Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/444

414 NEWSPAPERS [ENGLAND. at first irregular. Thus on the 1st of June 1619 Ralph Rounthwaite entered at Stationers Hall A Relation of all matters done in Bohemia, Aiistria, Poland, Sletia, France, &c., that is worthy of relating, since the 2 of March 1618 [1619 N.S.] until the 4th of May. 1 Again, at the begin ning of November 1621, Bartholomew DC wnes and another entered in like manner The certaine and true neives from all parts of Germany and Poland, to his present 20 of October 162 1. 2 No copy of either of tJiese papers is now, we believe, known to exist. Nor is ;iny copy known of The Courant, or ^Weekly Newes fror.i foreign parts, of October 9, 1621, mentioned by Mr Nbhols. 3 But in May 1622 we arrive at a weekly newspape. 1 which may still be seen in the British Museum. It is entitled " The 23d of May The Weekly News from Italy, Germany, &c., London, printed by J. D. for Nicholas Bourne and Thomas Archer." Nathaniel Butter s name does not occur on this number, but on many subsequent numbers it appears in connexion sometimes with Bourne s and sometimes with Archer s name ; so that there was probably an eventual partnership in the new undertaking. Butter had published Newes from Spaine in 1611, and he continued to be a publisher of news until 1641, if not later. 4 In The Certain Newes of this Present Week, ending 23d August 1622, the publisher inserted this advertisement : " If any gentleman or other accustomed to buy the weekly relations of newes be desirous to continue the same, let them know that the writer, or transcriber rather, of this newes hath published two former newes ; the one dated the second, the other the thirteenth of August, all which do carry a like title, and have dependence one upon another ; which manner of writing and printing he doth propose to continue weekly, by God s assistance, from the best and most certain intelligence." November 1641 is especially noticeable for the publication, in the form of a newspaper, of the earliest authentic report of the proceedings of parliament. Diurnal Occurrences, or the Heads of several Proceedings in both Houses of Parliament, was usually, notwithstanding its title, a weekly periodical, and it sometimes contained ordinary news in addition to its staple matter. This was followed, within five years, by a long train of newspapers, most of which were published weekly. Those which stand M&rawnes. , out most saliently from the rest are the Mercurius Britanni- cus, M. Pragmaticus, and M. Politicus of Marchmont Nedham, and the Mercurius Aulicus of John Birkenhead. Nedham was perhaps both the ablest and the readiest man that had yet tried his hand at a newspaper. He com menced the M. Britannicus on August 22, 1643, zealously advocated in it the cause of the Parliament, and continued its publication until 1647. At that period he changed sides, and began to write Mercurius Pragmaticus, "which, being very witty, satirical against the Presbyterians, and full of loyalty, made him known to, and admired by, the bravadoes and wits of those times. ... At length . . . Lenthall and Bradshaw . . . persuaded him to change his style once more [in favour of] the Independents, then carrying all before them. So that, being bought over, he wrote Mercurius Politicus, so extreme contrary to the former that the generality for a long time . . . could not believe that that intelligence could possibly be written by the same hand that wrote the M. Pragmaticus. . . . The last [i. e. , the Pragmatici] were endeavoured by the parliamenteers to be stifled, but the former, the Politici, which came out by authority, and flew every week into all parts of the nation for more than ten years, had very great influence. ... He was then [after a fourth change of style ] the Goliath of the Philistines, the great 1 Registers of the Stationers Company, as printed by Mr Edward Arber, iii. 302. 2 Ibid., iv. 23. 3 Literary Anecdotes, iv. 38. 4 It is to him that a passage in Fletcher s Fair Maid of the Inn (act iv. sc. 2) obviously refers : " It shall be the ghost of .some lying stationer. A spirit shall look as if butter would not melt in his mouth; a new Mercurius Gallo-Belyicus." champion of the late usurper, whose pen, in comparison of others, was like a weaver s beam." 5 Birkenhead s M. Aulicus was also begun in 1643, and continued, although irregularly, until nearly the close of the civil war. According to Wood, Charles I. "appointed him to write the Mercurii Aulici, which being very pleas ing to the loyal party, His Majesty recommended him to the [university] electors that they would choose him moral philosophy reader," which was done accordingly. He was assisted in the composition of Aulicus by George Lord Digby (secretary of state, and afterwards earl of Bristol) and by Dr Peter Heylin. Sir John Birkenhead had con siderable powers of satire, after a coarse fashion, and was one of the few rough-weather royalists who were permitted to bask in the sunshine of the Restoration. Under Cromwell, the chief papers were M. Politicus and Intelli- The Public Intelligencer (of which the first number appeared gencers. on the 8th October 1655). These publications were issued on different clays of the week, and at length they became conjointly the foundation of the present London Gazette. Even at their origin they were in some degree official papers. In 1659 the council of state caused the following announcement to be published : " Whereas Marchmont Nedham, the author of the weekly news-books called Mercurius Politicus and The Pullique Intelligencer, is, by order of the council of state, discharged from writing or publishing any publique intelligence ; the reader is desired to take notice that, by order of the said council, Giles Dury and Henry Muddiman are authorized henceforth to write and publish the said intelligence, the one upon the Thursday and the other upon the Monday, which they do intend to set out under the titles of The Parliamentary Intelligencer and of Mercurius Publicus" After the Restora tion, an office of surveyor of the press was instituted, to which Roger L Estrange was appointed. The story of his administration of it for which there are ample materials in the State Papers 6 would be well worth the telling in a befitting place. On him was also conferred, by royal grant and, as it proved, for only a short period,- " all the sole privilege of writing, printing, and publishing all narratives, advertisements, mercuries, intelligencers, diurnals, and other books of public intelligence ; . . . with power to search for and seize unlicensed and treasonable schismatical and scandalous books and papers." L Estrange continued the papers above mentioned, but changed their titles to The Intelligencer and The News. Joseph Williamson (afterwards secretary of state) was for a time L Estrange s assistant in the compilation of The Intelligencer? from which he soon withdrew. He organized for himself a far-spread foreign correspondence, and carried on the business of a news-letter writer on a larger scale than had till then been known. Presently L Estrange found his own sources of information much abridged. To his application for renewed assistance Williamson replies that he cannot give it, but " will procure for L Estrange a salary of 100 a year if he will give up his right in the news-book." 8 The Intelligencer appeals to Lord Arlington, and assures him that the charge of "entertaining spies for information was 500 in the first year." 9 But he has 5 Wood, Athenee Oxonienses (by Bliss), iii. 1182. A new Mer curius Britannicus appeared in June 1647, but did not long continue. Another, entitled M. Britannicus again Alive, was published in May 1648, and the title was often subsequently revived. 6 These materials begin in Domestic Correspondence, Charles II., xxxix. 92-95 (Rolls House), and continue at intervals in several succeeding volumes. 7 This help seems to have been given at the request of Arlington (then Sir H. Bennet) in 1663, State Papers, Domestic, diaries II., Ixxix. 112, 113. 8 State Papers, Domestic, Charles II., cxxxiv. 103 (Rolls House). 9 Ibid., 117.