Wesley and his friends were soon inundated with questions; so much so, that in the preface to vol. ii., they say they have nearly four thousand on hand unanswered; they also request that no obscene questions be sent, for they are resolved not to answer them; nor riddles, for riddles are of no use to the general public; nor anything else, the answer to which may be a scandal to the Government, or an abuse to particular persons.

During the publication of the first six volumes, the Athenian Gazette was issued only twice a week; but afterwards the numbers were published every Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday, until the completion of the nineteenth volume, when it was announced that, “as the coffee-houses have the votes every day, and nine newspapers every week, the Athenian Society propose to drop the publication of sheets four days a week, and henceforth to publish the work in volumes quarterly. Thirty numbers, to make volume xx., would be printed all together; but as soon as the glut of news was a little over, the weekly numbers would again commence.”

Eight years after, in 1703, the old Athenian volumes being out of print, “a collection of all the valuable questions and answers” was printed in three volumes; and, in 1710, a fourth volume was added, as a supplement, “being a collection of the remaining questions and answers in the old Athenian Gazettes.” This work had a rapid sale, and, in 1704, a second edition was published, with a dedication to the Earl of Ormond, written by Mr Wesley.

The publication of the Athenian Gazette first occurred to Dunton whilst he was walking in St George’s Fields. The object of the work was to receive and to answer questions in all departments of literature. Finding assistance necessary, Dunton first engaged the services of Richard Sault, a man who “was admirably well skilled in the mathematics.” Then the ingenious Dr Norris generously offered his help gratis; but refused to become a stated member of the Athenian Society. The undertaking grew every week, and hundreds of letters poured in. Dunton writes, “The impatience of our querists, and the curiosity of their questions, obliged us to adopt a third member of Athens; and the Rev. Samuel Wesley being just come to town, all new from the university, and my acquaintance with him being very intimate, I easily prevailed with him to embark himself with us. With this new addition, we found ourselves to be masters of the whole design; and therefore we neither lessened nor increased our number.”

The original “articles of agreement between Samuel Wesley, clerk, Richard Sault, gent., and John Dunton, for the writing of the Athenian Gazette, or Mercury, dated April 10, 1691,” may still be seen among Dunton’s MSS. in the Bodleian Library.

When the Athenian Gazette was fairly and fully launched, a rival paper, entitled the Lacedemonian Mercury, was published by Brown & Pate. This was a trifling and even profane performance. The sole purpose of the writers “seemed to be to laugh and ridicule solidity and seriousness out of the world.”[[41]] This aroused the ire and energies of Wesley, Sault, and Dunton, and they succeeded in putting down the rival and ungodly upstart. A little later, an attack was made upon their publication, by Elkanah Settle, who brought out a play, entitled “The New Athenian Comedy; containing the Politicks, Oeconomicks, Tacticks, Crypticks, Apocalypticks, Stypticks, Scepticks, Pneumaticks, Theologicks, and Dogmaticks of our most learned Society.” Settle was born at Dunstable, in 1648, and was educated at Trinity College, Oxford. He began life by publishing two political pamphlets, which were publicly burnt, on the accession of James II.[[42]] After this, he turned Tory, wrote a poem on James’s coronation, and published an essay weekly on behalf of James’s administration. He was called the city poet, because he had a salary for writing a poem annually on the Lord Mayor’s day. Afterwards he was reduced to such extreme poverty, that he was not only obliged to write farces for Bartholomew fair, but to act in them himself. In a farce, called St George and the Dragon, he acted the dragon, a circumstance referred to by Dr Young in the following lines:—

“Poor Elkanah, all other changes past,

For bread, in Smithfield, dragons hiss’d at last,

Spit streams of fire, to make the butchers gape,

And found his manners suited to his shape.”