asily
daunted, and, instead of publishing the speeches with the first and last
letters of the names of the speakers, he adopted this expedient: he
anagrammatized the names, and published the debates in what purported to
be 'An Appendix to Captain Lemuel Gulliver's Account of the Famous
Empire of Lilliput, giving the Debates in the Senate of Great Lilliput.'
This system was continued for nine years, but, after an interval, Cave
reverted to the old plan. He had always employed some writer or other of
known ability to write the speeches from his notes, and generally even
without any notes at all, so that the speeches were often purely
imaginary. In 1740 Dr. Johnson was employed for this purpose, and he,
according to his own confession, had been but once inside the walls of
the Parliament. Murphy tells the story and gives the names of the
persons who were present when he made the avowal. It occurred thus: A
certain speech of Pitt's, which had appeared in the _Gentleman's
Magazine_, was being highly praised by the company, when Johnson
startled every one by saying: 'That speech I wrote in a garret in Exeter
street.' He then proceeded to give an account of the manner in which the
whole affair used to be managed--this happened many years after his
connection with the matter had ceased--and the assembly 'lavished
encomiums' upon him, especially for his impartiality, inasmuch as he
'dealt out reason and eloquence with an equal hand to both parties.'
Johnson replied: 'That is not quite true: I saved appearances tolerably
well, but I took care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of
it.' These speeches were long received by the world as verbatim reports,
and Voltaire is said to have exclaimed, on reading some of them: 'The
eloquence of Greece and Rome is revived in the British Senate.' Johnson,
finding they were so received, felt some prickings of conscience, and
discontinued their manufacture. When upon his deathbed, he said that
'the only part of his writings that gave him any compunction was his
account of the debates in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, but that at the
time he wrote them he did not think he was imposing upon the world.'
Several attempts had been made to checkmate Cave, and in 1747 he was
summoned before the House of Lords, reprimanded, and fined, but finally
discharged upon begging pardon of the House, and promising never to
offend again. However, in 1752, he resumed the publication of the
debates, with this p