EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
763
sent age, while his colloquial language, as re- ported by his biographer, has perfect ease and simplicity, with equal, if not superior energy. The Life of Johnson is in itself one of the most valuable literary productions of the eighteenth century. It is the most minute and complete account of a human being ever written. Mr. Boswell, who is a native of Scotland, and a man of lively, though not powerful intellect, employ- ed himself for many years in gathering the par- ticulars of his friend's life, in noting down the remarks of the moralist upon men and things, and in arranging and compiling his work, which was published in 1791 in two volumes quarto. Its author has thus, by an employment to which few men would have condescended, and a la- borious exertion of powers, in themselves almost trifling, been the means of presenting to the world one of the most instructive and entertaining books in existence.* — Chambers.
1784, Jan. 1. The Reasoner, No. 1.
1784, Feb. 3. The New Spectator, with the sage opinions of John Bull, No. 1. Probably edited by Mr. Horatio Robson.
1784. Weekly Amusement, ifo. } .
1784. Minion type first used in newspapers.
1784, AprilaS. The Miniature, No. 1. 178.5, Feb. 6. The Lounger, a work of exactly
the same character as the Mirror, by the same writers, and under the same editorship, was commenced at Edinburgh, and continued once a week till the 6th of January, 1787; out of one hundred and one papers to which it extended, fiffy seven were the production of H. Mackenzie.
1785, April 6. The idea of laying down fixed charges for different kinds of printing was not suggested for nearly two centuries after the dis- covery of the art, nor indeed until this year was there any published list of prices; and the merit of forming the basis of the scale for regulating the price of the compositor's labour, certainly belongs to the journeymen, who on April 6, 1785, submitted to the masters eight propositions for this purpose, five of which were agreed to, and three rejected by them, after they had been laid before uiem upwards of seven months. Previ- ous to this year, the price paid for composition appears to have been regulated by the size of the type employed; upon the principle that the com- positor was less liable to interruption when en- gaged in picking up his thousands of small type, wan he was when employed upon large type, where the interruptions for making-up, impos- ing, correcting, Sec. were more frequent. Ante- cedently to this time, whenever the compositor was paid by the thousand, he appears to have received for english type four-pence; for long primer, three-pence halfpenny; and for brevier, three-pence farthing. In Scotland, at the same period, brevier type was paid two-pence half- penny, and english ^pe four-pence per thousand.
- Hiss Lacy Porter once told Dr. Johnson that she
flhoold like sometimes to purchase new pablications, and asked him if she might trust to the reviewers. " Infallibly, my dear Lacy,*' he replied. *' provided you bny what they abase, and never any thing they praise."
Regarding Scotland, it appears, that about the year 1763, a dispute arose in the office of Messrs. Murray and Cochrane, printers jn Edinbiugh, about the price of compbsition, when William Smellie, then engaged as a reader, devised a scale of prices for composition.
The first reg^ilar and acknowledged compo- sitors' scale for the payment of piece-work is by one writer stated to have been agreed to at a general meeting of masters, who assembled in the month of November 1785, to consider eight propositions submitted to them in a circular from the whole body of compositors, with a view to advance the price of labour. That part of the trade, however, who were most materially inter- ested in the adjustment of the price of labour, namely, the compositors, do not appear to have been present when these propositions were dis- cussea, or to have been permitted to offer any arguments in their favour; but the masters as- sumed the right to set a price upon the labour of others, although a short time afterwards they repelled with indignation an attempt of the booksellers to interfere with their decisions and profits. We are informed by another writer that the scale was not formed at a general meeting of masters, but by a committee, who, " after much labour and considerable discussion," agreed to a scale of prices, which, although it has at different times been amplified and altered to suit the va- rious circumstances of the times, and the different kinds of work as they occurred^ has served as the basis of every other scale up to the present time. It is not essential, at this period, to know whether the scale was agreed to by a general meeting of masters or by a committee.
1785. The agency for newspapers commenced in this year by Mr. William Taylor, in London. Mr. Newton, of Warwick-square, was at first a partner with Mr. Taylor.
1785. The patent ofking's printer for Scotland renewed for forty-one years from the expiration of the preceding grant in the year 1798. This grant will consequently cease in 1839.
1785, April 14. Died, William Whitehead, poet laureat, a man of amiable manners and in- telligent conversation. He was the son of a baker, and born in the parish of St. Botolph in Cambridge, where, after being at Winchester, he entered at Clare hall, and in 1743 took the degree of M. A. intending to enter into orders, but was prevented by adverse circumstances, and became tutor in the family of the earl of Jersey. In 1754 he published a volume of poems, which was well received, and on the death of Cibber, was appointed laureat. From the days of Rowe, if not from an earlier period, the regular duty of the poet laureat had been to produce an ode for the new Tear and one for the king's birth-day, both of wLich, being set to music by the master of the king's band, were sung before the court, and likewise published in the newspapers. Through- out the whole term of the eighteenth century, when there was little genuine poetry of any kind, the productions of the laureat were generally a mere tissue of tame and senseless verses; but
5 B
VjOOQ IC
