THE FIRST PARLIAMENTARY REPORTS. 203 thing might as well be going for- times. He was a strange feeder, ward, he called out lustily, "A and ruined himself in eating pastry song from Mr. Speaker." Imagine at the confectioners' shops (for one Addington's long, prim, upright of whose scores Taylor and Ì bailed figure, his consternation, and utter him); he was always in a perspirawant of preparation for, or of a tion, whence George christened clew to repel, such an interruption him "King Porus ;" and he was of the rules and orders of Parlia- always so punctual to a minute ment. The house was in a roar. that when he arrived in sight of Pitt, it is said, could hardly keep the office window, the hurry used his seat for laughing. When the to be, "There's Proby-it is halfbustle and the confusion were past two," and yet he never set his abated, the sergeant-at-arms went watch. If ever it came to right into the gallery to take the auda- time I cannot tell; but if you asked cious culprit into custody, and in- him what o'clock it was, he would dignantly desired to know who it look at it, and calculate something was; but nobody would tell. Mark in this sort-"I am twenty-six sat like a tower on the hindermost minutes past seven-four, twentybench of the gallery, imperturbable one from twelve forty,-it is just in his own gravity, and safe in the three minutes past three!" Poor, faith of the brotherhood of report-strange, and simple, yet curiouslyers, who alone were in the secret. informed Proby, his last domicile At length, as the mace-bearer was was the Lambeth parish workhouse, making fruitless inquiries, and get-out of which he would come in his ting impatient, Supple pointed to a fat Quaker, who sat in the middle of the crowd, and nodded assent that he was the man. The Quaker was, to his great surprise, taken into immediate custody; but after a short altercation and some further explanation, he was released, and the hero of our story put in his place for an hour or two, but let off on an assurance of his contrition, and of showing less wit and more discretion in future. JOHN PROBY. coarse gray garb, and call upon his John Proby had never been out of London, never in a boat, never on the back of a horse. To the end of bagwigs he wore a bag; he was the last man that walked with a cane as long as himself, ultimately exchanged for an umbrella, which he was never seen without in wet weather or dry; yet he usually re- THE FIRST PARLIAMENTARY REPORTS. ported the whole debates in the The first attempt at a monthly Peers from memory, without a publication of the parliamentary note, for the Morning Chronicle, debates was made in the Gentleand wrote two or three novels, de-man's Magazine, for August, 1735; picting the social manners of the and the practice was continued in succeeding numbers. The reports tification were William Gurthrie were of the most timid and cau- and Thomas Gordon, both Scotchtious description, the names of the men. About this time, Dr. Johnson speakers being given only by the arrived in London, and was immefirst and last letters, and, in many diately engaged by the editor of the cases, no speaker's name is men- Gentleman's Magazine (Cave), in the tioned; all that appears is a sum- composition of the parliamentary mary of the argument and discus- debates. Gurthrie, who had a good sion. They got bolder by degrees, memory, brought home as much as and at last published the names at he could recollect from the house, full length. This audacity, coupled mending his draught by whatever with the fact that some of the other assistance he could command; members appeared in a light not after which, the matter thus collecvery satisfactory to themselves, ted underwent the finishing touches either from their own defects, or the of Johnson. At times, according incorrect version of their oratory, to Boswell, Johnson had no other caused the attention of the Com-aid than the names of the speakers, mons to be drawn to the subject. and the side they took, being left It was brought under notice, April to his own resources for the argu13, 1738, by the speaker, who was ment and language. A speechfollowed by Yonge, Windham, and the celebrated speech, commencing, Sir Thomas Winnington. The last "The atrocious crime of being a concluded a very angry speech with young man," which he put into the these words: "Why, sir, you will mouth of Pitt, when that distinhave the speeches of this house guished orator replied to the taunts every day printed, even during your of Walpole-Johnson afterwards session; and we shall be looked declared, in the company of Francis, upon as the most contemptible Wedderburn, Foote, and Murphy, assembly on the face of the earth." that he "wrote in a garret in Exeter The result was a thundering reso- Street." His reports, however, are lution, unanimously agreed to, de- considered by the editor of Hanclaring it "a high indignity to, and sard's Parliamentary History, the a notorious breach of, the privileges most authentic extant, faithfully of the house to publish the debates, embodying the argument, if not the either while Parliament is sitting style, of the speakers. It was once or during the recess," and threaten- observed to him, that he dealt out ing to proceed against offenders reason and eloquence with an equal "with the utmost severity." Ac- hand to both parties. "That is not counts of parliamentary business quite true," said Johnson; "I saved were now obtained with greater appearances pretty well; but I took risk, and various contrivances were care that the Whig dogs should not employed to disguise a version of have the best of it." The reports them. The Gentleman's Magazine increased immensely the sale of the published them under the title of the magazines; they enabled Cave to "Debates of the Senate of Lilliput," set up an equipage, on the doorand the London Magazine under panel of which, instead of a crest, that of a "Journal of the Proceed- he had painted a representation of ings and Debates in the Political his office at St. John's Gate, ClerClub;" giving Roman names to the kenwell, where Johnson sometimes speakers, while each publication ate his dinner, concealed behind a printed an explanatory key at the screen, not having suitable clothes end of the year. The two gentlemen to appear before the more modish principally occupied in this mys-visitors of his employer; some of ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. them, perhaps, members of the house, who dropped in to see or correct the maiden proofs of their oratory in the senate. LORD LOUGHBOROUGH. Mr. Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Loughborough, was once asked whether he really delivered in the House of Commons, a speech which the newspapers ascribed to him. "Why, to be sure," said he, there are many things in that speech which I did say, and there are more which I wish I had said." 66 205 powers of literary labour. It is asserted that he has been known to sit through a long debate of the House of Commons, not making a single note of the proceedings, and afterwards to write out a full and faithful account of what had taken place, extending to sixteen columns, without allowing himself an interval of rest. The remarkable exertions of this most famous reporter gave the newspaper for which he wrote a celebrity which compelled other newspapers to aim at the same fulness and freshness in their parliamentary reports. What Woodfall accomplished by excesMr. William Woodfall, the son sive bodily and mental exertion, of the celebrated printer of the his contemporaries succeeded in Public Advertiser, in which the bringing to a higher degree of perLetters of Junius first appeared, fection by the division of labour; undertook, without any assistance, and thus, in time, each morning the arduous task of reporting the newspaper had secured the assistdebates of both houses of Parlia-ance of an efficient body of rement, day by day, in his father's porters, each of whom might in paper, and afterwards in other turn take notes of a debate, and daily journals. This gentleman commit a portion of it to the press possessed a most extraordinary several hours before the whole dememory, as well as wonderful bate was concluded. 66 REPORTING FROM MEMORY. ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. ITS MACE. The mace of the Royal Society, made of silver, weighing 149 oz. avoirdupois, was presented by the King, along with its second charter, in 1663. Of late years it acquired from another source a prestige which has been dissipated in a manner not unlike that of the 'pretorium" in the Antiquary. It was long the popular belief, Sir D. Brewster mentions, in the N. Brit. Review, that this was the mace ordered by Cromwell out of the House of Commons, and numberless visitors came to the apartments of the Royal Society to see the famous "bauble." It was even figured in the Abbotsford edition of Wood 66 stock as being the mace which belonged to the Long Parliament. Mr. Weld, in his History of the Royal Society, has dispelled this pleasing illusion, he having not only traced the history of the "bauble" mace, but discovered the warrant for preparing the new one as a gift to the Society. "We cannot forbear observing," he says, that though the mace may not be as curious as before to the antiquary, divested as it now is of its fictitious historical interest, yet it is much more to be respected; for surely a mace designated a 'bauble,' and spurned from the House of Commons, by a republican, will scarcely be an appropriate gift to the Royal Society." Still, it would be a cherished national relic of the time | establishment of the Royal Society of Old Knoll, who rises in popular tended greatly to destroy the beestimation as the character of lief in witchcraft and superstition Charles II. sinks. SCIENCE AND SUPERSTITION. generally. The discontinuance of touching" for scrofula, or "king's evil," by the royal hand, was due to the same wholesome influence, although this superstition_held out the longest. Dr. Samuel Johnson was "touched” by Queen Anne so late as 1712. TRANSFUSION OF BLOOD. This great scientific body was established in 1660, deriving its origin from previous societies of learned men, who met together for the discussion of subjects of science and art. The meetings were sometimes held at Dr. Goddard's lodgings in Wood Street, where he kept In the year 1667, the Royal Soan operator for grinding lenses; ciety successfully performed the exsometimes at the Bull Head Tavern periment of transfusing the blood in Cheapside; and sometimes at of a sheep into a man in perfect Gresham College. Amongst the health. The subject of the expericelebrated names connected with ment was Arthur Coga, who, as the proceedings of the infant asso- Pepys says, was a kind of minister, ciation, are those of Boyle, Evelyn, and, being in want of money, hired Cowley the poet, and Wren the himself for a guinea. Drs. Lower architect. One result of its labours and King performed the experiwas remarkable. During the civil ment, injecting twelve oz. of sheep's war, no fewer than eighty persons blood, without producing any inwere executed in Suffolk for witch- convenience. The patient drank craft; and, in 1649, fourteen men a glass or two of Canary, took a and women were burned for witch- pipe of tobacco, and went home craft in a little village near Ber- with a stronger and fuller pulse wick, where the entire population than before. The experiment was consisted only of fourteen families. in a day or two afterwards repeated It is stated by Hutchinson that on Coga, when fourteen oz. of there were but two witches exe- sheep's blood was substituted for cuted in England after the Royal eight oz. of his own. Pepys went Society published their Transac- to see him, and heard him give an tions, and Sir Walter Scott has account in Latin of the operation given it as his opinion, that the and its effects. SAVANS OF FRANCE. The following reminiscences of jects. I should say of him, that he Cuvier, Humboldt, Gay-Lussac, is the most distinguished man of Berthollet, and La Place are from talents I have known; but I doubt memoranda by Sir Humphry if he is entitled to the appellation Davy:of a man of genius." "De Humboldt was one of the "Cuvier had even in his address most agreeable men I have ever and manner the character of a su- known; social, modest, full of inperior man ;-much general power telligence, with facilities of every and eloquence in conversation, and kind: almost too fluent in convera great variety of information on sation. His travels display his scientific as well as popular sub-spirit of enterprise. His works are SCIENCE-ITS TRIUMPHS. monuments of the variety of his knowledge and resources.' 207 fallen. His manners were altered. He was become mild and gentlemanlike; and had a softer tone of voice, and more grace in the forms of salutation. I remember the first day I saw him, which was, I be "Gay-Lussac was quick, lively, ingenious, and profound, with great activity of mind, and great facility of manipulation. I should place him at the head of the living chem-lieve, in November, 1813. On my ists of France." "Berthollet was a most amiable man; when the friend of Napoleon even, always good, conciliatory, and modest, frank and candid. He had no airs, and many graces. In every way below La Place in intellectual powers, he appeared superior to him in moral qualities. Berthollet had no appearance of a man of genius; but one could not look on La Place's physiognomy without being convinced that he was a very extraordinary man.” speaking to him of the atomic theory in chemistry, and expressing my belief that the science would ultimately be referred to mathematical laws, similar to those which he had so profoundly and successfully established with respect to the mechanical properties of matter, he treated my idea in a tone bordering on contempt, as if angry that any results in chemistry could, even in their future possibilities, be compared with his own labours. When I dined with him, in 1820, "La Place, when a minister of he discussed the same opinion with Napoleon, was rather formal and acumen and candour, and allowed grand in manner, with an air of all the merit of John Dalton. It protection rather than of courtesy. is true our positions had changed. He spoke like a man not merely He was now amongst the old arisfeeling his own power, but wishing tocracy of France, and was no that others should be immediately conscious of it. I have heard, from good authority, that he was exceedingly proud of his orders, and that he had the star of the order of Reunion affixed to his dressing-gown. This was in 1813. In 1820, when I saw him again, his master had longer the intellectual head of the new aristocracy; and, from a young and humble aspirant to chemical glory, I was about to be called, by the voice of my colleagues, to a chair which had been honoured by the last days of Newton." SCIENCE-ITS TRIUMPHS. It has lengthened life; it has tiplied the power of the human mitigated pain; it has extinguished muscles; it has accelerated motion; diseases; it has increased the fer- it has annihilated distance; it has tility of the soil; it has given new facilitated intercourse, correspondsecurities to the mariner; it has ence, all friendly offices, all despatch furnished new arms to the warrior; of business; it has enabled man to it has spanned great rivers and descend to the depths of the sea, to estuaries with bridges of form un- soar into the air, to penetrate seknown to our fathers; it has guided curely into the noxious recesses of the thunderbolt innocuously from the earth, to traverse the land in heaven to earth; it has lighted up cars which whirl along without the night with the splendour of horses, and the ocean in ships which the day; it has extended the range run ten knots an hour against the of the human vision; it has mul-wind. These are but a part of its |