It is hardly worth while, after this series of
blunders
in one article, to mention even that Sir Francis Vere is called Sir Francis some months before he was knighted, and made a noted character before he had done his earliest celebrated feat of
arms.
arms.
Hunt - Fourth Estate - History of Newspapers and Liberty of Press - v1
—The Latin festivals were celebrated, a sacrifice performed on the Alban Mount, and a dole of raw flesh distributed to the people.
A fire happened on Mount Coelius ; two trisulse* and five houses were consumed to the ground, and four damaged.
De- miphon, the famous pirate, who was taken by Licinius Nerva, a provincial lieutenant, was crucified.
The red standard was displayed at the Capitol, and the Consuls obliged the youth, who were enlisted for the Macedonian war, to take a new oath in the Campus Martius.
Kalends April. —Paulus the Consul and Cn. Octavius the Praetor set out this day for Macedonia, in their habits of war, and vast numbers of people attending them to the gates. The funeral of Marcia was performed with greater pomp of images than attendance of mourners. The Pontifex Sempronius pro claimed the Megalesian plays in honour of Cybele.
4th of the Nones of April. —A Ver Sacrumf was vowed, pursuant to the opinion of the College of Priests. Presents were made to the embassadors of the Etolians. Ebutius, the Praetor, set out for his province of Sicily. The fleet stationed on the African coast entered the port of Ostia, with the tri bute of that province. An entertainment was given to the
• Houses standing out by themselves, and not joined to the rest of the street. Most of the great men's houses at Rome were built after this manner.
+ A Ver Sacrum, was a vow to sacrifice an ox, sheep, or some such beast, born between the Kalends of March and the Pridie Kalends of June.
APPENDIX. 291
people by Marcia's sons at their mother's funeral. A stage play was acted this day, being sacred to Cybele.
3rd of the Nones of April. —Popilius Lenas, C. Decimus, C. Hostilius, were sent embassadors, in a joint commission, to the Kings of Syria and Egypt, in order to accommodate the differences, about which they are now at war. Early in the morning they went, with a great attendance of clients and relations, to offer up a sacrifice and libations at the Temple of Castor and Pollux, before they began their journey.
The second set of the remains of the Acta Diurna, belong to the year of Rome, 691. I have already mentioned how they were discovered, and shall only add, that they are fuller and
more entertaining than the former, but rather seem more liable to objections with regard to their genuineness.
Syllanus and Murena Consuls. The Fasces with Murena. 3rd of the Ides of August. —-Murena sacrificed early in the morning, at the Temple of Castor and Pollux, and afterwards assembled the Senate in Pompey's senate-house. Syllanus defended Sext. Ruscius of Larinum, who was accused of an act of violence by Torquatus, before Q. Cornificius, the Praetor. The defendant was absolved by forty votes, and voted guilty
by twenty. A riot happened in the Via Sacra, between Clodius's workmen and Milo's slaves.
othof the Kalends of September. —M. Tullius Cicero pleaded in defence of Cornelius Sylla, accused by Torquatus of being concerned in Catiline's conspiracy, and gained his cause by a majority of five judges. The Tribunes of the treasury were against the defendant. One of the Pnetors advertised by an edict, that he should put off his sittings for five days, upon account of his daughter's marriage. C. Ca;sar set out for his government of the farther Spain, having been long detained by his creditors. A report was brought to Tartinius the Prsetor, whilst he was trying causes at his tribunal, that his son was dead. This was contrived by the friends of Copponius, who
T2
292 APPENDIX.
was accused of poisoning, that the Praetor, in his concern, might adjourn the court ; but that magistrate having discovered the falsity of the story, he returned to his tribunal, and continued in taking informations against the accused.
ith ofthe Kalends of September. —The funeral of Metella Pia, a Vestal was celebrated ; she was buried in the sepulchre of her ancestors, in the Aurelian Road. The Censors made a bargain that the Temple of Aius-Loquens should be repaired for twenty-five ses terces. Q. Hortensius harangued the people about the Censorship, and the Allobrogick war. Advice arrived from Etruria, that the remains of the late conspiracy had begun a tumult, headed by L. Sergius.
No. II.
THE FORGED " ENGLISH MERCURIE. "
The following are passages from " A Letter to Antonio Panizzi, Esq. , %c, on the reputed earliest printed Newspaper, ' The English Mereurie,
1588. ' By Thomas Watts, of the British Museum. "
British Museum, 16th Nov. , 1839.
The nation, which is yours by adoption and mine by birth, has long claimed an honour which no one has hitherto been found to dispute; and this claim is based on a document preserved among the treasures of the noble establishment to which we both belong. But the English nation and the British Museum are too rich in genuine honours to wish to retain, for an instant, one that is not their due. The object of the present letter is to demonstrate that the claims of the English to the invention of printed Newspapers are unfortu nately of no validity, and that the " earliest Newspaper" in the
Museum is an imposture. The claim appears to have been
*****
Mr. Nichols, who, in 1794, had transferred the substance of
Mr. Chalmers's statement to the pages of the Gentleman's Ma gazine, afterwards incorporated it, with an encomium on the sagacity of the discoverer, in the elaborate account of early Newspapers, drawn up by himself, with the assistance of the Rev. Samuel Ayscough, and forming part of the fourth volume of his Literary Anecdotes. Mr. D'Israeli, who, in the early editions of his Curiosities of Literature, had given an article on
the Origin of Newspapers, in which no allusion was made to the English Mercury, inserted an account of the alleged dis covery, in subsequent editions, almost in the words of Chalmers. An independent account, not taken from the life of Ruddiman, but apparently from a fresh examination of the Mercury itself, appeared in the " Concise History of Ancient Institutions, Inventions, &c, abridged and translated from Professor Beck- mann, with various important additions," published at London, in two volumes, in 1823. From these authorities, it is no won der the information found its way into the Cyclopaedias, and other compilations of a similar nature. It is given at some length in the Encyclopaedia Londinensis, the Metropolitana, the new edition of the Britannica, and the British Cyclopaedia, under the head Newspapers. The Conversations-Lexikon of Brockhaus, and the Neuestes Conversations-Lexikon of Wigand, mention it in the article Zeitung ; the Dictionnaire de la Con versation et de la Lecture, under the head Gazetier ; the great Russian Entsiklopedicheskii Leksikon, under that of Gazeta. It appears in the Encyclopaedia Americana, published at New York, and in the new edition of that work, with alterations and improvements, now publishing at Glasgow. In mis cellaneous works on origins and inventions, it has generally found a place. Even the circulation given to the statement by
these channels however, inferior, in all probability, to that has obtained by the means of Newspapers and miscellaneous
periodicals, such as Hone's Year Book, the Saturday Magazine, Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, &c. &c. For the last thirty or
APPENDIX. 293
first set up by Mr. George Chalmers, in his life of Ruddiman the Scottish Grammarian, published in 1794.
it
is,
294 APPENDIX.
forty years, it has formed a regular standard article of curious information, and by constant repetition, in and out of season, has been made familiar to almost every desultory reader in the kingdom.
There could hardly, in fact, be any circumstance in literary history, apparently established on a firmer foundation than this. A statement originally made by a respectable authority, and repeated by so many others, was supported by a reference to a document preserved, not in a private library, or in one difficult of access, but in the most public, the most easily ac
cessible, the most universally frequented collection in the capital. Any doubt or suspicion that might arise, could be confirmed or dispelled at once by applying for the volume, which was daily within call of hundreds of literary men, both English and foreign.
This document, on which, for nearly half a century, so im portant a statement has rested undisturbed and unchallenged, is, however, in reality of so very questionable a character, that to see it was to suspect it, and to examine was to detect. On the 4th inst. , I was induced to refer to the " English Mer- curie," by a consideration respecting it suggested in the article
" Armada," in the Penny Cyclopaedia. It is there pointed out that, as the numbers of the Mercury in the Museum are " marked as Nos. 50, 51, and 54, in the corner of the margin, we are to conclude that such publications had occasionally been resorted to at critical times, much anterior to the event of the Spanish Armada. " It struck me that the marginal
numbers referred to might possibly be merely added in manu script, in order to facilitate reference. On the book being brought, I had not examined it two minutes, before, to my surprise, I was forced to conclude that the whole was a for
I handed it to Mr. Jones, my colleague in the library at the Museum, and he immediately arrived at a similar con clusion. At that instant, you, my dear sir, came up, and I put the volume into your hands, with an inquiry whether you thought that the printing was executed in the year 1588. After a moment's examination, you unhesitatingly declared it impossible. I pointed out the other marks of unauthenticity that
gery.
APPENDIX. 295
I had detected, your hasty inspection supplied still others, and the unaccountably successful imposition of fifty years was shattered to fragments in five minutes. Not a single individual of many who have since examined the " English Mercurie" has imagined that the date of 1588 could be at all supported.
The documents, of which the credit was thus suddenly and singularly extinguished, are more in number than Mr. Chal mers's statement would lead his readers to imagine, and partly different in kind. They consist altogether of seven distinct articles, three of which are in print and four in manuscript. Each professes to be a number of the English Mercury ; but as two of the manuscript articles are duplicates of two of the printed, there are only five distinct numbers of the Newspaper.
*****
The first thing that arouses suspicion in the printed num bers as has been already stated, the first thing that catches
the eye — the form of the type. Instead of being that of two centuries and a half, that of about century back, the " English fount," in fact, bearing strong resemblance to that in Caslon's Specimens of Type, published in 1766. A single glance at the pages, however, in this case more efficacious than volumes of description could possibly be. Their whole appearance decidedly stamps them as having issued from the press in the eighteenth, instead of the sixteenth century. There moreover, one peculiar characteristic about the print ing, sufficient, the shape of every letter were ancient, to betray the secret of its modern execution. The distinction between the u's and v's, and the i's and j's, utterly unknown to the printers of the sixteenth century, here maintained throughout in all its rigour. This circumstance would alone,
tiquity of the printed English Mercuries. *****
others were wanting, be decisive against the supposed an
It is, however, hardly necessary to dwell on minor and speculative points, when so much conclusive proof remains to be brought forward. It no less strange than true, that, bound up with these printed Mercuries, which have so long deceived the world, has lain all the while unexamined, in their
is
if
is
a
if
is,
is,
is
a
it is
29G APPENDIX.
manuscript duplicates, the most convincing, the most irrefra gable evidence that the whole affair is a fraud. That the manuscripts A and G are the originals from which the printed copies C and D have been taken, is a fact that admits of no question. In all the alterations, and they are numerous, which occur in the manuscripts, the printed copy faithfully follows them, except, as has already been mentioned, in the ortho graphy of one paper. It has been suggested that this may be the case, and yet that the manuscript may not be the original, but a transcript from some earlier printed copy not found or known to exist. But this hypothesis is inadmissible. The alterations in the manuscript are not those of a transcriber, but
of an author. They extend not only to the wording, and that in cases where a transcriber could not possibly mistake, but to material points of the statements—to circumstances, numbers, and names. They are so very numerous, that a transcriber who could perpetrate such a series of blunders must be a moral phenomenon. And lastly, the corrections are, in many cases, themselves corrected; sometimes by a return to the original statement or mode of expression —a circumstance likely enough to occur often in the alterations of an author, but never in the corrections of a copyist. One instance of this is singular. In F the title was originally written, " The English Mercury. " A line was drawn through and the " State Intelligencer" substituted; and this again was afterwards rejected, and the " English Mercury" restored.
#
The handwriting of the manuscript as modern as the
type of the printed copies and the spelling modern spelling, while in the printed copy antiquated. The letter from
—
" Madrid, July 16. We have now a certaine account that
the Duke de Medina sayled from the Groyne the 11th of this
month, after thoroughly repairinge the damages he sustained in the last storme. The Invincible Armado (as called) consistes of one hundred and fifty saile of all sortes havinge on boarde twenty-one thousand eight hundred lande forces, the
Madrid begins thus in the printed copy
;
it is
*
; it
it,
is
*
C: is* is
#
APPENDIX. 297
verie flower of the armie in old Spayne, exclusive of two hun dred and twenty-four volunteers of the first qualitie, with their servants," &c. &c.
The printer seems, in this instance, to have taken on him self the task of giving the spelling the proper antique flavour, and not to have succeeded very well. With D and G the case is different. There the author has himself taken the pains to disguise his orthography. In the " Advertisements of Bookes," which Chalmers has extracted, the e has been inserted between the k and the s ; and in the word " ymprinted," at the bottom of the advertisements, the original initial i has been altered to y. In all the manuscripts of which there are no printed copies, the spelling is left uncorrected. It is entirely modern, there fore, in Chalmers's extract of James's reply to the Queen's mi nister ; but the circumstance seems to have escaped the obser vation of Chalmers, and of all who copied him. To the modern character of the writing and the spelling, a third anachronism remains to be added; the paper on which the manuscript is written bears the watermark of the royal arms, with the ini tials " G. R. "
The whole style of composition observable in the Mercury is, like every thing else about of much later date than that to which pretends. Mr. Chalmers defies, and with reason, the " Gazetteer of the present day to give more de corous account of the introduction of foreign minister," than the writer of this earliest of English Gazettes. " It curious," remarks Dr. Lieber, in the Encyclopaedia Americana, "to observe how much the mode of communicating certain articles of intelligence in these early Papers resembles the forms in use at present. " It more than curious won derful. The general impression left on the mind by the per usal of the Mercury is, that must have been written after the Spectator. To investigate the rise and progress of particular words, phrases, and modes of expression, demands degree of research which would be misapplied on the present occasion but two observations of the kind which have presented them selves ought not to be passed over. The " Mercury" speaks of
very
;
it
is
a ;it a is is
a
it, a
it
293 APPENDIX.
" Regiments," as if the phrase were perfectly familiar to En glish ears ; but Hakluyt, in 1598, writing of the Spanish Armada, is not of the same opinion. " There were," he says (translating Van Meteren, with a slight alteration), " in the said nauie five terzaes of Spaniards (which terzaes the Frenchmen call regi ments). " The " Advertisements of Books, like those of the present times," quoted by Mr. Chalmers, are an instance of anticipation both in the word and the thing. In Richardson's Dictionary, no instance is given of the use of the word in this peculiar sense anterior to the Tatler. Nichols, in his account of Newspapers, after having quoted Chalmers's discovery of the English Mercury, tells us, some few pages further on, as a discovery of his own, that No. 7 of the Impartial Intelligencer, which commenced in March, 1648-9, contains the first regular advertisement, which is " from a gentleman at Can dish, in
Suffolk, respecting two horses which had been stolen from him. " He had either not observed, or had forgotten, the far more remarkable advertisements for books in the all-antici pating English Mercury.
One of the most searching of tests remains to be applied. It is yet to be seen how far the statements of historical events in the English Mercury correspond with those of historians respecting whose authority there is no room for doubt. The first article of intelligence in the Mercury will serve the pur pose :—
" Whitehall, July 23d, 1588.
" Earlie this Morninge arrived a Messenger at Sir Francis Wokingham's Office with Letters of the 22d from the Lorde High Admirall on board the Ark-Royal, containinge the fol-
lowinge materiall Advices.
" On the 20th of this Instant Capt. Fleming, who had beene
ordered to cruize in the chops of the Channell, for Discoverie, brought Advice into Plymouth, that he had descried the Spanish Armado neare the Lizard, making for the Entrance of the Channell with a favourable Gale. Though this Intelligence was not received till near foure in the Afternoone, and the Winde at that time blew hard into the Sound, yet by the inde fatigable Care and Diligence of the Lorde High Admiral, the
APPENDIX. 299
Ark Royal, with five of the largest Frigates, anchored out of the Harbour that very Eveninge. The next morninge, the greatest Part of her Majestie's Fleet gott out to them. They made in all about eighty Sail, divided into four Squadrons, commanded by his Lordship in Person, Sir Francis Drake Vice-Admiral, and the Rear-Admirals Hawkins and Forbisher. But about one in the Afternoone, they came in Sighte of the Spanish Armado two Leagues to the Westward of the Eddi- stone, sailing in the Form of a half Moon, the Points whereof were seven Leagues asunder. By the best computation, that could be made on the sudden (which the Prisoners have since
confirmed) they cannot be fewer than one hundred and fifty Ships of all Sorts ; and severall of them called Galleons and Galleasses, are of a Size never seene before in our Seas, and appeare on the Surface of the Water like floatinge Castles. But the Sailors were so far from being daunted by the Number and Strengthe of the Enemie, that as soon as they were dis cerned from the top-mast-Head, Acclamations of Joy resounded through the whole Fleete. The Lord High Admirall observing this generall Alacritie, after a Council of War had been held, directed the Signall of Battle to be hung out. We attacked the Enemy's Reare with the Advantage of the Winde : The Earle of Cumberland in the Defiance gave the first fire : my Lord Howard himselfe was next engaged for about three hours with Don Alphonso de Leyva, in the St Jaques, which would certaynly have struck, if she had not been seasonably rescued by Ango de Moncada. In the meane tyme, Sir Francis Drake and the two Rear-Admirals Hawkins and Forbisher, vigorously broad-sided the Enemies sternmost Ships commanded by Vice- Admiral Recalde, which were forced to retreat much shattered to the maine Body of their Fleete, where the Duke de Medina
himselfe commanded. About Sun-set we had the pleasure of seeing the invincible Armada fill all their sails to get away from us. The Lord Admirall slackned his, in order to expect the Arrivall of twenty fresh Frigates, with which he intendes to pursue the Enemie, whom we hope by the Grace of God to prevent from landinge one man on English Grounde. In the night the St. Francis Galleon, of which Don Pedro de Valdez
;500
APPENDIX.
was Captaine, fell in with Vice-Admirall Drake, who tooke her after a stout Resistance. She was disabled from keepinge up with the rest of the Fleete, by an Accident which happened to her, of springing her Fore-maste. She canyes fifty Guns and five hundred men, both Souldiers and Mariners. The Captours found on board five thousand Golde Ducats, which they shared amongst them after bringing her into Plymouth. "
The dates in this intelligence are worthy of observation : they are truly remarkable. Early in the morning of July the 23rd, arrives at Whitehall a messenger with letters of July 22nd, from the Lord High Admiral. Where, then, is the Lord High Admiral ? Out at sea in the Ark Royal, so situated that he can give intelligence from Plymouth on the morning of the 22nd. For it will be noticed, that the " St. Francis Galleon, of which Don Pedro Valdez was captain," is taken, according to the Admiral's account, by Sir Francis Drake, on the night of the 21st, and afterwards brought into Plymouth, and the prize-money shared among the men, which, considering all things, could hardly have taken place before early in the morn ing of the 22nd. Here, then, we have a piece of News con veyed from Plymouth to London, a distance of 215 miles, in four-and-twenty hours — a degree of rapidity in conveyance which fairly equals the rapidity in sharing the prize-money, and which, before the invention of telegraphs, steamboats, and rail ways, might, one would think, have excited the astonishment and admiration of any Gazetteer. Having thus examined the state ment by its own light, let us see how far it corresponds with the relations of contemporary historians. Unluckily for himself, the Gazetteer has chosen for his narration a portion of time, of which there are in existence more minute records than, per haps, of any other equally remote ;—quite minute enough, at least, to demonstrate how much at variance with truth is the statement he has attributed to the Lord High Admiral. To search the Cottonian manuscripts, or other recondite documents, is needless : the common accounts of the night of the 21st and of the day following are amply sufficient. On that night, Meteren informs us, Drake, far from doing good service, was
APPENDIX.
301
committing an act which nearly led to the destruction of the Admiral. " Sir Francis Drake," says Hakluyt in his transla tion, " (who was, notwithstanding, appointed to beare out his lanterne that night) was giuing of chase unto fiue great Hulkes which had separated themselves from the Spanish Fleete, but finding them to be Easterlings, he dismissed them. The lord Admirall all that night following the Spanish lanterne instead of the English, founde himselfe in the morning to be in the
midst of his enemies' Fleete, but when he perceived it hee cleanly conveyed himself out of that great danger. " The same account is given by Speed and Grimeston, but the story is so confusedly told in Camden, that any one manufacturing a Newspaper account from his statement might easily be led into error. " The day following, which was the two and twentie of July," continues Hakluyt, " Sir Francis Drake espied Valdez his shippe, whereunto hee sent foorth his pinasse," and a mi
nute account is given of the capture of Valdez, who, far from making a "stout resistance," surrendered without striking a blow. We afterwards learn, that the Admiral, having in the morning been " left alone in the enimies Fleete" in advance of the English, "it was foure of the clocke at afternoone before the residue ofthe English Fleet could ouertake him. " The con
tradictions here are almost too numerous to be counted. If we are to consider the Mercury authentic, the Admiral must have forgotten, in his despatches, every event worth recording —the neglect of Drake, the night of unconscious peril, the startling discovery of the morning, and, finally, the separation from his own fleet during nearly the whole of the very day of the date of the letter !
With this instance our historical proofs of the spuriousness of the English Mercury have begun, and with this they may end.
It is hardly worth while, after this series of blunders in one article, to mention even that Sir Francis Vere is called Sir Francis some months before he was knighted, and made a noted character before he had done his earliest celebrated feat of
arms. "
[Mr. Watts, in his letter, gives other conclusive proofs of
the forgery ; and since the publication of his pamphlet, having
302 APPENDIX.
pursued the subject, has been able to fix the commission of the literary crime (for crime it certainly is) upon the second Lord Hardwicke. The identity of the hand-writing of that noble man with the MS. from which the English Mercurie was evidently printed, appears to place the matter beyond further doubt. In the Memoirs of Lord Hardwicke there is a vague allusion to this affair. The English Mercurie forms a part of Dr. Birch's MSS. , and the detection of this fraud throws a painful doubt over the authenticity of other documents which have passed as genuine into our national library, on the autho rity of that collector. ]
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Kalends April. —Paulus the Consul and Cn. Octavius the Praetor set out this day for Macedonia, in their habits of war, and vast numbers of people attending them to the gates. The funeral of Marcia was performed with greater pomp of images than attendance of mourners. The Pontifex Sempronius pro claimed the Megalesian plays in honour of Cybele.
4th of the Nones of April. —A Ver Sacrumf was vowed, pursuant to the opinion of the College of Priests. Presents were made to the embassadors of the Etolians. Ebutius, the Praetor, set out for his province of Sicily. The fleet stationed on the African coast entered the port of Ostia, with the tri bute of that province. An entertainment was given to the
• Houses standing out by themselves, and not joined to the rest of the street. Most of the great men's houses at Rome were built after this manner.
+ A Ver Sacrum, was a vow to sacrifice an ox, sheep, or some such beast, born between the Kalends of March and the Pridie Kalends of June.
APPENDIX. 291
people by Marcia's sons at their mother's funeral. A stage play was acted this day, being sacred to Cybele.
3rd of the Nones of April. —Popilius Lenas, C. Decimus, C. Hostilius, were sent embassadors, in a joint commission, to the Kings of Syria and Egypt, in order to accommodate the differences, about which they are now at war. Early in the morning they went, with a great attendance of clients and relations, to offer up a sacrifice and libations at the Temple of Castor and Pollux, before they began their journey.
The second set of the remains of the Acta Diurna, belong to the year of Rome, 691. I have already mentioned how they were discovered, and shall only add, that they are fuller and
more entertaining than the former, but rather seem more liable to objections with regard to their genuineness.
Syllanus and Murena Consuls. The Fasces with Murena. 3rd of the Ides of August. —-Murena sacrificed early in the morning, at the Temple of Castor and Pollux, and afterwards assembled the Senate in Pompey's senate-house. Syllanus defended Sext. Ruscius of Larinum, who was accused of an act of violence by Torquatus, before Q. Cornificius, the Praetor. The defendant was absolved by forty votes, and voted guilty
by twenty. A riot happened in the Via Sacra, between Clodius's workmen and Milo's slaves.
othof the Kalends of September. —M. Tullius Cicero pleaded in defence of Cornelius Sylla, accused by Torquatus of being concerned in Catiline's conspiracy, and gained his cause by a majority of five judges. The Tribunes of the treasury were against the defendant. One of the Pnetors advertised by an edict, that he should put off his sittings for five days, upon account of his daughter's marriage. C. Ca;sar set out for his government of the farther Spain, having been long detained by his creditors. A report was brought to Tartinius the Prsetor, whilst he was trying causes at his tribunal, that his son was dead. This was contrived by the friends of Copponius, who
T2
292 APPENDIX.
was accused of poisoning, that the Praetor, in his concern, might adjourn the court ; but that magistrate having discovered the falsity of the story, he returned to his tribunal, and continued in taking informations against the accused.
ith ofthe Kalends of September. —The funeral of Metella Pia, a Vestal was celebrated ; she was buried in the sepulchre of her ancestors, in the Aurelian Road. The Censors made a bargain that the Temple of Aius-Loquens should be repaired for twenty-five ses terces. Q. Hortensius harangued the people about the Censorship, and the Allobrogick war. Advice arrived from Etruria, that the remains of the late conspiracy had begun a tumult, headed by L. Sergius.
No. II.
THE FORGED " ENGLISH MERCURIE. "
The following are passages from " A Letter to Antonio Panizzi, Esq. , %c, on the reputed earliest printed Newspaper, ' The English Mereurie,
1588. ' By Thomas Watts, of the British Museum. "
British Museum, 16th Nov. , 1839.
The nation, which is yours by adoption and mine by birth, has long claimed an honour which no one has hitherto been found to dispute; and this claim is based on a document preserved among the treasures of the noble establishment to which we both belong. But the English nation and the British Museum are too rich in genuine honours to wish to retain, for an instant, one that is not their due. The object of the present letter is to demonstrate that the claims of the English to the invention of printed Newspapers are unfortu nately of no validity, and that the " earliest Newspaper" in the
Museum is an imposture. The claim appears to have been
*****
Mr. Nichols, who, in 1794, had transferred the substance of
Mr. Chalmers's statement to the pages of the Gentleman's Ma gazine, afterwards incorporated it, with an encomium on the sagacity of the discoverer, in the elaborate account of early Newspapers, drawn up by himself, with the assistance of the Rev. Samuel Ayscough, and forming part of the fourth volume of his Literary Anecdotes. Mr. D'Israeli, who, in the early editions of his Curiosities of Literature, had given an article on
the Origin of Newspapers, in which no allusion was made to the English Mercury, inserted an account of the alleged dis covery, in subsequent editions, almost in the words of Chalmers. An independent account, not taken from the life of Ruddiman, but apparently from a fresh examination of the Mercury itself, appeared in the " Concise History of Ancient Institutions, Inventions, &c, abridged and translated from Professor Beck- mann, with various important additions," published at London, in two volumes, in 1823. From these authorities, it is no won der the information found its way into the Cyclopaedias, and other compilations of a similar nature. It is given at some length in the Encyclopaedia Londinensis, the Metropolitana, the new edition of the Britannica, and the British Cyclopaedia, under the head Newspapers. The Conversations-Lexikon of Brockhaus, and the Neuestes Conversations-Lexikon of Wigand, mention it in the article Zeitung ; the Dictionnaire de la Con versation et de la Lecture, under the head Gazetier ; the great Russian Entsiklopedicheskii Leksikon, under that of Gazeta. It appears in the Encyclopaedia Americana, published at New York, and in the new edition of that work, with alterations and improvements, now publishing at Glasgow. In mis cellaneous works on origins and inventions, it has generally found a place. Even the circulation given to the statement by
these channels however, inferior, in all probability, to that has obtained by the means of Newspapers and miscellaneous
periodicals, such as Hone's Year Book, the Saturday Magazine, Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, &c. &c. For the last thirty or
APPENDIX. 293
first set up by Mr. George Chalmers, in his life of Ruddiman the Scottish Grammarian, published in 1794.
it
is,
294 APPENDIX.
forty years, it has formed a regular standard article of curious information, and by constant repetition, in and out of season, has been made familiar to almost every desultory reader in the kingdom.
There could hardly, in fact, be any circumstance in literary history, apparently established on a firmer foundation than this. A statement originally made by a respectable authority, and repeated by so many others, was supported by a reference to a document preserved, not in a private library, or in one difficult of access, but in the most public, the most easily ac
cessible, the most universally frequented collection in the capital. Any doubt or suspicion that might arise, could be confirmed or dispelled at once by applying for the volume, which was daily within call of hundreds of literary men, both English and foreign.
This document, on which, for nearly half a century, so im portant a statement has rested undisturbed and unchallenged, is, however, in reality of so very questionable a character, that to see it was to suspect it, and to examine was to detect. On the 4th inst. , I was induced to refer to the " English Mer- curie," by a consideration respecting it suggested in the article
" Armada," in the Penny Cyclopaedia. It is there pointed out that, as the numbers of the Mercury in the Museum are " marked as Nos. 50, 51, and 54, in the corner of the margin, we are to conclude that such publications had occasionally been resorted to at critical times, much anterior to the event of the Spanish Armada. " It struck me that the marginal
numbers referred to might possibly be merely added in manu script, in order to facilitate reference. On the book being brought, I had not examined it two minutes, before, to my surprise, I was forced to conclude that the whole was a for
I handed it to Mr. Jones, my colleague in the library at the Museum, and he immediately arrived at a similar con clusion. At that instant, you, my dear sir, came up, and I put the volume into your hands, with an inquiry whether you thought that the printing was executed in the year 1588. After a moment's examination, you unhesitatingly declared it impossible. I pointed out the other marks of unauthenticity that
gery.
APPENDIX. 295
I had detected, your hasty inspection supplied still others, and the unaccountably successful imposition of fifty years was shattered to fragments in five minutes. Not a single individual of many who have since examined the " English Mercurie" has imagined that the date of 1588 could be at all supported.
The documents, of which the credit was thus suddenly and singularly extinguished, are more in number than Mr. Chal mers's statement would lead his readers to imagine, and partly different in kind. They consist altogether of seven distinct articles, three of which are in print and four in manuscript. Each professes to be a number of the English Mercury ; but as two of the manuscript articles are duplicates of two of the printed, there are only five distinct numbers of the Newspaper.
*****
The first thing that arouses suspicion in the printed num bers as has been already stated, the first thing that catches
the eye — the form of the type. Instead of being that of two centuries and a half, that of about century back, the " English fount," in fact, bearing strong resemblance to that in Caslon's Specimens of Type, published in 1766. A single glance at the pages, however, in this case more efficacious than volumes of description could possibly be. Their whole appearance decidedly stamps them as having issued from the press in the eighteenth, instead of the sixteenth century. There moreover, one peculiar characteristic about the print ing, sufficient, the shape of every letter were ancient, to betray the secret of its modern execution. The distinction between the u's and v's, and the i's and j's, utterly unknown to the printers of the sixteenth century, here maintained throughout in all its rigour. This circumstance would alone,
tiquity of the printed English Mercuries. *****
others were wanting, be decisive against the supposed an
It is, however, hardly necessary to dwell on minor and speculative points, when so much conclusive proof remains to be brought forward. It no less strange than true, that, bound up with these printed Mercuries, which have so long deceived the world, has lain all the while unexamined, in their
is
if
is
a
if
is,
is,
is
a
it is
29G APPENDIX.
manuscript duplicates, the most convincing, the most irrefra gable evidence that the whole affair is a fraud. That the manuscripts A and G are the originals from which the printed copies C and D have been taken, is a fact that admits of no question. In all the alterations, and they are numerous, which occur in the manuscripts, the printed copy faithfully follows them, except, as has already been mentioned, in the ortho graphy of one paper. It has been suggested that this may be the case, and yet that the manuscript may not be the original, but a transcript from some earlier printed copy not found or known to exist. But this hypothesis is inadmissible. The alterations in the manuscript are not those of a transcriber, but
of an author. They extend not only to the wording, and that in cases where a transcriber could not possibly mistake, but to material points of the statements—to circumstances, numbers, and names. They are so very numerous, that a transcriber who could perpetrate such a series of blunders must be a moral phenomenon. And lastly, the corrections are, in many cases, themselves corrected; sometimes by a return to the original statement or mode of expression —a circumstance likely enough to occur often in the alterations of an author, but never in the corrections of a copyist. One instance of this is singular. In F the title was originally written, " The English Mercury. " A line was drawn through and the " State Intelligencer" substituted; and this again was afterwards rejected, and the " English Mercury" restored.
#
The handwriting of the manuscript as modern as the
type of the printed copies and the spelling modern spelling, while in the printed copy antiquated. The letter from
—
" Madrid, July 16. We have now a certaine account that
the Duke de Medina sayled from the Groyne the 11th of this
month, after thoroughly repairinge the damages he sustained in the last storme. The Invincible Armado (as called) consistes of one hundred and fifty saile of all sortes havinge on boarde twenty-one thousand eight hundred lande forces, the
Madrid begins thus in the printed copy
;
it is
*
; it
it,
is
*
C: is* is
#
APPENDIX. 297
verie flower of the armie in old Spayne, exclusive of two hun dred and twenty-four volunteers of the first qualitie, with their servants," &c. &c.
The printer seems, in this instance, to have taken on him self the task of giving the spelling the proper antique flavour, and not to have succeeded very well. With D and G the case is different. There the author has himself taken the pains to disguise his orthography. In the " Advertisements of Bookes," which Chalmers has extracted, the e has been inserted between the k and the s ; and in the word " ymprinted," at the bottom of the advertisements, the original initial i has been altered to y. In all the manuscripts of which there are no printed copies, the spelling is left uncorrected. It is entirely modern, there fore, in Chalmers's extract of James's reply to the Queen's mi nister ; but the circumstance seems to have escaped the obser vation of Chalmers, and of all who copied him. To the modern character of the writing and the spelling, a third anachronism remains to be added; the paper on which the manuscript is written bears the watermark of the royal arms, with the ini tials " G. R. "
The whole style of composition observable in the Mercury is, like every thing else about of much later date than that to which pretends. Mr. Chalmers defies, and with reason, the " Gazetteer of the present day to give more de corous account of the introduction of foreign minister," than the writer of this earliest of English Gazettes. " It curious," remarks Dr. Lieber, in the Encyclopaedia Americana, "to observe how much the mode of communicating certain articles of intelligence in these early Papers resembles the forms in use at present. " It more than curious won derful. The general impression left on the mind by the per usal of the Mercury is, that must have been written after the Spectator. To investigate the rise and progress of particular words, phrases, and modes of expression, demands degree of research which would be misapplied on the present occasion but two observations of the kind which have presented them selves ought not to be passed over. The " Mercury" speaks of
very
;
it
is
a ;it a is is
a
it, a
it
293 APPENDIX.
" Regiments," as if the phrase were perfectly familiar to En glish ears ; but Hakluyt, in 1598, writing of the Spanish Armada, is not of the same opinion. " There were," he says (translating Van Meteren, with a slight alteration), " in the said nauie five terzaes of Spaniards (which terzaes the Frenchmen call regi ments). " The " Advertisements of Books, like those of the present times," quoted by Mr. Chalmers, are an instance of anticipation both in the word and the thing. In Richardson's Dictionary, no instance is given of the use of the word in this peculiar sense anterior to the Tatler. Nichols, in his account of Newspapers, after having quoted Chalmers's discovery of the English Mercury, tells us, some few pages further on, as a discovery of his own, that No. 7 of the Impartial Intelligencer, which commenced in March, 1648-9, contains the first regular advertisement, which is " from a gentleman at Can dish, in
Suffolk, respecting two horses which had been stolen from him. " He had either not observed, or had forgotten, the far more remarkable advertisements for books in the all-antici pating English Mercury.
One of the most searching of tests remains to be applied. It is yet to be seen how far the statements of historical events in the English Mercury correspond with those of historians respecting whose authority there is no room for doubt. The first article of intelligence in the Mercury will serve the pur pose :—
" Whitehall, July 23d, 1588.
" Earlie this Morninge arrived a Messenger at Sir Francis Wokingham's Office with Letters of the 22d from the Lorde High Admirall on board the Ark-Royal, containinge the fol-
lowinge materiall Advices.
" On the 20th of this Instant Capt. Fleming, who had beene
ordered to cruize in the chops of the Channell, for Discoverie, brought Advice into Plymouth, that he had descried the Spanish Armado neare the Lizard, making for the Entrance of the Channell with a favourable Gale. Though this Intelligence was not received till near foure in the Afternoone, and the Winde at that time blew hard into the Sound, yet by the inde fatigable Care and Diligence of the Lorde High Admiral, the
APPENDIX. 299
Ark Royal, with five of the largest Frigates, anchored out of the Harbour that very Eveninge. The next morninge, the greatest Part of her Majestie's Fleet gott out to them. They made in all about eighty Sail, divided into four Squadrons, commanded by his Lordship in Person, Sir Francis Drake Vice-Admiral, and the Rear-Admirals Hawkins and Forbisher. But about one in the Afternoone, they came in Sighte of the Spanish Armado two Leagues to the Westward of the Eddi- stone, sailing in the Form of a half Moon, the Points whereof were seven Leagues asunder. By the best computation, that could be made on the sudden (which the Prisoners have since
confirmed) they cannot be fewer than one hundred and fifty Ships of all Sorts ; and severall of them called Galleons and Galleasses, are of a Size never seene before in our Seas, and appeare on the Surface of the Water like floatinge Castles. But the Sailors were so far from being daunted by the Number and Strengthe of the Enemie, that as soon as they were dis cerned from the top-mast-Head, Acclamations of Joy resounded through the whole Fleete. The Lord High Admirall observing this generall Alacritie, after a Council of War had been held, directed the Signall of Battle to be hung out. We attacked the Enemy's Reare with the Advantage of the Winde : The Earle of Cumberland in the Defiance gave the first fire : my Lord Howard himselfe was next engaged for about three hours with Don Alphonso de Leyva, in the St Jaques, which would certaynly have struck, if she had not been seasonably rescued by Ango de Moncada. In the meane tyme, Sir Francis Drake and the two Rear-Admirals Hawkins and Forbisher, vigorously broad-sided the Enemies sternmost Ships commanded by Vice- Admiral Recalde, which were forced to retreat much shattered to the maine Body of their Fleete, where the Duke de Medina
himselfe commanded. About Sun-set we had the pleasure of seeing the invincible Armada fill all their sails to get away from us. The Lord Admirall slackned his, in order to expect the Arrivall of twenty fresh Frigates, with which he intendes to pursue the Enemie, whom we hope by the Grace of God to prevent from landinge one man on English Grounde. In the night the St. Francis Galleon, of which Don Pedro de Valdez
;500
APPENDIX.
was Captaine, fell in with Vice-Admirall Drake, who tooke her after a stout Resistance. She was disabled from keepinge up with the rest of the Fleete, by an Accident which happened to her, of springing her Fore-maste. She canyes fifty Guns and five hundred men, both Souldiers and Mariners. The Captours found on board five thousand Golde Ducats, which they shared amongst them after bringing her into Plymouth. "
The dates in this intelligence are worthy of observation : they are truly remarkable. Early in the morning of July the 23rd, arrives at Whitehall a messenger with letters of July 22nd, from the Lord High Admiral. Where, then, is the Lord High Admiral ? Out at sea in the Ark Royal, so situated that he can give intelligence from Plymouth on the morning of the 22nd. For it will be noticed, that the " St. Francis Galleon, of which Don Pedro Valdez was captain," is taken, according to the Admiral's account, by Sir Francis Drake, on the night of the 21st, and afterwards brought into Plymouth, and the prize-money shared among the men, which, considering all things, could hardly have taken place before early in the morn ing of the 22nd. Here, then, we have a piece of News con veyed from Plymouth to London, a distance of 215 miles, in four-and-twenty hours — a degree of rapidity in conveyance which fairly equals the rapidity in sharing the prize-money, and which, before the invention of telegraphs, steamboats, and rail ways, might, one would think, have excited the astonishment and admiration of any Gazetteer. Having thus examined the state ment by its own light, let us see how far it corresponds with the relations of contemporary historians. Unluckily for himself, the Gazetteer has chosen for his narration a portion of time, of which there are in existence more minute records than, per haps, of any other equally remote ;—quite minute enough, at least, to demonstrate how much at variance with truth is the statement he has attributed to the Lord High Admiral. To search the Cottonian manuscripts, or other recondite documents, is needless : the common accounts of the night of the 21st and of the day following are amply sufficient. On that night, Meteren informs us, Drake, far from doing good service, was
APPENDIX.
301
committing an act which nearly led to the destruction of the Admiral. " Sir Francis Drake," says Hakluyt in his transla tion, " (who was, notwithstanding, appointed to beare out his lanterne that night) was giuing of chase unto fiue great Hulkes which had separated themselves from the Spanish Fleete, but finding them to be Easterlings, he dismissed them. The lord Admirall all that night following the Spanish lanterne instead of the English, founde himselfe in the morning to be in the
midst of his enemies' Fleete, but when he perceived it hee cleanly conveyed himself out of that great danger. " The same account is given by Speed and Grimeston, but the story is so confusedly told in Camden, that any one manufacturing a Newspaper account from his statement might easily be led into error. " The day following, which was the two and twentie of July," continues Hakluyt, " Sir Francis Drake espied Valdez his shippe, whereunto hee sent foorth his pinasse," and a mi
nute account is given of the capture of Valdez, who, far from making a "stout resistance," surrendered without striking a blow. We afterwards learn, that the Admiral, having in the morning been " left alone in the enimies Fleete" in advance of the English, "it was foure of the clocke at afternoone before the residue ofthe English Fleet could ouertake him. " The con
tradictions here are almost too numerous to be counted. If we are to consider the Mercury authentic, the Admiral must have forgotten, in his despatches, every event worth recording —the neglect of Drake, the night of unconscious peril, the startling discovery of the morning, and, finally, the separation from his own fleet during nearly the whole of the very day of the date of the letter !
With this instance our historical proofs of the spuriousness of the English Mercury have begun, and with this they may end.
It is hardly worth while, after this series of blunders in one article, to mention even that Sir Francis Vere is called Sir Francis some months before he was knighted, and made a noted character before he had done his earliest celebrated feat of
arms. "
[Mr. Watts, in his letter, gives other conclusive proofs of
the forgery ; and since the publication of his pamphlet, having
302 APPENDIX.
pursued the subject, has been able to fix the commission of the literary crime (for crime it certainly is) upon the second Lord Hardwicke. The identity of the hand-writing of that noble man with the MS. from which the English Mercurie was evidently printed, appears to place the matter beyond further doubt. In the Memoirs of Lord Hardwicke there is a vague allusion to this affair. The English Mercurie forms a part of Dr. Birch's MSS. , and the detection of this fraud throws a painful doubt over the authenticity of other documents which have passed as genuine into our national library, on the autho rity of that collector. ]
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