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Updated: August 27, 2024
These evils moreover Fielding held to be most readily combated by assailing "those base and scandalous Writings which the Press hath lately poured in such a torrent upon us that the Name of an Author is in the ears of all good Men become almost an infamous appelation"; and, accordingly, the first number of his new paper discloses Sir Alexander in full crusade against these Grub-Street writers.
The Weekly Register makes war upon the Grub-Street Journal, and, in a satirical article upon the title of that newspaper, likens the writers to caterpillars and grubs, etc., 'deriving their origin from Egyptian locusts; and, in another article, accuses them of 'having undertaken the drudgery of invective under pretence of being champions of politeness. The other papers summarized are the Free Briton, a violent opponent of the Craftsman, the British Journal, and the Universal Spectator, the forte of the last two lying in essays and criticisms.
And thou, much plumper dame, whom no airy forms nor phantoms of imagination cloathe; whom the well-seasoned beef, and pudding richly stained with plums, delight: thee I call: of whom in a treckschuyte, in some Dutch canal, the fat ufrow gelt, impregnated by a jolly merchant of Amsterdam, was delivered: in Grub-street school didst thou suck in the elements of thy erudition.
While it cannot justify the indifference with which Shelburne treated his request, we cannot but perceive that Smollett's contemptuous ridicule of his unfortunate or incapable Grub-Street friends must rob him of much of the sympathy which would otherwise accompany the ministerial neglect with which the claims of literature were visited in his person.
I must further acquaint you, Sir, that one of the most eminent Pens in Grub-street is now employed in Writing the Dream of this miraculous Sleeper, which I hear will be of a more than ordinary Length, as it must contain all the Particulars that are supposed to have passed in his Imagination during so long a Sleep.
The mention above of "Perseus and Andromeda" calls to mind that there were several pieces of this name. One of them was severely commented on in "The Grub-Street Journal" of April 8, 1731. Its title was: "Perseus and Andromeda; or the Flying Lovers, in five Interludes, three serious and two comic. The serious composed by Monsieur Roger, the comic by John Weaver, dancing-masters."
Hoole, as brother authours, he often said, 'Let you and I, Sir, go together, and eat a beef-steak in Grub-street . Sir William Chambers, that great Architect , whose works shew a sublimity of genius, and who is esteemed by all who know him for his social, hospitable, and generous qualities, submitted the manuscript of his Chinese Architecture to Dr. Johnson's perusal.
"This good company, I hope," said he, addressing himself, however, only to Cecilia, "will not so much mistake the thing as to criticise my dress of this morning; since it is perfectly according to rule, and to rule established from time immemorial: but lest any of you should so much err as to fancy shabby what is only characteristic, I must endeavour to be beforehand with the malice of conjecture, and have the honour to inform you, that I am enlisted in the Grub-street regiment, of the third story, and under the tattered banner of scribbling volunteers! a race which, if it boasts not the courage of heroes, at least equals them in enmity.
But I look up to you as a respectable body of men, who have long united your efforts to reduce the disproportioned members of an ancient republic to an happy equality, to give wings to the little emmet of Grub-street, and to hew away the excrescences of lawless genius with a hatchet. In this character I honour you.
His samples were returned on his hands, as "done in too severe and terse a style." Some Grub-Street hack a nineteenth-century Tom Brown or Mr. Dash succeeded in composing these popular and ingenious productions; but the man who wrote the Essays of Elia could not write a successful lottery-puff. At this exult, O mediocrity! and take courage, man of genius!
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