* The same act fixed the stamp duty on Newspapers at threepence halfpenny, which rate was doubled if the sheet exceeded the
ordained
size.
Hunt - Fourth Estate - History of Newspapers and Liberty of Press - v1
You must all remember Lucian's pleasant story : Jupiter and a countryman were walking together conversing with great freedom and familiarity upon the subject of heaven and earth.
The countryman listened with attention and acquiescence, while Jupiter strove only to convince him ; but happening to hint a doubt, Jupiter turned hastily round, and threatened him with his thunder.
' Ah !
ah !
' says the country man, ' now, Jupiter, I know that you are wrong ; you are always wrong when you appeal to your thunder.
' This is the case with me—I can reason with the people of England, but I cannot fight against the thunder of authority.
Gentlemen, this is my defence for free opinions.
"
But the eloquence of the advocate, the arguments of the scholar and the politician, availed nothing with the jury on whom they were employed. A verdict of guilty was returned the minute Erskine concluded his address ; but his speech, thanks to short-hand, remains to us, and has often since been quoted, when the liberty of the press he argued for, has been as sailed.
Several other trials took place about this time, at the instance of the Attorney General, but verdJicts were
not always obtained by the Government.
uries, at times, availed themselves of the power given by the new libel law, and the legal proceedings, taken with a
BURKE AND CRABBE.
271
view to the suppression of the doctrines of the reform ers, had had the effect of increasing the popular appetite for political inquiry. Whilst Paine was regarded as a great authority on one side, Burke was
champion on the other. The great orator seems to have been assailed with much unfair abuse, and his friends did not fail to retort when opportunity offered. Burke's kindness to Crabbe apparently induced the latter to take up a pen against the Journals which
had attacked his patron. Hence, it may be, the first
idea of Crabbe's poem, The Newspaper.
first published in 1785, and was dedicated
Thurlow, who had shown Crabbe many favours. The poet was living at Belvoir Castle when he sketched his unfavourable portrait of the Newspapers, and the
protege of an aristocratic party no doubt spoke the sentiments of those by whose munificence he had been raised from destitution to a snug competence in the Church. In a note to the edition of Crabbe's poems by his son,itis explained, that atthe time theNewspaper was written, "partyspirit ran unusually high; the Coali
tion Ministry, of which Mr. Burke was a member, had recently been removed ; the India bills, both of Fox and Pitt, had been thrown out ; and the public mind was greatly inflamed by the events of the six weeks'
Westminster election, and the consequent scrutiny. Notwithstanding the philosophical tone of his preface, it seems highly probable that Crabbe had been moved to take up the subject by the indignation he felt at seeing Mr. Burke daily abused, at ' this busy bustling time,' by one set of party writers, while the Duke of Portland was equally the victim of another. Mr. Burke had, at this
This was to Lord
272 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
time, become extremely unpopular, both in and out of the House. At the opening of the new Parliament, in May, 1 784, so strong was the combination against him, that the moment of his rising became a signal for coughings and other symptoms of dislike. On one occasion he stopped short in his argument to remark, that he ' could teach a pack of hounds to yelp with more melody and equal comprehension. '"
The versifier wishes to be very severe upon the poli tical publications, which people would read, whilst they declined the perusal of poetical ones :—
A time like this, a busy, bustling time,
Suits ill with writers, very ill with rhyme ; Unheard we sing, when party rage runs strong, And mightier madness checks the flowing song :
•#•*•
Sing, drooping muse, the cause of thy decline ; Why reign no more the once triumphant nine ?
Alas! new charms the wavering many gain, And rival sheets the reader's eye detain :
A daily swarm, that banish every muse,
Come flying forth, and mortals call them News : For these, unread the noblest volumes lie ;
For these, in sheets unsoiled, the muses die : Unbought, unblest, the virgin copies wait
In vain for fame, and sink, unseen, to fate.
Since, then, the town forsakes us for our foes, The smoothest numbers for the harshest prose ! Let us, with generous scorn, the taste deride, And sing our rivals with a rivals' pride.
Amongst the Journals mentioned by Crabbe, we recognise the titles of four existing Daily Papers :—
CKABBE's " NEWSPAPER. " 273
I sing of News, and all those vapid sheets
The rattling hawker vends through gaping streets ; Whate'er their name, whate'er the time thay fly, Damp from the press, to charm the reader's eye : For, soon as morning dawns with roseate hue,
The Herald of the morn arises too ;
Post after Post succeeds, and, all day long,
Gazettes and Ledgers swarm, a noisy throng.
When evening comes, she comes with all her train Of Ledgers, Chronicles, and Posts again,
Like bats, appearing, when the sun goes down, From holes obscure and corners of the town.
Of all these trifles, all like these, I write ;
Oh ! like my subject could my song delight,
The crowd at Lloyd's one poet's name should raise, And all the Alley echo to his praise.
A Sunday Paper of his day finds special notice at the hands of the newly ordained poet-priest : —
No changing season makes their number less, Nor Sunday shines a Sabbath on the press !
Then lo ! the sainted Monitor is born, Whose pious face some sacred texts adorn : As artful sinners cloak the secret sin,
To veil with seeming grace the guile within ;
So moral essays on his front appear,
But all his carnal business in the rear :
The fresh-coin'd lie, the secret whisper'd last, And all the gleanings of the six days past.
With these retired, through half the Sabbath-day, The London lounger yawns his hours away.
and
abuse, we have a long passage which shows clearly
After some pages of mingled description
vol r.
s
'J74 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
that Crabbe read and enjoyed a Newspaper with as much zest as any of those whom he affects to ridicule for their love of News.
To you all readers turn, and they can look Pleased on a Paper, who abhor a book ;
Those, who ne'er deign'd their Bible to peruse, Would think it hard to be denied their News ;
Sinners and saints, the wisest with the weak, Here mingle tastes, and one amusement seek; This, like the public inn, provides a treat, Where each promiscuous guest sits down to eat And such this mental food, as we may call
Something to all men and to some men all.
Next, in what rare production shall we trace, Such various subjects in so small a space ?
As the first ship upon the waters bore Incongruous kinds who never met before ;
Or as some curious virtuoso joins,
In one small room, moths, minerals, and coins, Birds, beasts, and fishes ; nor refuses place
To serpents, toads, and all the reptile race ;
So here, compressed within a single sheet,
Great things and small, the mean and mighty meet ; 'T is this which makes all Europe's business known, Yet here a private man may place his own ;
And, where he reads of Lords and Commons, he May tell their honours that he sells rappee.
Add next th' amusement which the motley page Affords to either sex and every age :
Lo ! where it comes before the cheerful fire,— Damps from the press in smoky curls aspire,
(As from the earth the sun exhales the dew,) Ere we can read the wonders that ensue : Then eager every eye surveys the part,
That brings its favourite subject to the heart
enough
SHERIDAN. 275
Grave politicians look for facts alone,
And gravely add conjectures of their own :
The sprightly nymph, who never broke her rest For tottering crowns, or mighty lands opprest, Finds broils and battles, but neglects them all
For songs and suits, a birth-day, or a ball :
The keen warm man o'erlooks each idle tale
For " Money 's wanted," and " Estates on Sale ;" While some with equal minds to all attend, Pleased with each part, and grieved to find an end.
So charm the News ; but we, who, far from town
Wait till the postman brings the packet down, Once in a week, a vacant day behold,
And stay for tidings, till they 're three days old : That day arrives ; no welcome post appears,
But the dull morn a sullen aspect wears ;
We meet, but ah ! without our wonted smile, To talk of headaches, and complain of bile ; Sullen we ponder o'er a dull repast,
Nor feast the body while the mind must fast.
A master-passion is the love of News,
Not music so commands, nor so the muse : Give poets claret, they grow idle soon ;
Feed the musician, and he 's out of tune ; But the sick mind, of this disease possest, Flies from all cure and sickens when at rest.
Written apparently to serve a temporary purpose, this poem may have done what its author desired by pleasing his patrons ; but beyond that very little can be said, for it is certainly very inferior to the other productions of Crabbe.
Another man of genius, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, interested himself at this period in the question of the liberty of free printing. With a number of other
s2
27fi THE FOURTH ESTATE.
gentlemen of the liberal party, he promoted the objects of an association established under the title of " The Society of Friends of the Liberty of the Press. " This body held meetings at the Freemasons' Tavern, and numerous patriotic speeches, and several spirited pamphlets, were among the results of the proceedings. * Several fine passages in Sheridan's speeches will be remembered, in which he refers to the value of a free press, and to the lamentable consequences that must ensue from the success of any attempt to trammel it. On one memorable occasion he exclaimed, " Give
me but the liberty of the press, and I will give to the minister a venal House of Peers—Iwill give him a corrupt and servile House of Commons — I will give him the full sway of the patronage of office—I will give him the whole host of ministerial influence—I will give him all the power that place can confer upon him, to purchase up submission, and overawe resistance —and yet, armed with the liberty of the press, I will go forth to meet him undismayed — I will attack the mighty fabric he has reared with that mightier engine —I will shake down from its height corruption, and bury it amidst the ruins of the abuses it was meant to
shelter. "
* Amongst other publications referring to the objects of this Society, were : —
Letter to R. B. Sheridan, Esq. , M. P. , on his late Proceedings as a Member of the Society for the Freedom of the Press, 1792.
Observations on the Proceedings of the Friends of the Liberty of the Press. By Sir T. Bernard Bart. , 1793.
Apology for the Freedom of the Press and for General Liberty, with Remarks on Bishop Horsley's Sermon, preached January 13,
1793. By the Rev. Robert Hall.
SPURIOUS DESPATCHES. 277
The feeling that prompted the establishment of the Society of Friends of the Liberty of the Press, suggested the Whig political toast which became so widely popular, " The liberty of the press —it is like the air we breathe —if we have it not we die. " This was first given at a great political dinner at the
Crown and Anchor, and was subsequently echoed and re-echoed over the whole kingdom ; gaining, in its repetition, many friends for liberty, who had feelings ready to respond to a patriotic toast, though perhaps destitute of the political knowledge requisite for fully understanding the real importance of a sentiment they
were so willing to repeat.
Following shortly after the trial of Paine, several
other cases of libel came before the courts. In 1794, Archibald Hamilton Rowan was found guilty of libel, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and fined £500. In the same year the Earl Abington was tried for libel, and, in the following year, Mr. Redhead Yorke was proceeded against for seditious libel. In 1796, Daniel Isaac Eaton was tried, July 8, for libels on kingly government, and found guilty.
On the 9th of July, 1796, a cause was tried on the King's Bench, Guildhall, between the proprietors of the Telegraph, (plaintiffs,) and the proprietors of the
Morning Post, (defendants,) which deserves a place here, as showing the extent to which the spirit of rivalry had impelled the conductors of opposition Papers. It was proved that, in February, 1795, the defendants had contrived to forward to the office of the Telegraph, from Canterbury, a spurious French Newspaper, con taining a pretended renewal of the armistice, and pre
278 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
liminaries of peace between the Emperor and the French Republic. The proprietors of the Telegraph being thus imposed upon to give, as true, a transla tion of this false fabricated intelligence, and thereby sustaining much discredit with the public, and a diminution of the sale of the Paper, brought an action against the defendants as the authors of such discredit and loss. The case being made out, the jury gave a verdict for the plaintiffs, damages £100. The forged Paper was printed in London,* and a Mr. Dickenson having circulated a report that this
News was contrived by Goldsmid for stock jobbing purposes, the money dealer brought an action
his accuser, and recovered £1,500 damages
—just fifteen times as much as the jury gave to the
Newspaper.
Pitt was quite conscious of the value of News paper support ; and, if we may rely on the statements of a writer in The New Monthly Magazine, steps were taken by that minister to use the local Journals of his day, for the purpose of promoting a popular opinion favourable to the views of his Government. Towards the close of the eighteenth century there was scarcely " a single provincial editor who would have hazarded an original article on public affairs. Their comments
were confined to the events of their own town or dis trict, so sparingly administered, with such obvious distrust of their own abilities, and with such cautious timidity, that they were absolutely of no account. The London Papers, a pot of paste and a pair of
scissors, supplied all the materials for the miscel- * Ann. Kegister, Vol. XXXVIII. , p. 26.
forged
against
PITT AND THE COUNTRY NEWSPAPERS. 279
laneous articles, and the local intelligence was detailed in the most meagre formularies. The provincial journalist of that day was, in fact, not much above a mechanic —a mere printer — and intellect had as little
as possible to do with the matter. When Mr. Pitt began to find a constant instrument for the inocula tion of his views indispensable to bear along with him the force and currency of popular sentiment, a public officer was instructed to open a communica tion with the proprietors of Journals of large circu lation, and the result was, that to a vast majority of
them, two or three London Papers were sent gratui tously, certain articles of which were marked with red ink, and the return made was the insertion of as many of these as the space of the Paper would allow. Thuswas the whole country agitated and directed by one mind, as it were ; and this fact accounts in no small degree for the origin, propagation, and support of that pub
lic opinion, which enabled the minister to pursue his plans with so much certainty of insuring general approbation. "*
" The clergy at this time it would appear," says the same writer, " were the principal provincial Paper agents in this arrangement, and exercised so much influence, that a few years afterwards some of them made their exertions the ground for a claim on cleri cal patronage, and in more than one case obtained it from the Government. The success of these efforts
on the part of the ministers roused the opposition into action, and Jacobin or Republican Papers, as they were then called, were established, and, by their « New Monthly, Vol. XLVIIL, p. 133.
2S0 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
original articles, materially improved the character of provincial Journalism. "*
The minister, who was so willing to make the press contribute to his popularity, was equally ready to
compel it to pay tribute to his exchequer. In several of Mr. Pitt's budgets, we find Newspapers and adver tisements figuring in the list of articles to be subjected to additional taxation, and by his encroachments and those of other equally unscrupulous tax-levyers, the
halfpenny stamp of Queen Anne gradually grew up to a stamp duty of fourpence on each Newspaper. And here let us recapitulate the laws on this subject. The act of Queen Anne,t as we have seen, put a tax of a halfpenny on every half sheet, and a penny on every whole sheet. The act of George I. defined " what Newspapers should not be deemed pam phlets":]: and thus prevented the future evasion of the law of Anne, which had been attempted. George II. laid an additional tax of a halfpenny on News
and an additional shilling duty on adver-
papers,
The first of George III. 's numerous Newspaper laws directs, that no stamps are to be delivered out for Newspapers or pamphlets till security be given for the duties for the advertisements to be
tisements. §
thereon. || The next act of George III. continues the duties imposed by previous statutes. In 1789, an additional duty was granted*
of a halfpenny on each Newspaper, and sixpence on each advertisement. No allowance was to be
* New Monthly, Vol. XLVIII. , p. 133.
t 10 Anne, o. 19. J11 Geo. 30 Geo. II. ,c19.
Geo. III. , c. 46, 13 Geo. III. , c. 65. * 29 Geo. III. , c. 50
printed (1773)11
|| 5
§ 8.
U
I. , c
8. §
TAXES ON NEWSPAPERS. 281
made for cancelled Newspapers, but an abatement of £i per cent, was allowed when £10 worth (or more) of stamps were taken at the same time. " And whereas," continues the act, "an usage prevails
amongst the hawkers of Newspapers and other
instead of selling the Newspapers, to let out the same for small sums, to be read by different
persons, whereby, the sale of Newspapers is greatly obstructed ;" this custom, begotten of the stamp acts that raised the price of the Journals, was declared to be illegal, and all who so offended, were rendered liable to a fine of five pounds for each offence. * The same statute drew the cords of the law more tightly about the press. Proprietors of Newspapers are again ordered to join in the security before required to be given for payment of the duties on advertisements, and any one printing advertisements, before giving such good security, is made liable to a penalty of £500. It is further ordered, that if advertisement duties remain unpaid for forty days they may be sued for by prompt process in the Exchequer, whilst
persons counterfeiting stamps are to suffer the pun ishment of death.
In 1794, a lawt was passed, to enable the com missioners to stamp the paper used for News purposes in sheets of single demy, instead of sheets of double demy, as had been the custom. The duty at that time on Papers contained in half a sheet or less amounted,
* 1790, July 2. Under this date, we find the following paragraph : —" A stationer near Bond Street, fined £5 for lending out a News paper, contrary to the statute. "
t 34 Geo. III. , e. 72.
persons,
2S2 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
in the whole, to twopence ; and it was enacted, that the half sheet should not exceed twenty-eight inches in length, and twenty inches in breadth.
Three years later, the Parliament again legislated for the press,* but only to put on an additional half penny tax. By way of " a reasonable compensation to such publishers of Newspapers who shall not advance the price of their Papers beyond the amount of the duty imposed thereon by this act," it was enacted, " that, for every Newspaper not sold at more than sixpence there shall be a discount allowed on the amount of all duties. " This discount was to be £16 per cent, on sums above £10, paid at one time for stamps, but was only to be allowed under certain conditions. Two distinct stamps were also ordered to be used: one denoting any discount allowed, and the other not. A penalty of £20 was also declared against all who did not print on every Newspaper, its full price, or who sold them at a greater price than that so fixed.
The memorable 1798 produced another and more stringent law,t declared to be "for preventing the mischiefs arising from the printing and publishing Newspapers, and Papers of a like nature, by persons not known ; and for regulating the printing and pub lication of"such Papers in other respects. " These regulations in other respects" forbade the publication of any Paper until the delivery of an affidavit specify ing the names and abodes of proprietors, printers, and publishers, and describing the printing-house and title of the Journal.
* 37 Geo. III. , c. 90. t 38 Geo. HI. , e. 78.
THE LAWS BECOME MOKE SEVERE. 283
Various other rules are laid down for securing to the Government a positive knowledge of the names of Newspaper proprietors and printers, and heavy penalties are declared against those who offend the new regulations. The name of the printer and pub lisher was to appear in each impression after July 1, 1798; a copy of every Paper was to be delivered within six days of its publication to the Commissioners of Stamps, under a penalty of £100. " Such Paper may, within two years after publication, be produced as evidence in any proceeding, civil or criminal. " A penalty of £20 was declared for every copy printed without stamp ; a penalty of £20 against any person having an unstamped Paper in their possession; a
procuring to be sent, Newspapers, " stamped or un stamped, to any country notin amitywith His Majesty. " Upon oath that any person had a Newspaper intended to be sent to foreign countries, "not in amity with His Majesty, a justice might summon and examine the party, and seize and forfeit the Papers. " The twenty-fourth clause of the act recites, that " matters tending to excite hatred and centempt of the person of His Majesty, and of the Constitution and Govern ment established in these kingdoms, are frequently published in Newspapers, or other Papers, under colour of having been copied from foreign Newspapers," any person so offending was to suffer six months imprison ment. These were some of the means taken for
crushing the expression of the popular voice; but, as we shall see, they proved insufficient.
further penalty of £100 for sending unstamped Papers out of Great Britain ; and of £500, for sending, or
»
284 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
In addition to all these laws directed solely towards the press, other statutes were made to bear upon it, for the purpose of repressing the free expression of popular opinion. Thus, in the act for the suppression of seditious societies,* clauses were introduced, order ing all persons having printing presses, to register them at the office of the clerk of the peace, that official being required to send a list of all such
to the Secretaries of State ; and, further, directing that all printers should write, upon one copy of every printed sheet, the name of the
person for whom it was produced, and be prepared to show this certified copy to any magistrate, who, within six months of its publication, might demand informa tion as to its author. t A penalty of £20 was imposed on those who infringed these new regulations, and the informers reaped a most abundant harvest. Indeed, so troublesome were these rules found to be in practice, that special acts were afterwards (1811) passed, giving the magistrates power to mitigate the penalties in some cases; and, though Castlereagh, carried out, in 1819, the spirit of these laws against the press, to their most tyrannic extreme, the Parliament, when more liberal days came, relieved the printers from the fangs of the common informer, by limiting, to the Attorney General, the power of taking proceedings.
In 1800, a clause was put into the &ct,% generously
* 39 Geo. III. , c. 79.
t It was during the debate on this clause, that a member is said to have placed a formal motion before the House, " That all anonymous works have the name of the author printed on the title-page. "
t39&40Geo. III. ,c. 72,§19.
registered presses
CANNING AND GIFFORD. 285
allowing two and a-half inches to be added to the demy Newspaper sheet—instead of the sheet being 28 by 20, it was permitted to increase to 30$ inches by 20. Four years afterwards the size of the News paper sheet was allowed to be extended to 32 inches long by 22 broad.
* The same act fixed the stamp duty on Newspapers at threepence halfpenny, which rate was doubled if the sheet exceeded the ordained size.
How the tax was ultimately raised to fourpence, and subsequently reduced from that sum to one penny, we shall hereafter see, merely now noticing the fact that this reduction of the stamp from fourpence to one penny, took effect September 15, 1836. The destructive die came into use, January 1, 1837.
About the close of the eighteenth century, Gifford came into the field as a political writer. The story of his early life and struggles after knowledge is one of the most curious and interesting specimens of self-confession and explanation in our collection of
life as a helpless sea- apprentice and cobbler's-boy, he made his way to the post of literary champion of the aristocracy, fighting their battle in the pages of the Quarterly Review. One of his first engagements in the metropolis was on the Political Press. Canning and some friends having made up their minds to start a Paper for the purpose of attacking " the political agitators of the
day," the editorship was first offered to Dr. Grant, a writer then esteemed ; but, on his refusal to accept the employment, it was given to Gifford, who was doubt- t 44 Geo. III. , c. 98, § 22.
autobiographies. Beginning
280 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
less happy to secure an engagement from men so dis tinguished as those who set up The Anti-Jacobin —for so the new Paper was called. The speculation had no permanent success. The first number appeared in November 20, 1797, and the last was dated July 9, 1798; but this short service, it is said, secured Gifford the appointment of paymaster of the band of gentlemen pensioners, and, at a later period, a double commissionership of the lottery. In his early poli tical days it was that Gifford came in hostile con tact with Dr. Walcot. The future hero of the Quar terly Review, fired (as in duty bound) a satiric epistle to Peter Pindar, which evidently hit the mark ; and subsequent events proved, as in the case of Foote, that the man so clever at lampooning others, did not like to be himself made the subject of satire. The Anti-
Jacobin was published by a Mr. Wright in Piccadilly,
and at the door of his shop stood Walcot,
in hand, waiting an opportunity to chastise Gif ford. At length the unconscious victim approached the door, and the indignant Peter Pindar was in the act of striking him on the head with the cudgel, when a quick- eyed and quick- handed passer-by arrested the blow. Gifford fled into the followed by Walcot and a crowd, and the latter taking part with the assailed editor, the indignant Peter Pindar was rolled in the gutter, whence he emerged bedraggled in mud, and glad to get safe home. His second attempt at revenge was in type, for he pub
lished soon afterwards the poem, " A Cut at a Cob bler," this title being an allusion to Gifford's early occupation.
cudgel
shop
THE COURIER AND THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA.
Since the temper of a time towards the press has so often to be sought in the records of the courts of justice, some notice of a trial that took place in the latter part of the year, 1799, may close this chapter, and, with it, our notice of the press in the seventeenth century. The record may be brief, but short as it is, it shows that
the Newspapers were not only forbidden to speak of tyranny, when exercised in their own country, but that the Attorney General was called upon to be champion of foreign potentates, when the nature of their despotism was described. A writer in the Courier, then a popular Evening Paper, had ventured upon the assertion " that the Emperor of Russia was a tyrant
among his subjects, and ridiculous to the rest of Europe. " This was held by the law-officers of George III. to be a dangerous libel. On the 30th of May,
1799, John Parry, the proprietor; John Vint, the
printer ; and George Ross, the publisher of the Courier, were put on their trial, and convicted in the court of King's Bench, for publishing the paragraph containing the words just mentioned. Mr. Parry was sentenced to pay the sum of £100, to be imprisoned in the King's Bench for six months, and find securi ties for his good behaviour for five years, himself in £500, and two sureties in £250 each; Vint and Ross to be imprisoned in the same jail for one calendar month each. This result proves that juries were still to be found in England ready, by a verdict of guilty, to bear out the views of those who declared against the free expression of thought in 1799. With all this, however, a vast progress had been made during the
period that thus closed. The puny single-paged
287
2SS THE FOURTH ESTATE.
Daily Paper of the beginning of the century, had been succeeded by a race of comparatively large well- printed Journals, supplied with numerous advertise ments, and conducted with considerable vigour, in
and talent. This increase in number and size was an indication, too, of an enlarged circle of readers and supporters ; whilst this, in its turn, proved an extension of influence. We shall see
presently how this circle extended, until the News paper won for itself the position of profit and power it at present enjoys.
dependence,
APPENDIX. VOL. I.
No. I.
DR. JOHNSON'S SPECIMENS OF THE "ACTA DIURNA. "
Tlie following passages are from the Preface to " Gentleman's Magazine" for 1740, written by Johnson.
A. U. C. , i. e. , from thehuilding of Rome, 585. 5th of the Kalends of April. The Fasces with jEmilius the Consul. —The Consul, crowned with laurel, sacrificed at the Temple of Apollo. The Senate assembled at the Curia Hostilia about the eighth hour ; and a decree passed, that the Praetors should give sentence according to the edicts, which were of perpetual vali dity. This day M. Scapula was accused of an act of violence before C. Baebius the Praetor: fifteen of the judges were for condemning him, and thirty-three for adjourning the cause.
4th of the Kalends of April. The Fasces with Licinius the Consul. —It thundered ; an oak was struck with lightning on that part of Mount Palatine called Summa Velia, early in the
afternoon. A fray happened in a tavern at the lower end of the Banker's Street,* in which the keeper of the Hog-in- Armour Tavern was dangerously wounded. Tertinius, the . Sldile, fined the butchers for selling meat which had not
* Called Janus Infimus, because there was in that part of the street a statue of Janus, as the upper end was called Janus Summus, for the same reason.
VOL. I. T
'290 APPENDIX.
been inspected by the overseers of the markets. The fine is to be employed in building a chapel to the Temple of the God dess Tellus.
3d of the Kalends of April. The Fasces with JEmilius. —It rained stones on Mount Veientine. Posthumius, the Tribune, sent his beadle to the Consul, because he was unwilling to convene the Senate on that day; but the Tribune, Decimus, putting in his veto, the affair went no further.
Pridie Kalend Aprilis. The Fasces with Licinius. —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.
But the eloquence of the advocate, the arguments of the scholar and the politician, availed nothing with the jury on whom they were employed. A verdict of guilty was returned the minute Erskine concluded his address ; but his speech, thanks to short-hand, remains to us, and has often since been quoted, when the liberty of the press he argued for, has been as sailed.
Several other trials took place about this time, at the instance of the Attorney General, but verdJicts were
not always obtained by the Government.
uries, at times, availed themselves of the power given by the new libel law, and the legal proceedings, taken with a
BURKE AND CRABBE.
271
view to the suppression of the doctrines of the reform ers, had had the effect of increasing the popular appetite for political inquiry. Whilst Paine was regarded as a great authority on one side, Burke was
champion on the other. The great orator seems to have been assailed with much unfair abuse, and his friends did not fail to retort when opportunity offered. Burke's kindness to Crabbe apparently induced the latter to take up a pen against the Journals which
had attacked his patron. Hence, it may be, the first
idea of Crabbe's poem, The Newspaper.
first published in 1785, and was dedicated
Thurlow, who had shown Crabbe many favours. The poet was living at Belvoir Castle when he sketched his unfavourable portrait of the Newspapers, and the
protege of an aristocratic party no doubt spoke the sentiments of those by whose munificence he had been raised from destitution to a snug competence in the Church. In a note to the edition of Crabbe's poems by his son,itis explained, that atthe time theNewspaper was written, "partyspirit ran unusually high; the Coali
tion Ministry, of which Mr. Burke was a member, had recently been removed ; the India bills, both of Fox and Pitt, had been thrown out ; and the public mind was greatly inflamed by the events of the six weeks'
Westminster election, and the consequent scrutiny. Notwithstanding the philosophical tone of his preface, it seems highly probable that Crabbe had been moved to take up the subject by the indignation he felt at seeing Mr. Burke daily abused, at ' this busy bustling time,' by one set of party writers, while the Duke of Portland was equally the victim of another. Mr. Burke had, at this
This was to Lord
272 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
time, become extremely unpopular, both in and out of the House. At the opening of the new Parliament, in May, 1 784, so strong was the combination against him, that the moment of his rising became a signal for coughings and other symptoms of dislike. On one occasion he stopped short in his argument to remark, that he ' could teach a pack of hounds to yelp with more melody and equal comprehension. '"
The versifier wishes to be very severe upon the poli tical publications, which people would read, whilst they declined the perusal of poetical ones :—
A time like this, a busy, bustling time,
Suits ill with writers, very ill with rhyme ; Unheard we sing, when party rage runs strong, And mightier madness checks the flowing song :
•#•*•
Sing, drooping muse, the cause of thy decline ; Why reign no more the once triumphant nine ?
Alas! new charms the wavering many gain, And rival sheets the reader's eye detain :
A daily swarm, that banish every muse,
Come flying forth, and mortals call them News : For these, unread the noblest volumes lie ;
For these, in sheets unsoiled, the muses die : Unbought, unblest, the virgin copies wait
In vain for fame, and sink, unseen, to fate.
Since, then, the town forsakes us for our foes, The smoothest numbers for the harshest prose ! Let us, with generous scorn, the taste deride, And sing our rivals with a rivals' pride.
Amongst the Journals mentioned by Crabbe, we recognise the titles of four existing Daily Papers :—
CKABBE's " NEWSPAPER. " 273
I sing of News, and all those vapid sheets
The rattling hawker vends through gaping streets ; Whate'er their name, whate'er the time thay fly, Damp from the press, to charm the reader's eye : For, soon as morning dawns with roseate hue,
The Herald of the morn arises too ;
Post after Post succeeds, and, all day long,
Gazettes and Ledgers swarm, a noisy throng.
When evening comes, she comes with all her train Of Ledgers, Chronicles, and Posts again,
Like bats, appearing, when the sun goes down, From holes obscure and corners of the town.
Of all these trifles, all like these, I write ;
Oh ! like my subject could my song delight,
The crowd at Lloyd's one poet's name should raise, And all the Alley echo to his praise.
A Sunday Paper of his day finds special notice at the hands of the newly ordained poet-priest : —
No changing season makes their number less, Nor Sunday shines a Sabbath on the press !
Then lo ! the sainted Monitor is born, Whose pious face some sacred texts adorn : As artful sinners cloak the secret sin,
To veil with seeming grace the guile within ;
So moral essays on his front appear,
But all his carnal business in the rear :
The fresh-coin'd lie, the secret whisper'd last, And all the gleanings of the six days past.
With these retired, through half the Sabbath-day, The London lounger yawns his hours away.
and
abuse, we have a long passage which shows clearly
After some pages of mingled description
vol r.
s
'J74 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
that Crabbe read and enjoyed a Newspaper with as much zest as any of those whom he affects to ridicule for their love of News.
To you all readers turn, and they can look Pleased on a Paper, who abhor a book ;
Those, who ne'er deign'd their Bible to peruse, Would think it hard to be denied their News ;
Sinners and saints, the wisest with the weak, Here mingle tastes, and one amusement seek; This, like the public inn, provides a treat, Where each promiscuous guest sits down to eat And such this mental food, as we may call
Something to all men and to some men all.
Next, in what rare production shall we trace, Such various subjects in so small a space ?
As the first ship upon the waters bore Incongruous kinds who never met before ;
Or as some curious virtuoso joins,
In one small room, moths, minerals, and coins, Birds, beasts, and fishes ; nor refuses place
To serpents, toads, and all the reptile race ;
So here, compressed within a single sheet,
Great things and small, the mean and mighty meet ; 'T is this which makes all Europe's business known, Yet here a private man may place his own ;
And, where he reads of Lords and Commons, he May tell their honours that he sells rappee.
Add next th' amusement which the motley page Affords to either sex and every age :
Lo ! where it comes before the cheerful fire,— Damps from the press in smoky curls aspire,
(As from the earth the sun exhales the dew,) Ere we can read the wonders that ensue : Then eager every eye surveys the part,
That brings its favourite subject to the heart
enough
SHERIDAN. 275
Grave politicians look for facts alone,
And gravely add conjectures of their own :
The sprightly nymph, who never broke her rest For tottering crowns, or mighty lands opprest, Finds broils and battles, but neglects them all
For songs and suits, a birth-day, or a ball :
The keen warm man o'erlooks each idle tale
For " Money 's wanted," and " Estates on Sale ;" While some with equal minds to all attend, Pleased with each part, and grieved to find an end.
So charm the News ; but we, who, far from town
Wait till the postman brings the packet down, Once in a week, a vacant day behold,
And stay for tidings, till they 're three days old : That day arrives ; no welcome post appears,
But the dull morn a sullen aspect wears ;
We meet, but ah ! without our wonted smile, To talk of headaches, and complain of bile ; Sullen we ponder o'er a dull repast,
Nor feast the body while the mind must fast.
A master-passion is the love of News,
Not music so commands, nor so the muse : Give poets claret, they grow idle soon ;
Feed the musician, and he 's out of tune ; But the sick mind, of this disease possest, Flies from all cure and sickens when at rest.
Written apparently to serve a temporary purpose, this poem may have done what its author desired by pleasing his patrons ; but beyond that very little can be said, for it is certainly very inferior to the other productions of Crabbe.
Another man of genius, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, interested himself at this period in the question of the liberty of free printing. With a number of other
s2
27fi THE FOURTH ESTATE.
gentlemen of the liberal party, he promoted the objects of an association established under the title of " The Society of Friends of the Liberty of the Press. " This body held meetings at the Freemasons' Tavern, and numerous patriotic speeches, and several spirited pamphlets, were among the results of the proceedings. * Several fine passages in Sheridan's speeches will be remembered, in which he refers to the value of a free press, and to the lamentable consequences that must ensue from the success of any attempt to trammel it. On one memorable occasion he exclaimed, " Give
me but the liberty of the press, and I will give to the minister a venal House of Peers—Iwill give him a corrupt and servile House of Commons — I will give him the full sway of the patronage of office—I will give him the whole host of ministerial influence—I will give him all the power that place can confer upon him, to purchase up submission, and overawe resistance —and yet, armed with the liberty of the press, I will go forth to meet him undismayed — I will attack the mighty fabric he has reared with that mightier engine —I will shake down from its height corruption, and bury it amidst the ruins of the abuses it was meant to
shelter. "
* Amongst other publications referring to the objects of this Society, were : —
Letter to R. B. Sheridan, Esq. , M. P. , on his late Proceedings as a Member of the Society for the Freedom of the Press, 1792.
Observations on the Proceedings of the Friends of the Liberty of the Press. By Sir T. Bernard Bart. , 1793.
Apology for the Freedom of the Press and for General Liberty, with Remarks on Bishop Horsley's Sermon, preached January 13,
1793. By the Rev. Robert Hall.
SPURIOUS DESPATCHES. 277
The feeling that prompted the establishment of the Society of Friends of the Liberty of the Press, suggested the Whig political toast which became so widely popular, " The liberty of the press —it is like the air we breathe —if we have it not we die. " This was first given at a great political dinner at the
Crown and Anchor, and was subsequently echoed and re-echoed over the whole kingdom ; gaining, in its repetition, many friends for liberty, who had feelings ready to respond to a patriotic toast, though perhaps destitute of the political knowledge requisite for fully understanding the real importance of a sentiment they
were so willing to repeat.
Following shortly after the trial of Paine, several
other cases of libel came before the courts. In 1794, Archibald Hamilton Rowan was found guilty of libel, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and fined £500. In the same year the Earl Abington was tried for libel, and, in the following year, Mr. Redhead Yorke was proceeded against for seditious libel. In 1796, Daniel Isaac Eaton was tried, July 8, for libels on kingly government, and found guilty.
On the 9th of July, 1796, a cause was tried on the King's Bench, Guildhall, between the proprietors of the Telegraph, (plaintiffs,) and the proprietors of the
Morning Post, (defendants,) which deserves a place here, as showing the extent to which the spirit of rivalry had impelled the conductors of opposition Papers. It was proved that, in February, 1795, the defendants had contrived to forward to the office of the Telegraph, from Canterbury, a spurious French Newspaper, con taining a pretended renewal of the armistice, and pre
278 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
liminaries of peace between the Emperor and the French Republic. The proprietors of the Telegraph being thus imposed upon to give, as true, a transla tion of this false fabricated intelligence, and thereby sustaining much discredit with the public, and a diminution of the sale of the Paper, brought an action against the defendants as the authors of such discredit and loss. The case being made out, the jury gave a verdict for the plaintiffs, damages £100. The forged Paper was printed in London,* and a Mr. Dickenson having circulated a report that this
News was contrived by Goldsmid for stock jobbing purposes, the money dealer brought an action
his accuser, and recovered £1,500 damages
—just fifteen times as much as the jury gave to the
Newspaper.
Pitt was quite conscious of the value of News paper support ; and, if we may rely on the statements of a writer in The New Monthly Magazine, steps were taken by that minister to use the local Journals of his day, for the purpose of promoting a popular opinion favourable to the views of his Government. Towards the close of the eighteenth century there was scarcely " a single provincial editor who would have hazarded an original article on public affairs. Their comments
were confined to the events of their own town or dis trict, so sparingly administered, with such obvious distrust of their own abilities, and with such cautious timidity, that they were absolutely of no account. The London Papers, a pot of paste and a pair of
scissors, supplied all the materials for the miscel- * Ann. Kegister, Vol. XXXVIII. , p. 26.
forged
against
PITT AND THE COUNTRY NEWSPAPERS. 279
laneous articles, and the local intelligence was detailed in the most meagre formularies. The provincial journalist of that day was, in fact, not much above a mechanic —a mere printer — and intellect had as little
as possible to do with the matter. When Mr. Pitt began to find a constant instrument for the inocula tion of his views indispensable to bear along with him the force and currency of popular sentiment, a public officer was instructed to open a communica tion with the proprietors of Journals of large circu lation, and the result was, that to a vast majority of
them, two or three London Papers were sent gratui tously, certain articles of which were marked with red ink, and the return made was the insertion of as many of these as the space of the Paper would allow. Thuswas the whole country agitated and directed by one mind, as it were ; and this fact accounts in no small degree for the origin, propagation, and support of that pub
lic opinion, which enabled the minister to pursue his plans with so much certainty of insuring general approbation. "*
" The clergy at this time it would appear," says the same writer, " were the principal provincial Paper agents in this arrangement, and exercised so much influence, that a few years afterwards some of them made their exertions the ground for a claim on cleri cal patronage, and in more than one case obtained it from the Government. The success of these efforts
on the part of the ministers roused the opposition into action, and Jacobin or Republican Papers, as they were then called, were established, and, by their « New Monthly, Vol. XLVIIL, p. 133.
2S0 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
original articles, materially improved the character of provincial Journalism. "*
The minister, who was so willing to make the press contribute to his popularity, was equally ready to
compel it to pay tribute to his exchequer. In several of Mr. Pitt's budgets, we find Newspapers and adver tisements figuring in the list of articles to be subjected to additional taxation, and by his encroachments and those of other equally unscrupulous tax-levyers, the
halfpenny stamp of Queen Anne gradually grew up to a stamp duty of fourpence on each Newspaper. And here let us recapitulate the laws on this subject. The act of Queen Anne,t as we have seen, put a tax of a halfpenny on every half sheet, and a penny on every whole sheet. The act of George I. defined " what Newspapers should not be deemed pam phlets":]: and thus prevented the future evasion of the law of Anne, which had been attempted. George II. laid an additional tax of a halfpenny on News
and an additional shilling duty on adver-
papers,
The first of George III. 's numerous Newspaper laws directs, that no stamps are to be delivered out for Newspapers or pamphlets till security be given for the duties for the advertisements to be
tisements. §
thereon. || The next act of George III. continues the duties imposed by previous statutes. In 1789, an additional duty was granted*
of a halfpenny on each Newspaper, and sixpence on each advertisement. No allowance was to be
* New Monthly, Vol. XLVIII. , p. 133.
t 10 Anne, o. 19. J11 Geo. 30 Geo. II. ,c19.
Geo. III. , c. 46, 13 Geo. III. , c. 65. * 29 Geo. III. , c. 50
printed (1773)11
|| 5
§ 8.
U
I. , c
8. §
TAXES ON NEWSPAPERS. 281
made for cancelled Newspapers, but an abatement of £i per cent, was allowed when £10 worth (or more) of stamps were taken at the same time. " And whereas," continues the act, "an usage prevails
amongst the hawkers of Newspapers and other
instead of selling the Newspapers, to let out the same for small sums, to be read by different
persons, whereby, the sale of Newspapers is greatly obstructed ;" this custom, begotten of the stamp acts that raised the price of the Journals, was declared to be illegal, and all who so offended, were rendered liable to a fine of five pounds for each offence. * The same statute drew the cords of the law more tightly about the press. Proprietors of Newspapers are again ordered to join in the security before required to be given for payment of the duties on advertisements, and any one printing advertisements, before giving such good security, is made liable to a penalty of £500. It is further ordered, that if advertisement duties remain unpaid for forty days they may be sued for by prompt process in the Exchequer, whilst
persons counterfeiting stamps are to suffer the pun ishment of death.
In 1794, a lawt was passed, to enable the com missioners to stamp the paper used for News purposes in sheets of single demy, instead of sheets of double demy, as had been the custom. The duty at that time on Papers contained in half a sheet or less amounted,
* 1790, July 2. Under this date, we find the following paragraph : —" A stationer near Bond Street, fined £5 for lending out a News paper, contrary to the statute. "
t 34 Geo. III. , e. 72.
persons,
2S2 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
in the whole, to twopence ; and it was enacted, that the half sheet should not exceed twenty-eight inches in length, and twenty inches in breadth.
Three years later, the Parliament again legislated for the press,* but only to put on an additional half penny tax. By way of " a reasonable compensation to such publishers of Newspapers who shall not advance the price of their Papers beyond the amount of the duty imposed thereon by this act," it was enacted, " that, for every Newspaper not sold at more than sixpence there shall be a discount allowed on the amount of all duties. " This discount was to be £16 per cent, on sums above £10, paid at one time for stamps, but was only to be allowed under certain conditions. Two distinct stamps were also ordered to be used: one denoting any discount allowed, and the other not. A penalty of £20 was also declared against all who did not print on every Newspaper, its full price, or who sold them at a greater price than that so fixed.
The memorable 1798 produced another and more stringent law,t declared to be "for preventing the mischiefs arising from the printing and publishing Newspapers, and Papers of a like nature, by persons not known ; and for regulating the printing and pub lication of"such Papers in other respects. " These regulations in other respects" forbade the publication of any Paper until the delivery of an affidavit specify ing the names and abodes of proprietors, printers, and publishers, and describing the printing-house and title of the Journal.
* 37 Geo. III. , c. 90. t 38 Geo. HI. , e. 78.
THE LAWS BECOME MOKE SEVERE. 283
Various other rules are laid down for securing to the Government a positive knowledge of the names of Newspaper proprietors and printers, and heavy penalties are declared against those who offend the new regulations. The name of the printer and pub lisher was to appear in each impression after July 1, 1798; a copy of every Paper was to be delivered within six days of its publication to the Commissioners of Stamps, under a penalty of £100. " Such Paper may, within two years after publication, be produced as evidence in any proceeding, civil or criminal. " A penalty of £20 was declared for every copy printed without stamp ; a penalty of £20 against any person having an unstamped Paper in their possession; a
procuring to be sent, Newspapers, " stamped or un stamped, to any country notin amitywith His Majesty. " Upon oath that any person had a Newspaper intended to be sent to foreign countries, "not in amity with His Majesty, a justice might summon and examine the party, and seize and forfeit the Papers. " The twenty-fourth clause of the act recites, that " matters tending to excite hatred and centempt of the person of His Majesty, and of the Constitution and Govern ment established in these kingdoms, are frequently published in Newspapers, or other Papers, under colour of having been copied from foreign Newspapers," any person so offending was to suffer six months imprison ment. These were some of the means taken for
crushing the expression of the popular voice; but, as we shall see, they proved insufficient.
further penalty of £100 for sending unstamped Papers out of Great Britain ; and of £500, for sending, or
»
284 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
In addition to all these laws directed solely towards the press, other statutes were made to bear upon it, for the purpose of repressing the free expression of popular opinion. Thus, in the act for the suppression of seditious societies,* clauses were introduced, order ing all persons having printing presses, to register them at the office of the clerk of the peace, that official being required to send a list of all such
to the Secretaries of State ; and, further, directing that all printers should write, upon one copy of every printed sheet, the name of the
person for whom it was produced, and be prepared to show this certified copy to any magistrate, who, within six months of its publication, might demand informa tion as to its author. t A penalty of £20 was imposed on those who infringed these new regulations, and the informers reaped a most abundant harvest. Indeed, so troublesome were these rules found to be in practice, that special acts were afterwards (1811) passed, giving the magistrates power to mitigate the penalties in some cases; and, though Castlereagh, carried out, in 1819, the spirit of these laws against the press, to their most tyrannic extreme, the Parliament, when more liberal days came, relieved the printers from the fangs of the common informer, by limiting, to the Attorney General, the power of taking proceedings.
In 1800, a clause was put into the &ct,% generously
* 39 Geo. III. , c. 79.
t It was during the debate on this clause, that a member is said to have placed a formal motion before the House, " That all anonymous works have the name of the author printed on the title-page. "
t39&40Geo. III. ,c. 72,§19.
registered presses
CANNING AND GIFFORD. 285
allowing two and a-half inches to be added to the demy Newspaper sheet—instead of the sheet being 28 by 20, it was permitted to increase to 30$ inches by 20. Four years afterwards the size of the News paper sheet was allowed to be extended to 32 inches long by 22 broad.
* The same act fixed the stamp duty on Newspapers at threepence halfpenny, which rate was doubled if the sheet exceeded the ordained size.
How the tax was ultimately raised to fourpence, and subsequently reduced from that sum to one penny, we shall hereafter see, merely now noticing the fact that this reduction of the stamp from fourpence to one penny, took effect September 15, 1836. The destructive die came into use, January 1, 1837.
About the close of the eighteenth century, Gifford came into the field as a political writer. The story of his early life and struggles after knowledge is one of the most curious and interesting specimens of self-confession and explanation in our collection of
life as a helpless sea- apprentice and cobbler's-boy, he made his way to the post of literary champion of the aristocracy, fighting their battle in the pages of the Quarterly Review. One of his first engagements in the metropolis was on the Political Press. Canning and some friends having made up their minds to start a Paper for the purpose of attacking " the political agitators of the
day," the editorship was first offered to Dr. Grant, a writer then esteemed ; but, on his refusal to accept the employment, it was given to Gifford, who was doubt- t 44 Geo. III. , c. 98, § 22.
autobiographies. Beginning
280 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
less happy to secure an engagement from men so dis tinguished as those who set up The Anti-Jacobin —for so the new Paper was called. The speculation had no permanent success. The first number appeared in November 20, 1797, and the last was dated July 9, 1798; but this short service, it is said, secured Gifford the appointment of paymaster of the band of gentlemen pensioners, and, at a later period, a double commissionership of the lottery. In his early poli tical days it was that Gifford came in hostile con tact with Dr. Walcot. The future hero of the Quar terly Review, fired (as in duty bound) a satiric epistle to Peter Pindar, which evidently hit the mark ; and subsequent events proved, as in the case of Foote, that the man so clever at lampooning others, did not like to be himself made the subject of satire. The Anti-
Jacobin was published by a Mr. Wright in Piccadilly,
and at the door of his shop stood Walcot,
in hand, waiting an opportunity to chastise Gif ford. At length the unconscious victim approached the door, and the indignant Peter Pindar was in the act of striking him on the head with the cudgel, when a quick- eyed and quick- handed passer-by arrested the blow. Gifford fled into the followed by Walcot and a crowd, and the latter taking part with the assailed editor, the indignant Peter Pindar was rolled in the gutter, whence he emerged bedraggled in mud, and glad to get safe home. His second attempt at revenge was in type, for he pub
lished soon afterwards the poem, " A Cut at a Cob bler," this title being an allusion to Gifford's early occupation.
cudgel
shop
THE COURIER AND THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA.
Since the temper of a time towards the press has so often to be sought in the records of the courts of justice, some notice of a trial that took place in the latter part of the year, 1799, may close this chapter, and, with it, our notice of the press in the seventeenth century. The record may be brief, but short as it is, it shows that
the Newspapers were not only forbidden to speak of tyranny, when exercised in their own country, but that the Attorney General was called upon to be champion of foreign potentates, when the nature of their despotism was described. A writer in the Courier, then a popular Evening Paper, had ventured upon the assertion " that the Emperor of Russia was a tyrant
among his subjects, and ridiculous to the rest of Europe. " This was held by the law-officers of George III. to be a dangerous libel. On the 30th of May,
1799, John Parry, the proprietor; John Vint, the
printer ; and George Ross, the publisher of the Courier, were put on their trial, and convicted in the court of King's Bench, for publishing the paragraph containing the words just mentioned. Mr. Parry was sentenced to pay the sum of £100, to be imprisoned in the King's Bench for six months, and find securi ties for his good behaviour for five years, himself in £500, and two sureties in £250 each; Vint and Ross to be imprisoned in the same jail for one calendar month each. This result proves that juries were still to be found in England ready, by a verdict of guilty, to bear out the views of those who declared against the free expression of thought in 1799. With all this, however, a vast progress had been made during the
period that thus closed. The puny single-paged
287
2SS THE FOURTH ESTATE.
Daily Paper of the beginning of the century, had been succeeded by a race of comparatively large well- printed Journals, supplied with numerous advertise ments, and conducted with considerable vigour, in
and talent. This increase in number and size was an indication, too, of an enlarged circle of readers and supporters ; whilst this, in its turn, proved an extension of influence. We shall see
presently how this circle extended, until the News paper won for itself the position of profit and power it at present enjoys.
dependence,
APPENDIX. VOL. I.
No. I.
DR. JOHNSON'S SPECIMENS OF THE "ACTA DIURNA. "
Tlie following passages are from the Preface to " Gentleman's Magazine" for 1740, written by Johnson.
A. U. C. , i. e. , from thehuilding of Rome, 585. 5th of the Kalends of April. The Fasces with jEmilius the Consul. —The Consul, crowned with laurel, sacrificed at the Temple of Apollo. The Senate assembled at the Curia Hostilia about the eighth hour ; and a decree passed, that the Praetors should give sentence according to the edicts, which were of perpetual vali dity. This day M. Scapula was accused of an act of violence before C. Baebius the Praetor: fifteen of the judges were for condemning him, and thirty-three for adjourning the cause.
4th of the Kalends of April. The Fasces with Licinius the Consul. —It thundered ; an oak was struck with lightning on that part of Mount Palatine called Summa Velia, early in the
afternoon. A fray happened in a tavern at the lower end of the Banker's Street,* in which the keeper of the Hog-in- Armour Tavern was dangerously wounded. Tertinius, the . Sldile, fined the butchers for selling meat which had not
* Called Janus Infimus, because there was in that part of the street a statue of Janus, as the upper end was called Janus Summus, for the same reason.
VOL. I. T
'290 APPENDIX.
been inspected by the overseers of the markets. The fine is to be employed in building a chapel to the Temple of the God dess Tellus.
3d of the Kalends of April. The Fasces with JEmilius. —It rained stones on Mount Veientine. Posthumius, the Tribune, sent his beadle to the Consul, because he was unwilling to convene the Senate on that day; but the Tribune, Decimus, putting in his veto, the affair went no further.
Pridie Kalend Aprilis. The Fasces with Licinius. —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.
