The Grub-Street Journal, published from 8 January 1730 to 1738, was a London weekly satirizing popular journalism and hack-writing in Grub Street. Largely edited by the nonjuror Richard Russel and the botanist John Martyn, it counted Alexander Pope among its contributors (though he disclaimed involvement), continuing the satirical project begun with The Dunciad; contemporary observers described the paper as inspiredâÂÂand probably fundedâÂÂby Pope in its first year. One of its targets was The Weekly Register, answered in a series of letters by the architect Batty Langley under the pseudonym âÂÂHiram,â which defended Gothic architecture and praised Nicholas Hawksmoor.
After its end, The Literary Courier of Gruber Street succeeded it for a few months.
From mid-1734 into early 1735 the Journal ran near-weekly replies to James Ralph's architectural and art criticism in The Weekly Register, publishing Langley's masonic âÂÂHiramâ letters as a counter-series. These columns defended Gothic forms and Hawksmoor's churchesâÂÂhailing St Anne's, Limehouse as âÂÂa most surprising beautiful structureâÂÂâÂÂand lampooned the RegisterâÂÂs phrasing (its call for an âÂÂoctangular squareâ became a running joke).
Editorially, the Journal framed the quarrel as liberty versus authority, arguing that âÂÂtasteâ was a matter of preference and that London's heterogeneous streetscape reflected English gentlemen's freedom to spend as they pleased; to extend the debate it also reprinted Captain Valentine KnightâÂÂs 1666 rebuilding proposal on 8 May 1735.
The paperâÂÂs personae and satire echoed PopeâÂÂs orbit. Contributors riffed on a couplet from the 1729 Dunciad Variorum (âÂÂSilence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls, / And makes Night hideousâÂÂanswer him, ye owls.âÂÂ) and adopted taunting masks such as âÂÂTimon the Owl-HaterâÂÂ; the editorial persona âÂÂBaviusâ told a Register critic (James Ralph, a notorious Freethinker) to âÂÂread the Bibleâ after misidentifying scriptural scenes in Jacopo AmigoniâÂÂs murals.