"The Historical Register" was superseded twenty years later by the "Gentleman's Magazine," a monthly periodical founded by the bookseller Cave and edited by Guthrie. Cave used to obtain admission to the House of Commons for himself and a few friends, and would there take surreptitious notes of the proceedings. These he subsequently elaborated in some adjoining coffee-house, evolving lengthy and vivid descriptions of the debates from his inner consciousness. His editor was the first journalist to obtain access to the official parliamentary Journals. The Government had apparently by this time begun to regard the Press as a more or less necessary evil, and thought it worth while to pay Guthrie a small sum for his services, even providing him with a pension when he retired.
The parliamentary articles in the "Gentleman's Magazine" were published under the title of the "Senate of Lilliput," the real names of the various debaters being replaced by pseudonyms which deceived nobody.[445] This periodical is famous as being the medium through which Dr. Johnson originally published his political views. When he was first employed by Cave upon the staff of his paper Johnson was still struggling, not for fame, but for existence, and had no objection to any form of literary labour so long as it provided him with a means of livelihood. His original duties consisted in revising the rough notes made by Guthrie, but by 1740 he had become entirely responsible for the parliamentary articles, and five years later succeeded Guthrie in the editorial chair.
The reports of the proceedings were often written under great difficulties. Dr. Johnson would at times be compelled to invent the whole debate, depending solely upon his imagination, and being provided with nothing more inspiring than a list of the speakers and of the subjects under discussion. "I wrote that in a garret!" he is always supposed to have said of a much admired speech of Pitt's, and perhaps the oratorical fame of many a statesman of that day is due to Dr. Johnson's literary skill. His style was as a rule far too perfect to pass for that of an ordinary member of Parliament, and in his reports he is often accused of giving not so much what the speakers said as what they ought to have said. Nor was his pen an entirely impartial one, for he always took care, as he explained to Boswell, that the "Whig dogs" should not have the best of it in debate. Writing as he did, very hurriedly and from scanty materials, the compilation of parliamentary reports gave him little satisfaction. As soon as he found that his debates were thought to be genuine, he determined to cease their composition, and in the later years of his life often expressed regret at having been engaged in work of this kind.
The "London Magazine" was the next journal to publish debates, imitating the methods of the "Gentleman's Magazine," by pretending to report the proceedings of an imaginary Roman Senate, and alluding to the speakers by more or less appropriate Latin names.
In spite of these various efforts to establish the liberty of the Press, the attitude of Parliament long remained antagonistic. In 1728 a fresh resolution was passed in the House declaring it to be a breach of privilege for any one to print any account of the debates, and in the following year a printer of Gloucester was summoned to the bar of the Lords and severely reprimanded for publishing a report of their proceedings.[446] In 1738 Speaker Onslow brought up the subject of parliamentary reporting in the Commons, and a debate ensued. "If we do not put a speedy stop to this practice," said Winnington, "you will have the speeches of this House every day printed, even during your session, and we shall be looked upon as the most contemptible assembly on the face of the earth." Pelham, however, was inclined to deal lightly with the Press. "Let them alone," he said once, "they make better speeches for us than we can make for ourselves."[447] But it was a long time before this sensible view became general.
The struggle between Press and Parliament reached a climax in 1771, when Wilkes's paper, the "North Briton," was publishing the much discussed "Junius letters." Public opinion was by this time becoming gradually alive to the necessity for granting freedom to the Press, and needed but the opportunity to express itself openly upon the subject. The occasion had at length arrived. The Commons in this year were much incensed at the behaviour of some wretched City printers who had offended against the privileges of the House, and despatched the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest them. After much difficulty two of the culprits were apprehended, but on being taken before the City Aldermen the latter at once ordered their release. When a messenger from the House of Commons attempted to arrest another printer, he was himself seized and carried before the civic authorities, charged with assault. The House was furious at this treatment of their officer, and committed the Lord Mayor and one of the offending aldermen—both members of Parliament—to the Tower.
The Press on this occasion found a worthy champion in Edmund Burke. On the 2nd of March, in a debate which lasted twenty-two hours, Burke effectually held his own, and so bullied and ridiculed the House that he brought the whole business to a standstill. By continually forcing divisions and making use of other obstructive tactics, he managed to delay the parliamentary attempt to muzzle the Press, and gained a great victory for the cause of freedom.
From being actively disliked the Reporters gradually grew to be tolerated, and finally courted and cultivated. Members who had formerly objected to the publication of their speeches soon began to complain with equal bitterness that they were not reported at all. Others, again, grumbled at being misreported, words being attributed to them for which they altogether declined to be responsible. Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Loughborough, complained, in 1771, that the reporting in the Commons was shocking. Of the report of one speech which he was supposed to have delivered he said that "to be sure, there are in that report a few things which I did say, but many things which I am glad I did not say, and some things which I wish I could have said."[448] Burke's famous sentiment that "Virtue does not depend on climates or degrees" was first printed as "on climaxes and trees." When Sheridan made his great speech at the trial of Warren Hastings, the "Morning Chronicle" reported him as having said that "nothing equal in criminality was to be traced either in ancient or modern history, in the correct periods of Tacitus, or the luminous page of Gibbon."[449] The historian was delighted at being mentioned in so flattering a fashion; "I could not hear without emotion the personal compliment," he says in his autobiography. But when Sheridan was asked how he came to apply the epithet "luminous" to Gibbon, "I said Vo-luminous!" he replied shortly.[450]
Cobbett, too, suffered much from bad reporting, and when he ventured to find fault, the Press retaliated by ceasing to report him at all. Spring-Rice (afterwards Lord Monteagle) was punished in a similar fashion for two years, because he had said something deprecatory of journalism. Another member complained that his speeches had been published in the papers with certain of the sentences printed in italics. "I never spoke in italics in my life!" he exclaimed indignantly.
O'Connell in 1833 accused a reporter of wilfully perverting one of his speeches. By way of excuse the Pressman stated that on his way home from the House he had been caught in a shower of rain, which had washed out many of his notes. This explanation did not satisfy the Liberator, who justly remarked that it must surely have been an extraordinary shower which could not only wash out one speech, but actually wash in another![451] He was never a favourite of the Press, and they finally decided to discontinue the report of his speeches. As a means of revenge, he determined to prevent all newspaper reporting, and for some time succeeded in doing so. With this end in view, he made a practice of "espying strangers" on every opportunity, and each time he did so the galleries had to be cleared. The withdrawal of the reporters had a natural but most depressing effect upon the oratory of Parliament. "For the first time within my recollection," says Grant, "members kept their word when, on commencing their orations, they promised not to trespass at any length on the patience of the House."[452]