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Leader (1850-1860), 15th January 1859, Edition 1 of 2, Page 74

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      was Gilbert Mabbot . He resigned his post upon principle , after holding it some two years . Passing on to 1665 , we come to the first recognised Court organ , which was issued on the 13 th of November in that year , and called tlie Oxford Gazette . It is supposed to have , been written by Henry Muddiman ; and on the 5 th of February , 1666 , it was transferred to London , and canie out as the London Gazette , which it has continued to this day . The Struggles of a shackled press for freedom were more marked in the reign of Charles the Second than in that of any other king ; and the merry monarch , more than began '/ what , it was left for his brother James to finish . These persecutions recoiled upon the heads of the Stuarts , and helped to hasten their downfaL

      The first commercial paper was brought out by Hoger L'Estrange ( Nov . 4 th , 1675 ) , being called the City Mercury ; and the first literary paper— - ^ the greatgrandfather of the Literary Gazette and j £ thenceu ? i-- ^ ras entitled Mercurius Librarius j or , a faitjiful Account of all Books and Pamphlets . No . I . April 9 th to 16 th , 1680 . The first sporting paper was published in 16 S 3 , and Called the Jockey ' s Intelligencer , and the first medieal paper caine out in 16 S 6 . In 1602-3 the licensing and censorship of papers was abandoned for ever , and the news-sheets increased rapidly in number and quality . In 1695 another novelty was produced ;—the halfprinted , half-written news-letter . The first of this class was the Flying Post , issued in the form of a iheet of letter-paper . With the advance in numbers and influence of the newspapers , the advertising system became more fully developed . Some of the editors appealed personally to their public , somewhat in this form : — If any Hamburg or other merchant , who shall deserve two hundred pounds with an apprentice , -wants one , I can help , I Want" a cook-in aid for a merchant . I want an apprentice for an eminent tallow-chandler The first professedly comic paper , in all probability , was The Merry Mercury ; or , a Farce of FoolsNo . 1 , Nov . 29 th 1700 .

      , , The first daily paper . was the Daily Courant , published 11 th of ; March , 1702 . The first tax was laid upon newspapers in the shape of the stamp duty , which came in force on the 1 st of August , 1712 ( 10 Anne , cap . 19 ) . We may pass over the essay newspapers ( such as the Taller , and a hundred others ) in the time of Steele , Addison , and Swift , and also over such wellknown facts as the establishment of the Gentlepian ' s Magazine , and the Parliamentary reports fabricated by Dr . Johnson . Members of Parliament have always been largely ' indebted to reporters for their wit , eloquence , and common sense , and none more so than the members of the Doctor ' s days to the

      great Doctor himself . In a work of this kind—a pure history , as it Ought to be—the author does not do well in allowing his political prejudices to carry him away . We want facts , not opinions ; and , admitting John "Wilkes to be the villain he is always represented , it is not Mr . Andrews ' s place to give him a few uncalled-for kicks in passing . A writer who has any seeds of Toryism in him had bettor leave the history of British journalism alone . Mr . Andrews , of course , adds no information to the " Junius" controversy . His quotation from Mr . Dilke , senior ' s , papers in the Athenattm is interesting , as showing the small effect which a great anonymous writer has upon the circulation of

      a paper : — . The first of these celebrated Lottere appeared in the Public Advertiser of April 28 th , 1767—the last on January 21 st , 1772 , sixty-nine Letters having appeared in this interval . It has boon the custom to represent that they were received with a JUrore that made the instant fortune of the paper in which they appeared . A correspondent in the Athenaeum , of July , 1888 , and July , 1880 , was tho first to correct this delusion by a reference to the accounts of the Puhlio Advertiser still preserved in

      the family of its proprietor . The circulation appears to have bcon uninfluenced until the famous Letter to tho King appeared on February 7 , 1770 ; then 1750 Additional copies were printed . Noxt week tho Lottoy to the Duke of Grafton produced a snlo of 700 above tho usual number ; the Letter of tho 19 th March , 850 ; April , 850 ; 28 th May , no additional copies j 22 nd August ( Lottor to Lord North ) , 1 Q 0 } ( Letter to Lord Mansflold" ) , 000 ; April , 1771 , 500 ; Juno ( Lotter to tho Puke of Qrnfton ) , 100 5 July ( ditto ) , 250 5 24 th July ( Letter to Horno Tooko ) , none j August ( ditto ) , 200 '} September ( Latter to ( ho Duke of Grafton ) , 250 ; same month ( Letter to tho Ltvery of London ) , tho sale full 250 below tho usual demand ; Oth Ootpbor , tho usual

      number ; 2 Sth November ( to tho Puke of Grafton ) , 050 additional . , One fact in explanation of these figures should be mentioned , and that is , that the Letters were reprinted by other papers ,, and supplied to different circles of readers , ¦ w hich checked the circulation of the Public Advertiser . Anonymous writers , of whatever quality , seldom widen the area of a journal ' s influence ; and at the time when Sir Bulwer Lytton and Benjamin Disraeli were contributing to the Press weekly newspaper , the circulation was perfectly

      stationary . We leave the shadowy " Junius" we found him ; and when discovered ( so those men tell us who know most about the subject ) , lie will not be one of the accredited " forty , " but an obscure man whose name , perhaps , has never been heard before . Dramatic criticism , as a department of a newspaper , dates its rise from about 1770 ; and if the present system of appointing play-writer critics is allowed to continue , it wiH die of internal rottenness before it reaches its hundredth year .

      The following are the oldest existing newspapers : — A brother of "Woodfall's , William , has also gained himself a name in the history of the press , having brought out the Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser , June 28 , 1769 . He was at once the printer , editor , and parliamentary reporter of the new paper ^ and in the latter capacity was so faithfully served by an extraordinary memory that he went by the name of " Memory Wbodfall , " He continued to carry on the Chronicle till

      1789 , when he left it , and started the Diury , which proved a failure . The Horning Chronicle is not , however * the oldest of existing papers : a diminutive sheet of prices of indigo , tea , cotton , cochineal ; of advertisements of " sales by the candle , ' " ranimage sales , " " &e ., claims that distinction , Jand is all that is left to us of that Public Lecher which was started January 12 , 1760 , by Ncwberry , of St . Paul's , under the editorship of Griffith Jones .

      Politically cohsidered , the most interesting struggle in connexion with the press is the fight to obtain the undoubted right to report parliamentary speeches . This concession was not wrung from Lords and Commons without a severe contest , in which all the honour and suffering is on the side of printers , authors , and publishers ; and all the disgrace and contempt on the side of the legislative bodies . Printer-hunting was put down—chiefly by the agency of the City of London—in 1772 , and from thathour the press may be considered as the acknowledged representative of the people . The Iforning Post dates from 1772 ; the Morning Herald from 1780 . Between these two events —that is , in 1778—appeared the first Sunday newspaper called Johnson ' s Sunday Monitor . In 1785 , on the 13 th of January , was published No . 1

      of the JDaily Universal Itegister , a paper of four pages , which , on the 1 st of January , 1788 , changed its name to Tue Times . In , this year , also , the first ( daily ) evening paper was started by Peter Stuart , and called the Star . The Times made no great stride for upwards of twenty years , and its ultimate success is due to the sagacity of its proprietor , Mr . Walter , who was the first to sec the importance of cultivating advertisements as the foundation of a paper ' s circulation and influence . The Morning Advertiser was established in 1794 , by the licensed victuallers of London , its profils being devoted to tho . maintenance of their asylum . Discarding the history of tho Provincial , Scotch , Irish , and Colonial press , to which Mr . Andrews devotes some space , we wilji leave the last century , and gather a few facts from the second volume concerning contemporary organs .

      At tho beginning of the century , tho relative position of the leading morning journals stood thus : — The Morning Post , which , seven years before , only sold three hundred and fifty copies daily , now stood second in the ranks of tho morning press ; tho order beingv- ( 1 st ) Mornin */ Chronicle , ( tina ) Morning Poat , ( Srd ) Morning Jlcrahl , ( 4 th ) Morning Advertiser , ( 5 th ) Times . Had Coleridge ' s writings nothing to do with this ? In . 181 ' 1 the Times \\ txd distanced its competitors , and il ; fixed itsoli in its now position by tho

      introduction of steam power in printing s—Having taken hla moasnros for semiring tho . receipt of early Intelligence , ( Wulter began to bq impatient at tho ¦ slowness of tho process by which it was issued oiittotho puhlio , and , for some time after 180-1 , had boon In silent oonfedoraoy with an Ingenious compositor named Thomas Murtvn , who had boon vtaitod with an idea of the practicability of working tho proas without manual labour . So violent was tho opposition of tho pressmen to any scheme of tho kind , that tho experiments had all to bo wade in tho greatest soorooy ; but tho enterprise game to

      a dead-lock for want of funds ; the old logographic printer , who was still the principal proprietor , coming to a resolution to advance no more money for the purpose . Still his son the manager cherished the idea , and in the year 1814 gave an opportunity to Frederick Kccniy , a Saxon printer , and . his friend Bauer , , of maturing a scheme which they had in their heads . The machinery was set up in secrecy and silence : a . whisper that something was going 0 : 1 had got among the printers , and they had not scrupled openly to declare that death to the inventor and destruction to his machine awaited any attempts to introduce mechanism into their'trade . At last all was ready for the experiment—the pressmen

      were ordered to await the arrival of the foreign news , when , about six o ' clock in the morning , Walter entered the room , and announced to them that the Times was already printed—by steam ! He then firmly declared that , if they attempted violence , he had sufficient force at hand to repress it ; but that , if they behaved quietly , their Wages should be continued to them till they got employment . The men wisely saw that resistance would * only lead to their ruin , and gave in to the power of steam . On that morning , the 29 th of November ,

      1814 , the readers of the Times were informed that the "journal of this day presents to the public the practical result of the greatest improvement connected with , printing since the discovery of the art itself . The reader of this paragraph now holds in his hand one of the many thousand impressions of the Times newspaper , which were taken off last night by a mechanical apparatus . A system of machinery almost organic has been devised and arranged , which , while it relieves the human , frame of its most laborious efforts in printing , far exceeds all human powers in rapidity and despatch . "

      With the abolition of the advertisement and stamp duty , the history of British journalism closes , an'd " thcre only remains one more lctter- ^ -the paper duty—to be knocked off , when this great engine of thought will be perfectly free . Mr . Andrews-s second volume overflows with accounts of living writers , some of the particulars being gleaned ^ we fear , from not very reliable sources . He confounds Mr . Dilke , senior , the restorer of the Athenceum , with his son , Mr . C . AVentwbrth Dilke , the leading organiser of the

      Great Exhibition ; he leaves out the Press weekly newspaper , which , until within the last few months , was a recognised Disraeli organ ; he has not heard of the Critic , the Field , the Law Times , ox the Clerical Journal ! he is not aware that the advertisement duty has been repealed for some years , or that the Morning Slur is now the same size as the ' Times . He has had a very wide field to traverse , which may be some excuse , ibr a few mistakes , but when we iind errors and omissions concerning the very year iu which the book is published , it tends to shake our faith in that portion of the history which duals with the remoter facts of British journalis " ro .

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      THE APPLICATION AND LANGUAGE OF SCIENCE . Novum Organon lienovatum . By William Whewell , D . D ., Master of Trinity College , Cambridge , and Corresponding Member of the Institute of France . Being the Second Part of the Philosophy of tho Inductive Sciences . Third Edition , with large additions . John W . Parker and Sou > Tue title of this book sufficiently designates its purport and scope j and to make this understanding secure , tho author , in the first words of his Preface , carefully oxpatiates on his intentions and object . Even if Bacon ' s Novum Orgnmtm had possessed tho

      character to which it aspired no completely as was possible in its own day , it would at present need renovation ; and even if no such book had over been written , it would bo a worthy undertaking to determine tho machinory , intellectual , social , and material , by which human knowledge vain boat bo augmented . Bacon could only divine how sciences might be constructed ; wo can trace , in their history , how tiicir construction has takon place . However sagacious wore hiu conjectures , tho faqta which have really occurred must give additional instruction ; however largo wore his anticipations , tho actual progress of science since his time has illustrated them in all tiioir extent . And as to tho structure and

      operation of tho organ by which truth in to bo col looted from nature— that in , tho methods by which science is to bo promoted—wo know . that , though Uacon ' a general maxims aro sagacious and animating , hiu particular precoptd failed in his liuncls , and are now practically uboIobs . This , perhaps , w « s not wonderful , seeing that £ hoy were , an , I have said , nutinly derived from conjectures respecting knowledge and tho progress of knowledge ; but at tho prodont day , when , in several provinces of knowledge we have a largo actual progress of solid truth to look back upon , wo may make the llk « attempt with tho prospect of a better success , at least on that ground . It muy bo a task , not hopoloss , to extract from tho past progress of s « lonco tho elements of

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      fej , TH E Ii E ADER |_ N ° 460 , January 15 , 3 . 659 .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 15, 1859, page 74, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2277/page/10/