opinion, embodied in a free press, which pervades and checks, and perhaps, in the last resort, nearly governs the whole, would give but an imperfect view of the Government of England." From an English, let us turn to a French statesman. M. Thiers says:- "The Liberty of the Press affords a channel through which the injured may challenge his oppressor at the bar of the nation; it is the means by which public men may, in case of misconduct, be arraigned before their own and succeeding ages; it is the only mode in which bold and undisguised truth can press its way into the cabinets of monarchs; and it is the privilege, by means of which, he who vainly lifts his voice against the corruptions or prejudices of his own time, may leave his councils upon record as a legacy to impartial posterity. The cruelty which would deafen the ear and extinguish the sight of an individual, resembles in some similar degree his guilt also who, by restricting the freedom of the press, would reduce a nation to the deafness of prejudice and the blindness of ignorance. The downfall of this species of freedom, as it is the first symptom of the decay of national liberty, has been in all ages followed by its total destruction, and it may be justly pronounced that they cannot exist separately.” From the days of Milton to the present hour, the world has been urged to recognise the importance of a free press. Macaulay, in his sketch of the condition of the English labourers in the days of the Stuarts, says, as a proof of their unhappy state when compared with their successors in our time:-"No newspaper pleaded their cause;" and, in his review of Southey's Colloquies on Society, argues against the interference of a government.

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VALUE OF FREE DISCUSSION.

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with the freedom of the press. "Men are never," he says, so likely to settle a question rightly, as when they discuss it freely. A government can interfere in discussion, only by making it less free than it would otherwise be. Men are most likely to form just opinions, when they have no other wish than to know the truth, and are exempt from all influence either of hope or fear. Government can bring nothing but, the influence of hopes and fears to support its doctrines. It carries on controversy not with reasons, but with threats and bribes. If it employs reasons, it does so not in virtue of any powers which belong to it as a government. Thus, instead of a contest between argument and argument, we have a contest between argument and force. Instead of a contest in which truth, from the natural constitution of the human mind, has a decided advantage over falsehood, we have a contest in which truth can be victorious only by accident." Other modern writers have been equally decided in their declared opinions. "The Newspaper," quoth Bulwer, "is the chronicle of civilization, the common reservoir, into which every stream pours its living waters, and at which every man may come and drink; it is the Newspaper which gives to liberty practical life, its perpetual vigilance, its unrelaxing activity; the Newspaper is a daily and sleepless watchman that reports to you every danger which menaces the institutions of your country, and its interests at home and abroad. The Newspaper informs legislation of the public opinion, and it informs people of the acts of legislation; thus keeping up that constant sympathy, that good understanding between people and legislators, which conduces to the mainte

nance of order, and prevents the stern necessity for revolution. The Newspaper is a law-book for the indolent, a sermon for the thoughtless, a library for the poor." Another novelist, Captain Marryatt, echoes the same strain when he declares, that "Newspapers are a link in the great chain of miracles which prove the greatness of England, and every support should be given to them." The English Opium-Eater is eloquent on the quiet useful victories of the press. "Much already has been accomplished: more than people are aware; so gradual and silent has been the advance. How noiseless is the growth of corn! Watch it night and day for a week, and you will never see it growing; but return, after two months, and you will find it all whitening for the harvest. Such, and so imperceptible in the stages of their motion, are the victories of the press."

By the value and fidelity of these various services, now rendered day by day, the Newspaper has earned its power and its position; has grown with increasing years, and strengthened with increasing rectitude, until it has received the cognomen, and wields the power of a FOURTH ESTATE. To trace the steps by which, from small beginnings, it has reached its present elevation is the chief object of the following pages.

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CHAPTER II.

NEWS-LETTERS AND NEWS-WRITERS-FORERUNNERS

OF NEWSPAPERS.

"News of the morning?--I would fain hear some,
Fresh from the forge."

BEN JONSON.

Date of the First English Newspaper.-Its Author, and his craft.— What constitutes a Newspaper.-The News-letters.-Ben Jonson's Sketch of the News-writer's Office.-The Staple of News.-Cavaliers and Roundheads, and the modes of circulating News.-Cromwell at the Blue Boar, Holborn.-Coffee and News-letters at Cambridge.— Titus Oates and Mr Coleman.-Tragic End of a News-writer.-The Newspaper Forgery and its Detection.-Dr. Johnson and the Acta Diurna.-Venice and its Gazettes.

HEN the reign of James the First was drawing

WH

to a close; when Ben Jonson was poet laureate, and the personal friends of Shakspeare were lamenting his then recent death; when Cromwell was trading as a brewer at Huntingdon; when Milton was a youth of sixteen, just trying his pen at Latin verse, and Hampden a quiet country gentleman in Buckinghamshire; London was first solicited to patronise its first Newspaper. There is now no reason to doubt that the puny ancestor of the myriads of broad sheets of our time was published in the metropolis in 1622, and that the most prominent of the ingenious speculators who offered the novelty to the world was one Nathaniel Butter. His companions in the work appear to have been Nicholas Bourne, Thomas Archer, Nathaniel Newberry, William Sheffard, Bartholomew Downes,

and Edward Allde. All these different names appear in the imprints of the early numbers of the first Newspaper-THE WEEKLY NEWES. What appears to be the earliest sheet bears date the 23rd of May (1622), and has the names of Bourne and Archer on the title; but as we proceed in the examination of the subject, we find that Butter becomes the most conspicuous of the set. He seems to have been the author and the writer, whilst the others were probably the publishers; and, with varying titles, and apparently with but indifferent success, his name is found in connection with Newspapers as late as the year 1640.

No claim for very great originality or genius can be put in for Butter. His merit consists in the simple fact that he was the first to print what had long been written-to put into type what he and others had been accustomed to supply in MS.; the first to give to the News-letters of his time the one characteristic feature which has distinguished Newspapers ever since. He offered the public a printed sheet of News to be published at stated and regular intervals. Already hosts of printed papers, headed with the word "Newes," had been issued; but they were mere pamphlets-catch-pennys, printed one now and another then, without any connection with each other, and each giving some portion of intelligence thought by its author to be of sufficient interest to secure a sale. The Weekly News was distinguished from them all by the fact of its being published at fixed intervals, usually a week between each publication, and that each paper was numbered in regular succession, as we have Newspapers numbered at the present day. Holding to