But the grand feature of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ was, that it was the first to systematize parliamentary reporting. This was originally managed by Cave and two or three others obtaining admission to the strangers' gallery, and taking notes furtively of the speeches. These notes were afterward compared, and from them and memory the speeches were reproduced in print. Cave's reports continued for two years unmolested, when the House of Commons endeavored to put an end to them. A debate took place, in which all the speakers were agreed except Sir William Wyndham, who expressed a timid dissent, as follows: 'I don't know but what the people have a right to know what their representatives are doing.' 'I don't know,' forsooth--the Government and the people must have been a long way off then from a proper appreciation of the duties of the one and the rights of the other! Sir Robert Walpole, the former friend of the press--who, by the way, is said to have spent more than L50,000 in bribes to venal scribblers in the course of ten years--had completely changed his views, and had nothing then to say in its favor. A resolution was passed which declared it breach of privilege to print any of the debates, and announced the intention of the House to punish with the utmost severity any offenders. Cave, however, was not easily 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