161
NEWSPAPERS AND JOURNALISTS FROM 1788 TO 1800.
NEWSPAPERS AND JOURNALISTS FROM 1788 TO 1800.
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.
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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.
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. "
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.
ESTATE.
CHAPTER II
NEWS-LETTERS AND NEWS-WRITERS FORERUNNERS OF NEWSPAPERS.
" News of the morning ? — I would fain hear some,
Fresh from the forge. " Ben Jonsok.
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.
WHEN the reign of James the First was drawing to a close; when Ben Jonson was poet laureate, and the personal friends of Shakspeare were lament
ing 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 Buckingham shire ; 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,
10
THE FOURTH ESTATE.
All these different names appear in the imprints of the early numbers of the first
Newspaper— The Weekly Newes. What appears
and Edward Allde.
to be the earliest
(1622), and has the names of Bourne and Archer on
sheet bears date the 23rd of May
the title ; but as we proceed in the examination of the subject, we find that Butter becomes the most conspi cuous 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 con nection 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 character istic feature which has
distinguished
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 pam
phlets— 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 News papers numbered at the present
Newspapers
day. Holding to
THE FIRST NEWSPAPERS. 11
this description of what a Newspaper is, and on the authority of the earliest printed papers in the public libraries, to Nathaniel Butter belongs the renown of
being foremost as a Newspaper projector.
The step he took, though great in its ultimate
consequences, was one very simple and natural, and easily understood. He had been a News-writer; an author of News-letters : one of a class of persons then engaged in London as general correspondents, having offices whence they despatched packets of News to per sons of consideration in the country who were rich enough to afford such a luxury. Though printing presses had been at work in England for a hundred and fifty years,* and though the Reformation had allowed them greater freedom than was known where the Roman faith still flourished, the invention of Gut- tenberg had not been employed for the systematic dis
semination of intelligence relative to passing events. Stray pamphlets told now and then how a great flood had devastated the western counties, or how a witch had been burned, or how Gustavus had fought a great battle ; but the punctual record of the history of the passing time, week by week, was a thing unattempt- ed till the News-wroVer, Nathaniel Butter, became a News-printer.
Like many projectors, both before and since, it would seem that Butter gained more notoriety than profit by his invention. The wits laughed at the News-writer, and the public barely supported his paper. In proof of which we have Ben Jonson's Comedy, "The Staple of News,"
* Caxton left Cologne in 1471 to set up his press in Westminster Abbey ; and his first book, the Game of Chess, was completed in 1474.
12 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
;md
jokes were made, since they live in the pages of " rare Ben, " and afford us a picture not only of the News-writer's office, but of the temper in which his productions were popularly regarded. The poet's sketch is evidently faithful in its main features, and valuable as our chief record of a class and calling long since superseded by the progress of education and of the press.
It was after an absence of fourteen years fr om the stage that Ben Jonson again resumed his pen to write for the people. He had, during that long period,
been chiefly occupied in the preparation of Masques to amuse the court; and, when he again sought a subject for the humbler audience of the Globe Theatre, he chose one which gave him an opportunity of exciting the mirth of the play-goers at the expense of a no ticeable novelty of the day ; —something tolerably new and sufficiently strange, and therefore suited to his purpose. The quick eye of the dramatist saw at a glance some of the absurdities attending the mode then in full play for the publication of News. Hence we have the News office seized as a peg to hang a plot upon, and taken, moreover, as a likely title for a new
a file in the British Museum
indifferently the first Newspaper throve. Yet, how ever much the journalist may have winced under the jests of the poet laureate, it is fortunate the
showing how
comedy.
Jonson's Staple of News * was first acted
* The Staple op News was first acted by " His Majesty's Servants" in 1625, and entered soon after in the Stationers' Books, though no ear lier copy of it is known than that of the old folio, which bears date in 1631. — Gifford's Edition of Ben Jonson.
BEN JONSON'S COMEDY. 13
in 1625, and diverted the audience at the expense of the then active business of the News-writer.
Upon opening the play, we find, in the Induction, Gossip Tattle repeating what was no doubt a common
remark of the days when News travelled slowly :—
Gossip Tattle. Look your news be new and fresh, Master Prologue, and untainted. I shall find them else, if they be stale or fly-blown, quickly.
But a little further on, in his Prologue for the King and Court, Ben Jonson explains :—
Although our title, sir, be News,
We get adventures here to tell you none, But show you common follies, and so known,
That though they are not truths, the innocent muse Hath made so like, as phant'sy could them state, Or Poetry, without scandal, imitate.
The News office was, if we are to believe the dra matist, one of the " common follies" of the day, sketched
not truly but
so like, as phant'sy could them state.
The portrait of the earliest journalist is certainly much more amusing than complimentary, and the poet has not hesitated to write down to his audience; and that there might be no misapprehension as to his intention of giving them a caricature of Nathaniel Butter, he does not hesitate, as will be seen, to intro
duce the name of the News-writer into the dialogue. It may be premised that the poet lays the scene of his play in London, and, amongst the persons of his drama, we find a spendthrift heir, young Pennyboy, who has an uncle an usurer, and a father who is described as ' ' the canter. " The author of the first Newspaper figures as Cymbal, "master of the Staple (of news), and prime
1 1 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
jeerer," whilst his emissaries, or reporters, are Fitton, Court emissary — the first court circular, and great original of all subsequent collectors of fashionable
news; and Picklock, man o' law and emissary, Westmin ster, a kind of legal and general reporter. We have also Madrigal, a poetaster; Almanac, a doctor of physic; and Lickfinger, a cook and "parcel poet. " In the opening scenes, young Pennyboy exults in his newly acquired liberty and wealth, and delights his tailor, his barber, and all others who approach him by a most hilarious liberality. Thomas the barber enters to dress his beard, whilst Fashioner the tailor stands by, and the News-office is introduced: —
Pennyboy. Set thy things upon the board, And spread thy cloths, lay all forth, in procinatu, And tell's what News ?
Thomas. O, Sir, a Staple of News ! Or the New Staple, which you please.
Pennyboy. What's that?
Fashioner. An Office, sir, a brave young Office set up : I had forgot to tell your worship.
For what ?
To enter all the News, sir, of the time.
And vent it as occasion serves : a place of huge commerce it will be !
Pennyboy. Thomas. Fashioner.
Pennyboy. Pray thee, peace ;
I cannot abide a talking tailor : let Tom
(He is a barber) by his peace relate it.
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
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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.
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
a
--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. "
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.
ESTATE.
CHAPTER II
NEWS-LETTERS AND NEWS-WRITERS FORERUNNERS OF NEWSPAPERS.
" News of the morning ? — I would fain hear some,
Fresh from the forge. " Ben Jonsok.
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.
WHEN the reign of James the First was drawing to a close; when Ben Jonson was poet laureate, and the personal friends of Shakspeare were lament
ing 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 Buckingham shire ; 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,
10
THE FOURTH ESTATE.
All these different names appear in the imprints of the early numbers of the first
Newspaper— The Weekly Newes. What appears
and Edward Allde.
to be the earliest
(1622), and has the names of Bourne and Archer on
sheet bears date the 23rd of May
the title ; but as we proceed in the examination of the subject, we find that Butter becomes the most conspi cuous 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 con nection 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 character istic feature which has
distinguished
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 pam
phlets— 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 News papers numbered at the present
Newspapers
day. Holding to
THE FIRST NEWSPAPERS. 11
this description of what a Newspaper is, and on the authority of the earliest printed papers in the public libraries, to Nathaniel Butter belongs the renown of
being foremost as a Newspaper projector.
The step he took, though great in its ultimate
consequences, was one very simple and natural, and easily understood. He had been a News-writer; an author of News-letters : one of a class of persons then engaged in London as general correspondents, having offices whence they despatched packets of News to per sons of consideration in the country who were rich enough to afford such a luxury. Though printing presses had been at work in England for a hundred and fifty years,* and though the Reformation had allowed them greater freedom than was known where the Roman faith still flourished, the invention of Gut- tenberg had not been employed for the systematic dis
semination of intelligence relative to passing events. Stray pamphlets told now and then how a great flood had devastated the western counties, or how a witch had been burned, or how Gustavus had fought a great battle ; but the punctual record of the history of the passing time, week by week, was a thing unattempt- ed till the News-wroVer, Nathaniel Butter, became a News-printer.
Like many projectors, both before and since, it would seem that Butter gained more notoriety than profit by his invention. The wits laughed at the News-writer, and the public barely supported his paper. In proof of which we have Ben Jonson's Comedy, "The Staple of News,"
* Caxton left Cologne in 1471 to set up his press in Westminster Abbey ; and his first book, the Game of Chess, was completed in 1474.
12 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
;md
jokes were made, since they live in the pages of " rare Ben, " and afford us a picture not only of the News-writer's office, but of the temper in which his productions were popularly regarded. The poet's sketch is evidently faithful in its main features, and valuable as our chief record of a class and calling long since superseded by the progress of education and of the press.
It was after an absence of fourteen years fr om the stage that Ben Jonson again resumed his pen to write for the people. He had, during that long period,
been chiefly occupied in the preparation of Masques to amuse the court; and, when he again sought a subject for the humbler audience of the Globe Theatre, he chose one which gave him an opportunity of exciting the mirth of the play-goers at the expense of a no ticeable novelty of the day ; —something tolerably new and sufficiently strange, and therefore suited to his purpose. The quick eye of the dramatist saw at a glance some of the absurdities attending the mode then in full play for the publication of News. Hence we have the News office seized as a peg to hang a plot upon, and taken, moreover, as a likely title for a new
a file in the British Museum
indifferently the first Newspaper throve. Yet, how ever much the journalist may have winced under the jests of the poet laureate, it is fortunate the
showing how
comedy.
Jonson's Staple of News * was first acted
* The Staple op News was first acted by " His Majesty's Servants" in 1625, and entered soon after in the Stationers' Books, though no ear lier copy of it is known than that of the old folio, which bears date in 1631. — Gifford's Edition of Ben Jonson.
BEN JONSON'S COMEDY. 13
in 1625, and diverted the audience at the expense of the then active business of the News-writer.
Upon opening the play, we find, in the Induction, Gossip Tattle repeating what was no doubt a common
remark of the days when News travelled slowly :—
Gossip Tattle. Look your news be new and fresh, Master Prologue, and untainted. I shall find them else, if they be stale or fly-blown, quickly.
But a little further on, in his Prologue for the King and Court, Ben Jonson explains :—
Although our title, sir, be News,
We get adventures here to tell you none, But show you common follies, and so known,
That though they are not truths, the innocent muse Hath made so like, as phant'sy could them state, Or Poetry, without scandal, imitate.
The News office was, if we are to believe the dra matist, one of the " common follies" of the day, sketched
not truly but
so like, as phant'sy could them state.
The portrait of the earliest journalist is certainly much more amusing than complimentary, and the poet has not hesitated to write down to his audience; and that there might be no misapprehension as to his intention of giving them a caricature of Nathaniel Butter, he does not hesitate, as will be seen, to intro
duce the name of the News-writer into the dialogue. It may be premised that the poet lays the scene of his play in London, and, amongst the persons of his drama, we find a spendthrift heir, young Pennyboy, who has an uncle an usurer, and a father who is described as ' ' the canter. " The author of the first Newspaper figures as Cymbal, "master of the Staple (of news), and prime
1 1 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
jeerer," whilst his emissaries, or reporters, are Fitton, Court emissary — the first court circular, and great original of all subsequent collectors of fashionable
news; and Picklock, man o' law and emissary, Westmin ster, a kind of legal and general reporter. We have also Madrigal, a poetaster; Almanac, a doctor of physic; and Lickfinger, a cook and "parcel poet. " In the opening scenes, young Pennyboy exults in his newly acquired liberty and wealth, and delights his tailor, his barber, and all others who approach him by a most hilarious liberality. Thomas the barber enters to dress his beard, whilst Fashioner the tailor stands by, and the News-office is introduced: —
Pennyboy. Set thy things upon the board, And spread thy cloths, lay all forth, in procinatu, And tell's what News ?
Thomas. O, Sir, a Staple of News ! Or the New Staple, which you please.
Pennyboy. What's that?
Fashioner. An Office, sir, a brave young Office set up : I had forgot to tell your worship.
For what ?
To enter all the News, sir, of the time.
And vent it as occasion serves : a place of huge commerce it will be !
Pennyboy. Thomas. Fashioner.
Pennyboy. Pray thee, peace ;
I cannot abide a talking tailor : let Tom
(He is a barber) by his peace relate it.
