The
Journalist
has no leisure.
Hunt - Fourth Estate - History of Newspapers and Liberty of Press - v1
The fourth estate: contributions towards a history of newspapers,
and of the liberty of the press. By F. Knight Hunt.
Hunt, Frederick Knight, 1814-1854. London, D. Bogue, 1850.
http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3543665
Public Domain, Google-digitized
http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
We have determined this work to be in the public domain, meaning that it is not subject to copyright. Users are free to copy, use, and redistribute the work in part or in whole. It is possible that current copyright holders, heirs or the estate of the authors of individual portions of the work, such as illustrations or photographs, assert copyrights over these portions. Depending on the nature of subsequent use that is made, additional rights may need to be obtained independently of anything we can address. The digital images and OCR of this work were produced by Google, Inc. (indicated by a watermark on each page in the PageTurner). Google requests that the images and OCR not be re-hosted, redistributed or used commercially. The images are provided for educational, scholarly, non-commercial purposes.
THE FOURTH ESTATE: CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS
A 'HISTORY OF NEWSPAPERS,* AND OF THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.
BY F. KNIGHT HUNT. ft ft
in* wvo vols. ;*-„ VOL. J
" What is it that drops the same thought into ten thousand minds at the same moment 5 —the Newspaper. " T)b Tocqueyille.
" There she is— the great engine — she never sleeps. She has her ambassadors in every quarter of the world— her couriers upon every road. Her officers march along with armies, and her envoys walk into statesmen's cabinets. They are ubiquitous. Yonder Journal has an agent at this minute giving bribes at Madrid ; and another inspecting the price of
potatoes at Covent Garden. "
Penpennis.
LONDON:
DAVID BOGUE, 86, FLEET STREET. MDCCCL.
LONDON :
HENRY VIZETELLT, PRINTER AND ENGRAVER,
AND TO
THEIR " CONSTANT READERS," THESE CONTRIBUTIONS TO
THE HISTORY OF
THE FOURTH ESTATE ARE DEDICATED.
TO THE JOURNALISTS OF ENGLAND,
240104
PREFACE.
The following pages are offered only as contributions towards the history of a subject which has been hitherto almost unattempted. The merit they may claim is that of having brought together, in a distinct and tangible form, a number of previously scattered dates and passages illustrative of the History of the Newspaper Press. The writer would fain call to the reader's mind an anecdote familiar to those who have enjoyed the pleasant pages of Charles Lamb. The essayist is speaking of one of his own title-pages, and says, Do not call these my works, but my recreations ;
my works are in the ledgers of Leadenhall Street. In all humility this deprecatory explanation of Elia may be repeated. The following pages have been completed during disjointed odds and ends of time, before or between, or after, real work ; —in the half
vi PREFACE.
hours that could be filched from heavier duties. When the task was entered on the writer was not sanguine enough to suppose he could avoid omissions and other errors ; but he had a hope, still indulged —that those into whose hands these volumes may pass, will, when inclined to point out the defects of the book, have the kindness also to assist in sup plying the omissions. The materials for a satisfactory History of Newspapers lie scattered in facts, known
one to this person and one to that. If each London or Provincial Journalist — each reader, and each critic —who has an anecdote or a date, would give it pub licity, some future volume might be prepared from the combined supply, much more complete than any to be fairly expected from a comparatively unaided writer, who ventures upon an almost untrodden path.
CONTENTS. — VOL. I.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY. WHAT IS THE FOURTH ESTATE?
Newspapers a necessity of modern civilized life. The World brought by them to the breakfast-table, to amuse and to teach the reader. What Newspapers contain. Their History hitherto unwritten. The Journalist has no leisure. The interest and importance of the subject. Dr. Johnson. Lords Mansfield and Lyndhurst. Canning. Thiers. Macaulay. Southey. Bulwer. Captain Marryatt. The English Opium-Eater. The power and value of the Press have made it a Fourth Estate. page 1
CHAPTER II.
NEWS-LETTERS AND NEWS-WRITERS — FORERUNNERS OF NEWSPAPERS.
ohnson and the Acta 9
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. J Diurna. Venice and its Gazettes.
Vlll CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
THE EARLY STRUGGLES OF THE PRESS.
The Papal Power and the Press. Origin of the Censorship. Wolsey's Declaration. Effects of the Reformation. Kingly Authority over the Press. Increase in the number of Readers. The Press makes Supporters for itself. Its early Champions. Sir Richard Knightley and the Star Chamber. Increase of Books. Shakspeare and Bacon extend the scope of Thought among the People. The Civil Wars break the bonds of the Press. The Star Chamber Persecutions. First Newspapers and Journalists 37
CHAPTER IV.
THE PRESS OP THE COMMONWEALTH, THE RESTORATION, AND THE REVOLUTION.
Bacon and Sir Lionel Cranfield. The Long Parliament and the Press. Ordinances. Milton's Plea for Unlicensed Printing. The Restora
tion shackles the Press. Trial and Fate of Twyn. Censor and Editor. The London Gazette appears. of 1688
CHAPTER V.
L'Estrange the The Revolution
116
A CENTURY OP NEWSPAPERS. THE ORANGE INTELLIGENCER OF 1688 TO THE TIMES OF 1788.
The Orange Newspapers. The Career of Tutchin. Judge Jefferies. Defoe. The time of Pope and the first Daily Paper. Bolingbroke. Swift. Addison. The first Stamp Act and its effects. Steele
expelled the House of Commons. Fielding. Foote. Johnson. Smollett. Wilkes. Churchill. Junius. The House of Commons and the Printers.
CHAPTER VI.
.
Burke. Dr. Chatterton.
. 161
NEWSPAPERS AND JOURNALISTS FROM 1788 TO 1800.
The Press in the Reign of George the Third. Numerous Laws and Prosecutions. Statute on Libel. Trial of Paine, and Speech of Erskine. Sheridan. Burke. Crabbe. Summary of Acts of Par liament. Attempts to gag the Newspapers. . . . 251
THE FOURTH ESTATE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY. WHAT IS THE FOURTH ESTATE?
" The press is mistress of intelligence, and intelligence is mistress of the world. "—B. Constant.
Newspapers a necessity of modern civilized life. —The World brought by them to the breakfast-table, to amuse and to teach the reader. — What Newspapers contain. — Their History hitherto unwritten. — The Journalist has no leisure. —The interest and importance of the subject. — Dr. Johnson. — Lords Mansfield and Lyndhurst. — Canning. — Thiers. — Macaulay. — Southey. — Bulwer. — Captain Marryatt. — The English Opium-Eater. —The power and value of the Press have made it a Fourth Estate.
A LL men, now-a-days, who read at all, read News- 11 papers. Go where you will, you see the broad sheet that tells the Passing History of the World We Live In, and that reflects the real life — the feelings, the actions, the aspirations and the prejudices — the glory and the shame of the Men of To-Day. It shows us the only world we can see, and walk over, and move
amongst ; the only world we can test by our personal
and our outward senses. What wonder, then, that Newspapers have grown upon us until they have become a positive necessity of civilized exist ence — a portion, indeed, of modern civilization. If
History be experience teaching by the example of VOL. I. li
experience
2 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
past times, the Newspaper is a teacher offering much better evidence. The journal gives us, day by day, the experience of the world as it exists round about us, ready to avouch the truth of the journalist—gives, day by day, and week by week, the experience of the whole world's doings for the amusement and the guidance of each individual living man. It is a great mental camera, which throws a picture of the whole world upon a single sheet of paper.
But though a great teacher, and an all-powerful instrument of modern civilization, there is no affecta tion of greatness about it. The Newspaper is the familiar of all men, of all degrees, of all occupations. If it teaches, it teaches imperceptibly. It has no pompous gown, or scholastic rod, to abash or to con trol, but prepares itself, and is admitted freely and at once to a world-wide intimacy with all kinds and con ditions of people. For the idle, it is a friendly gossip; to the busy, it shows what business is on hand ; for the politician, it reflects the feelings of party ; for the holiday-maker, it talks about new plays, new music, and the last exhibition. Its ample page is full of the romance of real life, equally with the facts of real life. The types that to-day tell how a king abdicated, or a good man died, tell to-morrow the price of log wood or of tallow. As they stand side by side, those tall columns of words show us the hopes of the sanguine, and the sufferings of the unfortunate ; they hang out the lure of the trader who would sell his wares, and of the manager who would fill his theatre ; shoulder by shoulder are the reports of regal and noble festivities, and lists of bankrupts and insolvents, and
THE NEWSPAPER. 3
in as many paragraphs we find linked the three great
steps of a generation —the births, the marriages, and the deaths. No wonder, then, that whilst the world grows tired of orators, and weary of the mimic stage, it should be more and more faithful in its reference to the intellectual familiar that drops, as De Tocqueville says, the same thought into the ten thousand minds at the same minute ; or more attached to the friendly
broadsheet that reflects truly and promptly the ever-
changing, but ever-exciting, scenes of the great drama of real life.
Yet of the thousands who take up their favourite journal with as much punctuality as they take their breakfast, how many have ever asked themselves in
what way this punctual friend of theirs—this matutinal source of information and excitement —became a ne cessity of modern life ? They look to their Newspaper to amuse their leisure ; to advance their trade ; to seek how best they may satisfy their wants ; to watch how their favourite opinions are progressing; how their friends are praised, and their foes are denounced. Nor are they disappointed, for the same varied page shows how the world goes on its way, now rejoicing and now grieving; how war kills its thousands in one place, whilst commerce and industry are winning nobler vic tories in another.
The Journalist has no leisure. The interest and importance of the subject. Dr. Johnson. Lords Mansfield and Lyndhurst. Canning. Thiers. Macaulay. Southey. Bulwer. Captain Marryatt. The English Opium-Eater. The power and value of the Press have made it a Fourth Estate. page 1
CHAPTER II.
NEWS-LETTERS AND NEWS-WRITERS — FORERUNNERS OF NEWSPAPERS.
ohnson and the Acta 9
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. J Diurna. Venice and its Gazettes.
Vlll CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
THE EARLY STRUGGLES OF THE PRESS.
The Papal Power and the Press. Origin of the Censorship. Wolsey's Declaration. Effects of the Reformation. Kingly Authority over the Press. Increase in the number of Readers. The Press makes Supporters for itself. Its early Champions. Sir Richard Knightley and the Star Chamber. Increase of Books. Shakspeare and Bacon extend the scope of Thought among the People. The Civil Wars break the bonds of the Press. The Star Chamber Persecutions. First Newspapers and Journalists 37
CHAPTER IV.
THE PRESS OP THE COMMONWEALTH, THE RESTORATION, AND THE REVOLUTION.
Bacon and Sir Lionel Cranfield. The Long Parliament and the Press. Ordinances. Milton's Plea for Unlicensed Printing. The Restora
tion shackles the Press. Trial and Fate of Twyn. Censor and Editor. The London Gazette appears. of 1688
CHAPTER V.
L'Estrange the The Revolution
116
A CENTURY OP NEWSPAPERS. THE ORANGE INTELLIGENCER OF 1688 TO THE TIMES OF 1788.
The Orange Newspapers. The Career of Tutchin. Judge Jefferies. Defoe. The time of Pope and the first Daily Paper. Bolingbroke. Swift. Addison. The first Stamp Act and its effects. Steele
expelled the House of Commons. Fielding. Foote. Johnson. Smollett. Wilkes. Churchill. Junius. The House of Commons and the Printers.
CHAPTER VI.
.
Burke. Dr. Chatterton.
. 161
NEWSPAPERS AND JOURNALISTS FROM 1788 TO 1800.
The Press in the Reign of George the Third. Numerous Laws and Prosecutions. Statute on Libel. Trial of Paine, and Speech of Erskine. Sheridan. Burke. Crabbe. Summary of Acts of Par liament. Attempts to gag the Newspapers. . . . 251
THE FOURTH ESTATE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY. WHAT IS THE FOURTH ESTATE?
" The press is mistress of intelligence, and intelligence is mistress of the world. "—B. Constant.
Newspapers a necessity of modern civilized life. —The World brought by them to the breakfast-table, to amuse and to teach the reader. — What Newspapers contain. — Their History hitherto unwritten. — The Journalist has no leisure. —The interest and importance of the subject. — Dr. Johnson. — Lords Mansfield and Lyndhurst. — Canning. — Thiers. — Macaulay. — Southey. — Bulwer. — Captain Marryatt. — The English Opium-Eater. —The power and value of the Press have made it a Fourth Estate.
A LL men, now-a-days, who read at all, read News- 11 papers. Go where you will, you see the broad sheet that tells the Passing History of the World We Live In, and that reflects the real life — the feelings, the actions, the aspirations and the prejudices — the glory and the shame of the Men of To-Day. It shows us the only world we can see, and walk over, and move
amongst ; the only world we can test by our personal
and our outward senses. What wonder, then, that Newspapers have grown upon us until they have become a positive necessity of civilized exist ence — a portion, indeed, of modern civilization. If
History be experience teaching by the example of VOL. I. li
experience
2 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
past times, the Newspaper is a teacher offering much better evidence. The journal gives us, day by day, the experience of the world as it exists round about us, ready to avouch the truth of the journalist—gives, day by day, and week by week, the experience of the whole world's doings for the amusement and the guidance of each individual living man. It is a great mental camera, which throws a picture of the whole world upon a single sheet of paper.
But though a great teacher, and an all-powerful instrument of modern civilization, there is no affecta tion of greatness about it. The Newspaper is the familiar of all men, of all degrees, of all occupations. If it teaches, it teaches imperceptibly. It has no pompous gown, or scholastic rod, to abash or to con trol, but prepares itself, and is admitted freely and at once to a world-wide intimacy with all kinds and con ditions of people. For the idle, it is a friendly gossip; to the busy, it shows what business is on hand ; for the politician, it reflects the feelings of party ; for the holiday-maker, it talks about new plays, new music, and the last exhibition. Its ample page is full of the romance of real life, equally with the facts of real life. The types that to-day tell how a king abdicated, or a good man died, tell to-morrow the price of log wood or of tallow. As they stand side by side, those tall columns of words show us the hopes of the sanguine, and the sufferings of the unfortunate ; they hang out the lure of the trader who would sell his wares, and of the manager who would fill his theatre ; shoulder by shoulder are the reports of regal and noble festivities, and lists of bankrupts and insolvents, and
THE NEWSPAPER. 3
in as many paragraphs we find linked the three great
steps of a generation —the births, the marriages, and the deaths. No wonder, then, that whilst the world grows tired of orators, and weary of the mimic stage, it should be more and more faithful in its reference to the intellectual familiar that drops, as De Tocqueville says, the same thought into the ten thousand minds at the same minute ; or more attached to the friendly
broadsheet that reflects truly and promptly the ever-
changing, but ever-exciting, scenes of the great drama of real life.
Yet of the thousands who take up their favourite journal with as much punctuality as they take their breakfast, how many have ever asked themselves in
what way this punctual friend of theirs—this matutinal source of information and excitement —became a ne cessity of modern life ? They look to their Newspaper to amuse their leisure ; to advance their trade ; to seek how best they may satisfy their wants ; to watch how their favourite opinions are progressing; how their friends are praised, and their foes are denounced. Nor are they disappointed, for the same varied page shows how the world goes on its way, now rejoicing and now grieving; how war kills its thousands in one place, whilst commerce and industry are winning nobler vic tories in another. Nothing seems too trivial for the vigilance of the journalist. Nothing beyond the reach of his capacity. The last great battle, and the latest fashion — the most important and the most trivial of
human affairs —find place in the columns of the News paper. And how are these thousand great and small things concentrated, day by day, in these compact
B2
4 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
columns of facts and opinions, rumours and occur rences ? How come these voices from all quarters of the globe to teach and to amuse ? What hidden influ ences, what strange machinery, what ever-active, never- tiring elements, what active brains are atwork to achieve this continuous result ?
It is somewhat curious that, whilst so many pens
have now for generations been busy in labouring for the Newspaper Press, no one of them ever found time to
its history. Various writers have expa tiated on the importance of the subject, but no one has hitherto ventured on its treatment as a distinct topic, except in meagre articles for cyclopaedias, or discursive papers in a magazine. The reason of this,
attempt
has existed in the feeling that none but a could obtain the materials for completing the task, and that those who had power over the
materials had not time to use them for such a purpose. And, in truth, the man who once becomes a journalist must almost bid farewell to mental rest or mental lei sure. If he fulfils his duties truthfully, his attention must be ever awake to what is passing in the world, and his whole mind must be devoted to the instant exami nation, and discussion, and record of current events. He has little time for literary idleness with such lite rary labour on his shoulders. He has no days to spend on catalogues, or in dreamy discursive searches in the
stores of public libraries. He has no months to devote to the exhaustion of any one theme. What he has to deal with must be taken up at a moment's notice, be ex amined, tested, and dismissed at once, and thus his mind is kept ever occupied with the mental necessity
perhaps, journalist
OPINIONS ON THE NEWSPAPER.
of the world's passing hour. Else, most assuredly, some Newspaper writer would long since have written his tory of the Newspaper Press, for the public have been reminded often enough how important, how curious, and how interesting the subject must be.
Thinkers of all classes have borne testimony in favour of the Newspaper Press. Scholars, statesmen, essayists, jurists, reviewers, novelists, and poets, have been ready to bear witness to the importance of Jour nalism, and of the Liberty of the Press. In the ripe autumn of his years and knowledge, Dr. Johnson said, "I never take up aNewspaper without finding something
should have deemed loss not to have seen; never without deriving from instruction and amusement. " There an anecdote on record of Lord Mansfield and the press —A foreigner who had visited our courts of
justice, remarked to Lord Mansfield that he was sur prised to find them attended by so few of the public. "No matter, sir,"replied the Chief Justice, "we sit every dayinthe Newspapers. " It the Newspaper that secures that publicity to the administration of the laws which
the main source of its purity and wisdom. "To say, then, an English Judge incorrupt," observed Dr. Parr, "is scarcely to praise him. " This one triumph of the Newspapers. Another high legal authority, Lord Lynd- hurst, declares —"lam sure, that every person will be willing as am to acknowledge, in the most ample terms, the information, the instruction, and amusement derived from the public press. " To pass from legal to ministe rial authority, we find Canning declaring, that "he who, speculating on the British Constitution, should omit from his enumeration the mighty power of public
I
is :
is
is
I
is
is
it it a
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--j
(j
THE FOURTH ESTATE.
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 bis 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
EnglishlabourersinthedaysoftheStuarts, says,asaproof of their unhappy state when compared with their suc cessors in our time:—"No newspaper pleaded their cause;" and, in his review of Southey's Colloquies on So ciety, argues against the interference of a government
VALUE OF FREE DISCUSSION. r
with the freedom of the press. "Men are never," he says, "so likely to settle a question rightly, as when they dis cuss it freely. A government can interfere in discus sion, 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 powerswhichbelongtoitasagovernment. 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
s THE FOURTH
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 noise less 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.
and of the liberty of the press. By F. Knight Hunt.
Hunt, Frederick Knight, 1814-1854. London, D. Bogue, 1850.
http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. b3543665
Public Domain, Google-digitized
http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
We have determined this work to be in the public domain, meaning that it is not subject to copyright. Users are free to copy, use, and redistribute the work in part or in whole. It is possible that current copyright holders, heirs or the estate of the authors of individual portions of the work, such as illustrations or photographs, assert copyrights over these portions. Depending on the nature of subsequent use that is made, additional rights may need to be obtained independently of anything we can address. The digital images and OCR of this work were produced by Google, Inc. (indicated by a watermark on each page in the PageTurner). Google requests that the images and OCR not be re-hosted, redistributed or used commercially. The images are provided for educational, scholarly, non-commercial purposes.
THE FOURTH ESTATE: CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS
A 'HISTORY OF NEWSPAPERS,* AND OF THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.
BY F. KNIGHT HUNT. ft ft
in* wvo vols. ;*-„ VOL. J
" What is it that drops the same thought into ten thousand minds at the same moment 5 —the Newspaper. " T)b Tocqueyille.
" There she is— the great engine — she never sleeps. She has her ambassadors in every quarter of the world— her couriers upon every road. Her officers march along with armies, and her envoys walk into statesmen's cabinets. They are ubiquitous. Yonder Journal has an agent at this minute giving bribes at Madrid ; and another inspecting the price of
potatoes at Covent Garden. "
Penpennis.
LONDON:
DAVID BOGUE, 86, FLEET STREET. MDCCCL.
LONDON :
HENRY VIZETELLT, PRINTER AND ENGRAVER,
AND TO
THEIR " CONSTANT READERS," THESE CONTRIBUTIONS TO
THE HISTORY OF
THE FOURTH ESTATE ARE DEDICATED.
TO THE JOURNALISTS OF ENGLAND,
240104
PREFACE.
The following pages are offered only as contributions towards the history of a subject which has been hitherto almost unattempted. The merit they may claim is that of having brought together, in a distinct and tangible form, a number of previously scattered dates and passages illustrative of the History of the Newspaper Press. The writer would fain call to the reader's mind an anecdote familiar to those who have enjoyed the pleasant pages of Charles Lamb. The essayist is speaking of one of his own title-pages, and says, Do not call these my works, but my recreations ;
my works are in the ledgers of Leadenhall Street. In all humility this deprecatory explanation of Elia may be repeated. The following pages have been completed during disjointed odds and ends of time, before or between, or after, real work ; —in the half
vi PREFACE.
hours that could be filched from heavier duties. When the task was entered on the writer was not sanguine enough to suppose he could avoid omissions and other errors ; but he had a hope, still indulged —that those into whose hands these volumes may pass, will, when inclined to point out the defects of the book, have the kindness also to assist in sup plying the omissions. The materials for a satisfactory History of Newspapers lie scattered in facts, known
one to this person and one to that. If each London or Provincial Journalist — each reader, and each critic —who has an anecdote or a date, would give it pub licity, some future volume might be prepared from the combined supply, much more complete than any to be fairly expected from a comparatively unaided writer, who ventures upon an almost untrodden path.
CONTENTS. — VOL. I.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY. WHAT IS THE FOURTH ESTATE?
Newspapers a necessity of modern civilized life. The World brought by them to the breakfast-table, to amuse and to teach the reader. What Newspapers contain. Their History hitherto unwritten. The Journalist has no leisure. The interest and importance of the subject. Dr. Johnson. Lords Mansfield and Lyndhurst. Canning. Thiers. Macaulay. Southey. Bulwer. Captain Marryatt. The English Opium-Eater. The power and value of the Press have made it a Fourth Estate. page 1
CHAPTER II.
NEWS-LETTERS AND NEWS-WRITERS — FORERUNNERS OF NEWSPAPERS.
ohnson and the Acta 9
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. J Diurna. Venice and its Gazettes.
Vlll CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
THE EARLY STRUGGLES OF THE PRESS.
The Papal Power and the Press. Origin of the Censorship. Wolsey's Declaration. Effects of the Reformation. Kingly Authority over the Press. Increase in the number of Readers. The Press makes Supporters for itself. Its early Champions. Sir Richard Knightley and the Star Chamber. Increase of Books. Shakspeare and Bacon extend the scope of Thought among the People. The Civil Wars break the bonds of the Press. The Star Chamber Persecutions. First Newspapers and Journalists 37
CHAPTER IV.
THE PRESS OP THE COMMONWEALTH, THE RESTORATION, AND THE REVOLUTION.
Bacon and Sir Lionel Cranfield. The Long Parliament and the Press. Ordinances. Milton's Plea for Unlicensed Printing. The Restora
tion shackles the Press. Trial and Fate of Twyn. Censor and Editor. The London Gazette appears. of 1688
CHAPTER V.
L'Estrange the The Revolution
116
A CENTURY OP NEWSPAPERS. THE ORANGE INTELLIGENCER OF 1688 TO THE TIMES OF 1788.
The Orange Newspapers. The Career of Tutchin. Judge Jefferies. Defoe. The time of Pope and the first Daily Paper. Bolingbroke. Swift. Addison. The first Stamp Act and its effects. Steele
expelled the House of Commons. Fielding. Foote. Johnson. Smollett. Wilkes. Churchill. Junius. The House of Commons and the Printers.
CHAPTER VI.
.
Burke. Dr. Chatterton.
. 161
NEWSPAPERS AND JOURNALISTS FROM 1788 TO 1800.
The Press in the Reign of George the Third. Numerous Laws and Prosecutions. Statute on Libel. Trial of Paine, and Speech of Erskine. Sheridan. Burke. Crabbe. Summary of Acts of Par liament. Attempts to gag the Newspapers. . . . 251
THE FOURTH ESTATE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY. WHAT IS THE FOURTH ESTATE?
" The press is mistress of intelligence, and intelligence is mistress of the world. "—B. Constant.
Newspapers a necessity of modern civilized life. —The World brought by them to the breakfast-table, to amuse and to teach the reader. — What Newspapers contain. — Their History hitherto unwritten. — The Journalist has no leisure. —The interest and importance of the subject. — Dr. Johnson. — Lords Mansfield and Lyndhurst. — Canning. — Thiers. — Macaulay. — Southey. — Bulwer. — Captain Marryatt. — The English Opium-Eater. —The power and value of the Press have made it a Fourth Estate.
A LL men, now-a-days, who read at all, read News- 11 papers. Go where you will, you see the broad sheet that tells the Passing History of the World We Live In, and that reflects the real life — the feelings, the actions, the aspirations and the prejudices — the glory and the shame of the Men of To-Day. It shows us the only world we can see, and walk over, and move
amongst ; the only world we can test by our personal
and our outward senses. What wonder, then, that Newspapers have grown upon us until they have become a positive necessity of civilized exist ence — a portion, indeed, of modern civilization. If
History be experience teaching by the example of VOL. I. li
experience
2 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
past times, the Newspaper is a teacher offering much better evidence. The journal gives us, day by day, the experience of the world as it exists round about us, ready to avouch the truth of the journalist—gives, day by day, and week by week, the experience of the whole world's doings for the amusement and the guidance of each individual living man. It is a great mental camera, which throws a picture of the whole world upon a single sheet of paper.
But though a great teacher, and an all-powerful instrument of modern civilization, there is no affecta tion of greatness about it. The Newspaper is the familiar of all men, of all degrees, of all occupations. If it teaches, it teaches imperceptibly. It has no pompous gown, or scholastic rod, to abash or to con trol, but prepares itself, and is admitted freely and at once to a world-wide intimacy with all kinds and con ditions of people. For the idle, it is a friendly gossip; to the busy, it shows what business is on hand ; for the politician, it reflects the feelings of party ; for the holiday-maker, it talks about new plays, new music, and the last exhibition. Its ample page is full of the romance of real life, equally with the facts of real life. The types that to-day tell how a king abdicated, or a good man died, tell to-morrow the price of log wood or of tallow. As they stand side by side, those tall columns of words show us the hopes of the sanguine, and the sufferings of the unfortunate ; they hang out the lure of the trader who would sell his wares, and of the manager who would fill his theatre ; shoulder by shoulder are the reports of regal and noble festivities, and lists of bankrupts and insolvents, and
THE NEWSPAPER. 3
in as many paragraphs we find linked the three great
steps of a generation —the births, the marriages, and the deaths. No wonder, then, that whilst the world grows tired of orators, and weary of the mimic stage, it should be more and more faithful in its reference to the intellectual familiar that drops, as De Tocqueville says, the same thought into the ten thousand minds at the same minute ; or more attached to the friendly
broadsheet that reflects truly and promptly the ever-
changing, but ever-exciting, scenes of the great drama of real life.
Yet of the thousands who take up their favourite journal with as much punctuality as they take their breakfast, how many have ever asked themselves in
what way this punctual friend of theirs—this matutinal source of information and excitement —became a ne cessity of modern life ? They look to their Newspaper to amuse their leisure ; to advance their trade ; to seek how best they may satisfy their wants ; to watch how their favourite opinions are progressing; how their friends are praised, and their foes are denounced. Nor are they disappointed, for the same varied page shows how the world goes on its way, now rejoicing and now grieving; how war kills its thousands in one place, whilst commerce and industry are winning nobler vic tories in another.
The Journalist has no leisure. The interest and importance of the subject. Dr. Johnson. Lords Mansfield and Lyndhurst. Canning. Thiers. Macaulay. Southey. Bulwer. Captain Marryatt. The English Opium-Eater. The power and value of the Press have made it a Fourth Estate. page 1
CHAPTER II.
NEWS-LETTERS AND NEWS-WRITERS — FORERUNNERS OF NEWSPAPERS.
ohnson and the Acta 9
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. J Diurna. Venice and its Gazettes.
Vlll CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
THE EARLY STRUGGLES OF THE PRESS.
The Papal Power and the Press. Origin of the Censorship. Wolsey's Declaration. Effects of the Reformation. Kingly Authority over the Press. Increase in the number of Readers. The Press makes Supporters for itself. Its early Champions. Sir Richard Knightley and the Star Chamber. Increase of Books. Shakspeare and Bacon extend the scope of Thought among the People. The Civil Wars break the bonds of the Press. The Star Chamber Persecutions. First Newspapers and Journalists 37
CHAPTER IV.
THE PRESS OP THE COMMONWEALTH, THE RESTORATION, AND THE REVOLUTION.
Bacon and Sir Lionel Cranfield. The Long Parliament and the Press. Ordinances. Milton's Plea for Unlicensed Printing. The Restora
tion shackles the Press. Trial and Fate of Twyn. Censor and Editor. The London Gazette appears. of 1688
CHAPTER V.
L'Estrange the The Revolution
116
A CENTURY OP NEWSPAPERS. THE ORANGE INTELLIGENCER OF 1688 TO THE TIMES OF 1788.
The Orange Newspapers. The Career of Tutchin. Judge Jefferies. Defoe. The time of Pope and the first Daily Paper. Bolingbroke. Swift. Addison. The first Stamp Act and its effects. Steele
expelled the House of Commons. Fielding. Foote. Johnson. Smollett. Wilkes. Churchill. Junius. The House of Commons and the Printers.
CHAPTER VI.
.
Burke. Dr. Chatterton.
. 161
NEWSPAPERS AND JOURNALISTS FROM 1788 TO 1800.
The Press in the Reign of George the Third. Numerous Laws and Prosecutions. Statute on Libel. Trial of Paine, and Speech of Erskine. Sheridan. Burke. Crabbe. Summary of Acts of Par liament. Attempts to gag the Newspapers. . . . 251
THE FOURTH ESTATE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY. WHAT IS THE FOURTH ESTATE?
" The press is mistress of intelligence, and intelligence is mistress of the world. "—B. Constant.
Newspapers a necessity of modern civilized life. —The World brought by them to the breakfast-table, to amuse and to teach the reader. — What Newspapers contain. — Their History hitherto unwritten. — The Journalist has no leisure. —The interest and importance of the subject. — Dr. Johnson. — Lords Mansfield and Lyndhurst. — Canning. — Thiers. — Macaulay. — Southey. — Bulwer. — Captain Marryatt. — The English Opium-Eater. —The power and value of the Press have made it a Fourth Estate.
A LL men, now-a-days, who read at all, read News- 11 papers. Go where you will, you see the broad sheet that tells the Passing History of the World We Live In, and that reflects the real life — the feelings, the actions, the aspirations and the prejudices — the glory and the shame of the Men of To-Day. It shows us the only world we can see, and walk over, and move
amongst ; the only world we can test by our personal
and our outward senses. What wonder, then, that Newspapers have grown upon us until they have become a positive necessity of civilized exist ence — a portion, indeed, of modern civilization. If
History be experience teaching by the example of VOL. I. li
experience
2 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
past times, the Newspaper is a teacher offering much better evidence. The journal gives us, day by day, the experience of the world as it exists round about us, ready to avouch the truth of the journalist—gives, day by day, and week by week, the experience of the whole world's doings for the amusement and the guidance of each individual living man. It is a great mental camera, which throws a picture of the whole world upon a single sheet of paper.
But though a great teacher, and an all-powerful instrument of modern civilization, there is no affecta tion of greatness about it. The Newspaper is the familiar of all men, of all degrees, of all occupations. If it teaches, it teaches imperceptibly. It has no pompous gown, or scholastic rod, to abash or to con trol, but prepares itself, and is admitted freely and at once to a world-wide intimacy with all kinds and con ditions of people. For the idle, it is a friendly gossip; to the busy, it shows what business is on hand ; for the politician, it reflects the feelings of party ; for the holiday-maker, it talks about new plays, new music, and the last exhibition. Its ample page is full of the romance of real life, equally with the facts of real life. The types that to-day tell how a king abdicated, or a good man died, tell to-morrow the price of log wood or of tallow. As they stand side by side, those tall columns of words show us the hopes of the sanguine, and the sufferings of the unfortunate ; they hang out the lure of the trader who would sell his wares, and of the manager who would fill his theatre ; shoulder by shoulder are the reports of regal and noble festivities, and lists of bankrupts and insolvents, and
THE NEWSPAPER. 3
in as many paragraphs we find linked the three great
steps of a generation —the births, the marriages, and the deaths. No wonder, then, that whilst the world grows tired of orators, and weary of the mimic stage, it should be more and more faithful in its reference to the intellectual familiar that drops, as De Tocqueville says, the same thought into the ten thousand minds at the same minute ; or more attached to the friendly
broadsheet that reflects truly and promptly the ever-
changing, but ever-exciting, scenes of the great drama of real life.
Yet of the thousands who take up their favourite journal with as much punctuality as they take their breakfast, how many have ever asked themselves in
what way this punctual friend of theirs—this matutinal source of information and excitement —became a ne cessity of modern life ? They look to their Newspaper to amuse their leisure ; to advance their trade ; to seek how best they may satisfy their wants ; to watch how their favourite opinions are progressing; how their friends are praised, and their foes are denounced. Nor are they disappointed, for the same varied page shows how the world goes on its way, now rejoicing and now grieving; how war kills its thousands in one place, whilst commerce and industry are winning nobler vic tories in another. Nothing seems too trivial for the vigilance of the journalist. Nothing beyond the reach of his capacity. The last great battle, and the latest fashion — the most important and the most trivial of
human affairs —find place in the columns of the News paper. And how are these thousand great and small things concentrated, day by day, in these compact
B2
4 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
columns of facts and opinions, rumours and occur rences ? How come these voices from all quarters of the globe to teach and to amuse ? What hidden influ ences, what strange machinery, what ever-active, never- tiring elements, what active brains are atwork to achieve this continuous result ?
It is somewhat curious that, whilst so many pens
have now for generations been busy in labouring for the Newspaper Press, no one of them ever found time to
its history. Various writers have expa tiated on the importance of the subject, but no one has hitherto ventured on its treatment as a distinct topic, except in meagre articles for cyclopaedias, or discursive papers in a magazine. The reason of this,
attempt
has existed in the feeling that none but a could obtain the materials for completing the task, and that those who had power over the
materials had not time to use them for such a purpose. And, in truth, the man who once becomes a journalist must almost bid farewell to mental rest or mental lei sure. If he fulfils his duties truthfully, his attention must be ever awake to what is passing in the world, and his whole mind must be devoted to the instant exami nation, and discussion, and record of current events. He has little time for literary idleness with such lite rary labour on his shoulders. He has no days to spend on catalogues, or in dreamy discursive searches in the
stores of public libraries. He has no months to devote to the exhaustion of any one theme. What he has to deal with must be taken up at a moment's notice, be ex amined, tested, and dismissed at once, and thus his mind is kept ever occupied with the mental necessity
perhaps, journalist
OPINIONS ON THE NEWSPAPER.
of the world's passing hour. Else, most assuredly, some Newspaper writer would long since have written his tory of the Newspaper Press, for the public have been reminded often enough how important, how curious, and how interesting the subject must be.
Thinkers of all classes have borne testimony in favour of the Newspaper Press. Scholars, statesmen, essayists, jurists, reviewers, novelists, and poets, have been ready to bear witness to the importance of Jour nalism, and of the Liberty of the Press. In the ripe autumn of his years and knowledge, Dr. Johnson said, "I never take up aNewspaper without finding something
should have deemed loss not to have seen; never without deriving from instruction and amusement. " There an anecdote on record of Lord Mansfield and the press —A foreigner who had visited our courts of
justice, remarked to Lord Mansfield that he was sur prised to find them attended by so few of the public. "No matter, sir,"replied the Chief Justice, "we sit every dayinthe Newspapers. " It the Newspaper that secures that publicity to the administration of the laws which
the main source of its purity and wisdom. "To say, then, an English Judge incorrupt," observed Dr. Parr, "is scarcely to praise him. " This one triumph of the Newspapers. Another high legal authority, Lord Lynd- hurst, declares —"lam sure, that every person will be willing as am to acknowledge, in the most ample terms, the information, the instruction, and amusement derived from the public press. " To pass from legal to ministe rial authority, we find Canning declaring, that "he who, speculating on the British Constitution, should omit from his enumeration the mighty power of public
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THE FOURTH ESTATE.
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 bis 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
EnglishlabourersinthedaysoftheStuarts, says,asaproof of their unhappy state when compared with their suc cessors in our time:—"No newspaper pleaded their cause;" and, in his review of Southey's Colloquies on So ciety, argues against the interference of a government
VALUE OF FREE DISCUSSION. r
with the freedom of the press. "Men are never," he says, "so likely to settle a question rightly, as when they dis cuss it freely. A government can interfere in discus sion, 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 powerswhichbelongtoitasagovernment. 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
s THE FOURTH
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 noise less 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.
