P L A N T A R C H Y 2 - Critical Documents

current coin.
Now in rehearsal the distrest mother, a tragedy—Occasioned by the
undutiful behavior of the Colonies.
Notwithstanding the present exorbitant price of candles—Some dark
transactions will soon be brought to light.
Yesterday ended the races at Newmarket—at which several of the great
officers of state assisted.
Last night there was a meeting of the female coterie—and five of the
most hardened committed to Bridewell.
Whitefoord was involved in a behind-the-scenes manner in the politics
of the time. As a neighbour of Benjamin Franklin in London in the 1750s, he
was chosen to go to France in 1782 to act as an intermediary in the settlement of
the War of Independence. He knew Dr. Johnson and Isaac D’Israeli, the father
of Benjamin Disraeli and author of Curiosities of Literature. He was also a poet
himself, but he is unlikely to have claimed that these cross-readings were poetry.
According to Austin Dobson, in his book De Libris (1908), these publications
proved very popular, even among the most distinguished writers of the period.
Dr. Johnson found them ‘ingenious and diverting’; Horace Walpole wrote to a
friend that he had ‘laughed over them till he cried’; Oliver Goldsmith is reported
to have felt that ‘it would have given him more pleasure to be the author of them
than all the works he had ever published of his own.’
It is possible that some of these cross-readings were not put together by
Whitefoord. An anonymous broadside published in Salisbury in 1782 had this
to say (since it has not been reproduced in modern times, the whole broadside is
worth quoting in full):
The Humorous Effects of Cross-reading the News-papers
To news-papers we are principally indebted for our knowledge and
amusement.—One particular species of entertainment resulting from
them, is, after reading each column by itself DOWNWARDS, to read
two columns together ONWARDS: whereby chance will bring about
the most unaccountable connections, and frequently couple persons
and things the most heterogeneous; things so opposite in their nature
and qualities, that no man would ever have thought of joining them
together.—The truth of this observation will appear, on perusing the
following Humorous Articles, which may tend to promote the practice
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