This important article of the Gentlemen's Magazine was, for several
years, executed by Mr. William Guthrie, a man who deserves to be
respectably recorded in the literary annals of this country. The debates
in Parliament, which were brought home and digested by Guthrie, whose
memory, though surpassed by others who have since followed him in the
same department, was yet very quick and tenacious, were sent by Cave
to Johnson for his revision; and, after some time, when Guthrie had
attained to greater variety of employment, and the speeches were more
and more enriched by the accession of Johnson's genius, it was resolved
that he should do the whole himself, from the scanty notes furnished
by persons employed to attend in both houses of Parliament. Sometimes,
however, as he himself told me, he had nothing more communicated to
him than the names of the several speakers, and the part which they had
taken in the debate.*

* Johnson later told Boswell that 'as soon as he found that
the speeches were thought genuine he determined that he
would write no more of them: for "he would not be accessary
to the propagation of falsehood." And such was the
tenderness of his conscience, that a short time before his
death he expressed his regret for his having been the
authour of fictions which had passed for realities.'--Ed.

But what first displayed his transcendent powers, and 'gave the world
assurance of the MAN,' was his London, a Poem, in Imitation of the Third
Satire of Juvenal: which came out in May this year, and burst forth with
a splendour, the rays of which will for ever encircle his name. Boileau
had imitated the same satire with great success, applying it to Paris;
but an attentive comparison will satisfy every reader, that he is
much excelled by the English Juvenal. Oldham had also imitated it, and