These effusions
displayed a very respectable amount of ability, and the general
getting-up, or what would now be termed the sub-editing of the paper,
was also performed with care and ability. The scraps of news were
always presented rewritten and carefully condensed, instead of the
loose 'scissors-and-paste' style of publication adopted by many
provincial papers of the present day. Notices not only of local
theatricals, but of histrionic matters at Old Drury, were occasionally
given; the number for March 15, 1766, containing a well-written
criticism of '_The Clandestine Marriage; a New Comedy_,' performed
there. As the _Chronicle_ thus had to leave politics for literature,
we may perhaps, in our turn, digress from a consideration of its
pages, to note briefly that this period was set in the very midst of
the celebrated Georgian era, in which this country could boast of more
distinguished men--especially in literature--than at any other period.
In about twenty previous years, many great ones had departed--notably
Pope, Thomson, Fielding. Richardson also had died in 1761, and
Shenstone in 1763; the author of the _Night-Thoughts_ survived till
1765, when his burial was announced in the _Chronicle_ of April 27.
At this time (1765-6), Dr Johnson had reached the zenith of his fame;
Gray was becoming popular; Smollett had written most of his novels;
Goldsmith was about to present the world with his exquisite _Vicar of
Wakefield_; Gibbon had returned to England from Rome with the idea of
_The Decline and Fall_ floating in his brain; Thomas Chatterton,
----'the marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride,'
had already given proofs of his wondrous precocity; the genuine
sailor-poet, Falconer, had lately published _The Shipwreck_; Laurence
Sterne had just collected the materials for his _Sentimental Journey_;
Sir William Blackstone had published his celebrated _Commentaries_;
Wesley and Whitefield had not yet ended their useful career; the star
of Edmund Burke was rising; and Jeremy Bentham, being then (1766) but
seventeen years of age, had taken his master's degree at Oxford,
although, it is true, the first literary performance of the eccentric
philosopher did not appear till some years later.
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