SOURCE: Tierney, James E. “The Museum, the ‘Super-Excellent Magazine.’” Studies in English Literature 13 (summer 1973): 503-15.

In the following essay, Tierney argues that Dodsley's literary journal The Museum was a far more important reflection of the age than the Gentleman's Magazine.

Robert Dodsley's fortnightly, The Museum: or, Literary and Historical Register (London, 1746-1747) survives as a rather comprehensive portrait of its age. Edited by Mark Akenside, this periodical did not imitate the Gentleman's Magazine, as has been suggested. Unlike Cave's production, the Museum did not chronicle the times but rather reflected them. In its simple four-part format—essays, poetry, literary memoirs, and historical memoirs—the Museum more resembled the literary journal than the magazine by showing the larger aspects of the age's philosophical, political, religious, esthetic, and social concerns.

Furthermore, whereas the Gentleman's republished essays and poetry from other periodicals, the Museum's contents were entirely original. By 1746, Dodsley's...