1742 Gentleman's Magazine - Samuel Johnson's "Debates in the Senate of Lilliput

Description

A rare and early monthly issue of the Gentleman's Magazine published in London for June 1742
This venerable publication, the first to use the term "magazine", was founded in 1731 and continued uninterrupted for almost 200 years - see below. The magazine is full of domestic reports, essays, editorials, foreign news, poetry, new books, weather, births and deaths etc.
This edition of 52 pages
is particularly interesting because the initial 3 pages are dedicated to "Debates in the Senate of Lilliput" which at this time were written exclusively by Samuel Johnson - see interesting article below. Because it was illegal at the time for the press to report the debates in Parliament, Johnson used false, but thinly veiled, names for the speakers to avoid litigation and relied on his notes and memory to recreate the gist of debate
In domestic news a fascinating two page accounting of Britain's financial position is given; engraved illustrations show a 7 th. century
obelisk in Bewcastle near Carlisle and a reader's sketch of the recent comet sighting
In international news the magazine provides a broad description of the current state of Europe including
the Battle of Chotusitz - see scan and below
Details on London deaths in the previous month by age group show children under the age of 2 representing approx. 30 % of the total - see scan. Giving birth at that time was a risky business.
Fascinating reading for the historian. G
ood condition. The magazine has been bound with other issues and subsequently dis-bound. Page size 8 x 5 inches
See more of these in Seller's Other Items, priced at a fraction of most
dealer prices
The Gentleman's Magazine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Front page of
The Gentleman's Magazine
, May 1759
The Gentleman's Magazine
was a monthly magazine
[1]
founded in
London
, England, by
Edward Cave
in January 1731.
[2]
It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term
magazine
(from the
French
magazine
, meaning "storehouse") for a
periodical
.
[3]
Samuel Johnson
's first regular employment as a writer was with
The Gentleman's Magazine
.
Contents
1
History
2
Series
3
Indexes
4
See also
4.1
Authors of works appearing in
The Gentleman's Magazine
5
Artists, painters, topographers associated with
The Gentleman's Magazine
6
References
7
Further reading
8
See also
9
External links
History
[
edit
]
The original complete title was
The Gentleman's Magazine: or, Trader's monthly intelligencer
. Cave's innovation was to create a monthly digest of news and commentary on any topic the educated public might be interested in, from commodity prices to
Latin poetry
. It carried original content from a stable of regular contributors, as well as extensive quotations and extracts from other periodicals and books. Cave, who edited
The Gentleman's Magazine
under the
pen name
"Sylvanus Urban", was the first to use the term
magazine
(meaning "storehouse") for a periodical. Contributions to the magazine frequently took the form of letters, addressed to "Mr. Urban". The iconic illustration of
St. John's Gate
on the front of each issue (occasionally updated over the years) depicted Cave's home, in effect, the magazine's "office".
Before the founding of
The Gentleman's Magazine
, there were specialized journals, but no such wide-ranging publications (although there had been attempts, such as
The Gentleman's Journal
, which was edited by
Peter Motteux
and ran from 1692 to 1694).
Samuel Johnson
's first regular employment as a writer was with
The Gentleman's Magazine
. During a time when parliamentary reporting was banned, Johnson regularly contributed parliamentary reports as "Debates of the Senate of Magna Lilliputia". Though they reflected the positions of the participants, the words of the debates were mostly Johnson's own. The name "
Columbia
", a poetic name for America coined by Johnson, first appears in a 1738 weekly publication of the debates of the British Parliament in the magazine.
[4]
[5]
A skilled businessman, Edward Cave developed an extensive distribution system for
The Gentleman's Magazine
. It was read throughout the English-speaking world and continued to flourish through the 18th century and much of the 19th century under a series of different editors and publishers. It went into decline towards the end of the 19th century and finally ceased general publication in September 1907. However, issues consisting of four pages each were printed in very small editions between late 1907 and 1922 in order to keep the title formally "in print".
Series
[
edit
]
Top half of Volume One, Issue One, published January 1731
1731–1735
The Gentleman's Magazine
or
Monthly Intelligencer
1736–1833
The Gentleman's Magazine
and Historical Chronicle
1834–1856 (June) New Series:
The Gentleman's Magazine
1856 (July)–1868 (May) New Series:
The Gentleman's Magazine
and Historical Review
1868 (June)–1922 Entirely New Series:
The Gentleman's Magazine
Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine
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Prince Charles Alexander
Born
12 December 1712
Lunéville
,
Duchy of Lorraine
Died
4 July 1780 (aged 67)
Tervuren
,
Duchy of Brabant
,
Austrian Netherlands
Spouse
Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria
Names
Charles Alexandre Emanuel de Lorraine
House
House of Lorraine
Father
Leopold, Duke of Lorraine
Mother
Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans
Prince Charles Alexander Emanuel of Lorraine
(
French
:
Charles Alexandre Emanuel, Prince de Lorraine
;
German
:
Karl Alexander von Lothringen und Bar
; 12 December 1712 in
Lunéville
– 4 July 1780 in
Tervuren
[1]
) was a
Lorraine
-born
Austrian
general and soldier, field marshal of the
Imperial Army
, and governor of the
Austrian Netherlands
.
Contents
1
Early life
2
Seven Years' War
3
Family and private life
4
Ancestry
5
References
Early life
[
edit
]
Prince Charles as a young boy. Portrait by
Pierre Gobert
, c. 1720
Charles was the son of
Leopold, Duke of Lorraine
,
[1]
and
Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans
. When his elder brother
Francis III, Duke of Lorraine
, married the Archduchess
Maria Theresa
, daughter of
Emperor Charles VI
, Charles Alexander entered the Imperial service in 1737.
When his brother Francis traded the duchy to the ex-Polish king
Stanisław Leszczyński
in exchange for the
Grand Duchy of Tuscany
as one of the terms ending the
War of the Polish Succession
in November 1738, the ducal title to Lorraine and Bar passed beyond Charles to
King Louis XV of France
upon Leszczynski's death in 1766, though Francis and his successors retained the right to style themselves as dukes of Lorraine and Bar.
During the
War of the Austrian Succession
, he was one of the principal Austrian military commanders. He was most notable for his defeats by better trained and superior forces under
Frederick the Great
. At the
Battle of Chotusitz
in 1742, his forces lost the battle but were able to inflict greater loss of life and retreat in good order. However, he lost more decisively to Frederick at the
Battle of Hohenfriedberg
and the
Battle of Soor
in 1745.
[1]
He was also defeated by
Maurice de Saxe
at the
Battle of Rocoux
in 1746.
[1]
On 7 January 1744 he married Maria Theresa's only sister,
Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria
, thus making him doubly Maria Theresa's brother-in-law. The couple were jointly made Governors of the
Austrian Netherlands
.
Although Maria Anna died later the same year after marriage, Charles' popularity and lack of clear replacement allowed him to continue as governor and de facto sovereign until his own death in 1780.
[
citation needed
]
Charles also became Grand Master of the
Teutonic Order
in 1761.
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