nal articles on the political scene, new literature, advances in science, religious controversy, and much else. Johnson contributed to its regular feature "Foreign History," reporting news from European capitals, battles in the War of the Austrian Succession, a massacre in Java, a coup d'tat in Persia. He initiated a "Foreign Books" feature, reporting literary events in Europe. He did some "investigative reporting," uncovering the literary frauds of William Lauder, as he was later to do with "the Cock Lane ghost" affair and James Macpherson's "Ossian" imposture. In time he came to be regarded as the pundit of journalism, and was called on to write the opening manifestos for many new periodicals, in which he had wise things to say about the journalist's responsibility for the education of the thinking public, the need for truth in news reporting, the importance of timely correction or retraction of reports that have proved erroneous, and the dangers from fraudulent advertising. The 1738 numbers of the Gentleman's carried, as well as some short pieces of verse by Johnson, his "Life of Sarpi." Paolo Sarpi's great History of the Council of Trent (1619), a classic of historiography, recounts, from an antipapal point of view, the events of this famous "ecumenical" council of the Roman Catholic church which, from 1545 to 1563, attempted to meet the growing challenge of Protestantism by tightening discipline and doctrine in the church. Sarpi was one of many Catholics who opposed the increase in centralized control. His much admired history had been translated into French, and Cave published...
