668
HISTORY OF PRINTING.
1741. Of periodical literatuTe.in its less q)he- meral forms, published in the British coloDies of North America, we find verjr little, as might be expected, before the revolution. The following are the earliest, published at Philadelphia, in this year :
The American Magazine; or. Monthly Re- view of the Britith Coloniei. IThis periodical merely breathed, — it reared its head above the storm, — it drooped — and died.
The General Magazine, printed and published bv Benjamin Franklin. It owed its birUi to some discontent of Franklin at not being admitted into partnership with the above, and scarcely outlived the object of its animosity.*
1741, July 20. The Coventry Mercury, No. 1, published by Mr. Jopson.
1741. Tie Gentleman's Diary.
1741. The Country Oracle, published weekly by T. Cooper, at the Globe, Paternoster-row.
1741, Nov. 16. The Birmingham Gazette; or, the General Correspondent, No. 1. price three halfpence. This newspaper was commenced by Thomas Aris, who had settled in Birmingham in the previous year, and was, no doubt, from London ; for in the Gentleman's Magazine, for Feb. 1738, there are some lines, addressed to Thomas Aris, printer, written by a Mr. Bancks. There was a Samuel Aris, printer, in Creed lane, who is ranked by Negus as well affected to king George II. Mr. Thomas Aris died July 4, 1761, and the paper is still continued under the title of Aris's Birmingham Gazette,
1742, Jan.22. Died, Charles RiyiNGTON,an eminent bookseller in St. Paul's churchyard. This is the first of a name which has ever since been distinguished as one of the most respect- able houses in the trade.
1742. The first letter foundry in Scotland was established at St. Andrew's, by Mr. Alexander Wilson and Mr. Bain. Most of the printers in Scotland at this time resided at Edinburgh and Glasgow; and their great distance from the Lon- don letter-foundries having subjected them to great inconveniences, they had an interest in en- couraging the manufacturing of types brought so immediately within their reach. The liberal orders of their typographical countrymen soon showed Messrs. Wilson and Bain that they were engaged in a regular business, the profits of which satisfied their moderate views; and under such encouragement they continued their exer- tions so as to enable them to supply a great variety of founts. Thus employed, they had lived at St. Andrew's about two years, when the
- Dr. Franklin relates the following anecdote of one of
hlB jooinejrmen, an excellent worlonan, who never came to work till Wednesday. — "Francis," said Franklin to him one day, " sorely yoa do not think of the future ) If you worked more diligently ,you might lay up something against old age." The workman answered, " I have made my calcolation : I have an uncle, a druggist, in Cheapside, who has lust set up in business with the resolntion to work twenty years, till he has saved jf 4000, after which he intends to live like a gentleman. He thinks to make himself a wholesale gentleman : I will be one by retail ; I had rather be so, and do notlilng for half the week during twenty years, than be so the whole week twenty years hence."
increasing demand for their types, and the pros- oect of extending their sales to Ireland and North America, induced them, in 1744, to Te- move to Gamalachie, a innall village, about a mile eastward of the city of Glasgow.
1742. The Night Th<mghu,hs the lev. Edwud Young, is entered on the books of the stationeis' company as the property of Robert Dodsley. The preface to ni^ seven is dated July 7, 1744.
Of the Night Thoughts, the most popular work of Dr. Young, and that on which he most valued himself. Dr. Johnson observes, " In this poem. Young has exhibited a very wide display of ori- ginal poetiT, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions ; a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue, and of every odour. This is one of the few poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhyme but with disadvantage. The wild diffusion of the sentiments, and the digressive sallies of imagination, would have been compressed smd restrained by regard to Ajrae. The excellence of this work is not exactness, but copiousness ; particular lines are not to be regarded ; the power is in the whole, and in tlw whole there is a magnificence like that ascribed to Chinese plantation, the magnificence of vast extent and endless variety."*
1742. Memoirs of the Press for thirty years past. By the late Mr. Oldmixon. Published by Thomas Cox, price one shilling.
1742, AprilZf. Died, Nicbolas Amhobst, editor of the Craftsman, one of the most dis- tinguished papers of its time, and which An- hurst carried on for a number of years with great spirit and success in controlling the powers of the administration of dr Robert Walpole. It was more read and attended to than any produc- tion of the kind which bad hitherto been pub- lished in England. Ten or twelve thousand copies were sold in a-day. " Amhurst was the able associate," remarks Davies, " of Boling- broke and Fulteney ; and he had almost as mudi wit, learning, and various knowledge, as his two partners in the Craftsman." Amhurst was a native of Marden, in Kent, and was educated at Merchant Tailors' school, and at Oxford ; but after a life of literary drudge, he died in poverty, at Twickenham, of a broken heart, occasioned by neglect of those whom he essentially served by his pen, and was buried at the charge of his
• PeteileTonmenrtranslalwl this work into ttwFrendi langnage, and of which the learned in that country were very fond, for it had a rapid sale ; and the eulogy of Om Ftench Ucencer aoared above the ordinary and negative praise of finding noUiIng in this translation "contrarr to the Catholic faith." It is related of Touinenr, that he sold this work for the very trifling snm of twenty kmis d'ors to madame Ducron^, who made, at least, sixty thousand liTres ctf the work ; and while he was adding new energy to his native language by this transIatioD, which often soars above the onginal, he was seldom in- dulged with a bed on which to repose his wearied limb*. He and his wife were often obUged to leave Paris tiefore night, to seek the moat convenientand hospitable hedge in the environs of the capital. Le Tonmeor also translated Shakspeare's plays into French, upon which Tottain bestowed the most Infkmous epithets, without any ap- parentcanse. LeToumeurwas born intbeyearlTS^ and died in 1788.
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