HISTORY OF PRINTING. pamphlets. These were most printed beyond "But in the days of queen Mary they began "And these, I say, were the forerunners of the newspapers. In the days of queen Elizabeth we had several papers printed, relating to the affairs in France, Spain, and Holland, about the time of the civil wars in France. And these were, for the most part, translations from the Dutch and French, and were books, or pampulets rather, which, I take, if I mistake not, the word signifieth to be held in the hands and quickly read. We must come down to the reign of king James I. and that towards the latter end, when news began to be in fashion; and then, if I mistake not, began the use of Mercury-women; and they it was that dispersed them to the hawker, which word hath another signification. Look more in the Bellman of London." The business of these Mercuries and hawkers at first was to disperse proclamations, orders of council, and acts of parliament, &c. The Harleian manuscripts proceed to give what is there styled a list of early-printed newspapers; but which was so extremely incomplete, that Mr. Nichols* took some trouble to improve it, from the entries at stationers' hall, and from the royal collection in the British Museum, before he was aware that Mr. Chalmers had encountered a similar labour. The Rev. Samuel Ayscough added more than one hundred articles to the list of Mr. Nichols, which had escaped the notice of Mr. Chalmers; and from a collection of newspapers in his own possession, besides being continued to a later period, Mr. Nichols was enabled to form his list tolerably complete. 1536. Newess out of Hell; a dialogue between Charon and Zebul, a devil. London, printed by John Byddell. 8vo. 1576. Pasquin in a trance. A christian and learned dialogue, conteyning newes out of heaven, * Literary Anecdotes, vol. 4, &c. + Life of Thomas Ruddiman, the printer. For the list of newspapers, the compiler has been much indebted to the labours of Chalmers and Nichols; but many articles are here inserted that escaped the indefatigable research of those two gentlemen. The original orthography was newes, and in the singular. Johnson has, however, decided, that the word newes is a substantive without a singular, unless it be con sidered as singular. The word new, according to Wachter, is of very ancient use, and is common to many nations. The Britons, and the Anglo-Saxons, had the word, though not the thing. It was first printed by Caxton, in the In the Siege of Rhodes, which was tran modern sense. slated by John Kay, the poet laureate, and printed by Caxton, about the year 1490. In the Assembly of Foulis, which was printed by William Copland in 1530, there is the following exclamation. Newes! Newes! Newes! have ye ony Newes?" In the translation of the Utopia, by Raphe Robinson, citizien and goldsmythe, which was imprinted by Abraham Nele, in 1551, we are told, "As for monsters, because they be no newes, of them we were nothynge inquysitive."-Such is the rise, and such the progress of the word news, which even, in 1551, was still printed newes!" purgatory, and hell, discovering the crafty conse. of things used in physick, brought from the West hersall of Stukeley and Morice's rebellion. between Simon Certain and Pierce Plowman, 4to. out of Suffolke and Essex, where it rayned 1604. Newes from Gravesend. 4to. of the rebellion of sir Carey Daugherty and Butter, 4to. 12 pages. England of the lamentable burning of Teverton 1612. Newes out of Germany. 4to. 1618. Newes from Italy. 4to. 1620. Vox Populi, or Newes from Spain, 4ta Venetian in Legorne, from a merchant in Ales Parts; a half sheet in black letter, 4to. out f 1621, Oct. 23. In the stationers' books, Neop all parts of Germany and Poland, to the presul time. 4to. lished in this year, says, Countries, neuer discovered till of late, by a strange Pilgrim in those Parts, by George Fairbanke. 1622, May 3. A Courant of Newes from Vienna and other places, entered May 29, by Mr. Bourne and Thomas Archer. 1622, June 7. A Courant of Newes, by Mr. Butter. A Courant of Newes, dated at Rome, May 21; entered June 17, by Nath. Newbunie and William Sheffard. 1022, June 19. Newes from New England, by John Bellamie. 1622, Aug. 21. The certain Newes of the prewent Week, by Mr. Butter. 1622, Aug. 27. A Discourse of Newes from Prague in Bohemia, of a Husband who by Witchcraft had murthered eighteen Wives, and of a Wife who had likewise murthered nineteen Husbands, by Barth. Downes and William Sheffard. 1622, Sept. 3. A Courant, called Newes from andry Places, with a relation of the Storm at Plymouth; by Mr. Butter. of Heminge and Condell, two players, with the following dedication to the earls of Pembroke and Montgomery: "Since your lordships have been pleased to think these trifles something, heretofore," say these fellow-labourers in the art of pleasing, " and have prosecuted both them and their author, living, with so much favour, we hope you will use the like indulgence toward them you have done unto their parent. There is a great difference, whether any book choose his parents or find them: this hath done both; for so much were your lordships likings of the several parts, when they were acted, as before they were published, the volume asked to be yours. We have but collected them, and done an office to the dead to procure his orphans guardians, without ambition either of self-profit or fame: only to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive, as was our Shakspeare." Leonard Digges wrote an elegy upon Shakspeare, immediately after the appearance of the first edition; of which the following is an extract : About this period, newspapers began also to "Next nature only helped him, for look thorough Nor begs he from each witty friend a scene, 1623. ISAAC JAGGARD and EDWARD BLOUNT Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, that an edition of Shakspeare were given literatum according to the first folio," as "the ignorance and presumption of the commentators have shamefully disfigured Shakspeare's text.” The insensibility of Shakspeare to the offspring of his brain may be the subject of our wonder or admiration; but its consequences have been calamitous to those who in after times have hung with delight over his pages. On the intellect and the temper of these ill-fated mortals it has inflicted a heavy load of punishment in the dulness and the arrogance of commentators and illustrators—in the conceit and petulance of Theobald; the imbecility of Capell; the pert and tasteless dogmatism of Steevens, the ponderous littleness of Malone and of Drake. Some superior men, it is true, have enlisted themselves in the cause of Shakspeare. Rowe, Pope, Warburton, Hanmer, and Johnson, have successively been his editors; and have professed to give his scenes in their original purity to the world. But from some cause or other, which it is not our present business to explore, each of these editors, in his turn, has disappointed the just expectations of the public; and, with an inversion of nature's general rule, the little men have finally prevailed against the great. The blockheads have hooted the wits from the field; and attaching themselves to the mighty body of Shakspeare, like barnacles to the hull of a proud man of war, they are prepared to plough with him the vast ocean of time; and thus, by the only means in their power, to snatch themselves from that oblivion to which nature had devoted them.-Symmons.* Dr. Johnson remarks, that from the year 1623 to 1664, that is forty-one years, only two editions * Perhaps there is no work in the English language which has risen so rapidly in value as the first edition of our great natural poet. The players, Heminge and Condell, published the first edition at £1. At the sale of Philip Spildt, esq., 1814, the following prices were obtained: First edition, title-page reprinted, and Martin Dros hout's portrait inserted, bound in russia by R. Payne, Second edition, bound in russia by R. Payne, 1632, 1623, £37 16s. 13 2s. 6d. Third edition, and unto this impression is added seven plays, never before printed, in folio, blue morocco, 1664. 16 16s. Mr. Beloe says, "I can remember a very fine copy of the first edition of Shakspeare to have been sold for five guineas. I could once have purchased a superb one for nine guineas." At the sale of Dr. Monro's books it was purchased for thiri cen guineas; and I was once present when thirty-six guineas were demanded for a copy. Dr Askew had a fine copy of the first edition of this book, with the autograph of Charles 1. In this book Mr. Steevens purchased it at Dr. Askew's sale for £5 10s. Charles I. had written these words: DUM SPIRO SPERO, C. R. and sir Henry Herbert, to whom the king presented it the night before his execution, had also written, "Ex dono serenissimi Regis Car. Servo suo Humiliss. T. Herberts.' At the sale of the Kemble library, Mr. Boswell gave £112 78. for a copy of the folio edition. It had no doubt cost Mr. Kemble three times that sum in the illustrations. Mr. Ford, a bookseller of Manchester, about 1806, sold a copy of the original edition of Venus and Adonis for £50. At the sale of Craven Ord, esq., 1830, copy of the first edition, title reprint, Colonel Stanley's copy, was sold for £38 6s. 6d. At the same sale, the following prices were obtained: Shake-Speare's Sonnets, never before imprinted, ex tremely rare. From the libraries of George Steevens It sold and the duke of Roxburghe, 1609. £21 10s. 6d. £40 19s. 11. Much Ado about Nothing, first edition, 1600. 4to. Mr. Bindley's copy sold for £17 17s., and Mr. Steevens's for £25 10s. History of the Merchant of Venice, first edition. 4to. 1605. 10 58. Richard II. second edition, 1508, 4to. £7 17s. 6d. of the works of Shakspeare were printed, which probably did not altogether make 1000 copies. 1623, Nov. 9. Died, WILLIAM CAMDEN, a learned antiquary and historian. He was ban May 2, 1551, in the Old Bailey, London, humble parents, and owed his educationa charity. He received the rudiments of hi education at Christ's hospital, London, and wa afterwards of Magdalen college, Oxford, in 156 In 1573 he took the degree of B.A., and in 157 was appointed second master of Westminst school. In 1586 he published in Latin, t History of the Ancient Inhabitants of Brimi their Origin, Manners, and Laws; a third edits of this work appeared in 1590, at which time had a prebend in Salisbury cathedral, but wit out being in orders. In 1593 he became he master of Westminster school, and next y published an enlarged edition of his Britan In 1597 he printed his Greek grammar, fort use of Westminster school; and the same y was made clarencieux king at arms. In 16 came out his Catalogue of the Monuments Westminster Abbey, and a new impression of Britannia. In 1603 he published at Frank a collection of our ancient historians, in Lat and in the year following appeared his Read concerning Britain, in 4to. In 1615 he prin his Annals of Queen Elizabeth. But such the literary despotism, that men of genius in country were either suffering the vigorous lin of their productions to be shamefully mutila in public, or voluntarily committed a liter suicide on their own manuscripts. Camden clared that he was not suffered to print all Elizabeth, and sent those passages over to Thou, the French historian, who printed history faithfully two years after Camden's edition, 1615. He died at Chiselhurst, in Ke and his remains were interred with great lemnity in Westminster abbey. He founde history professorship at Oxford, and bequeat all his books and papers to sir Robert Cotton William Camden was a man of singular desty and integrity, profoundly learned in history and antiquities of this kingdom, an= judicious and conscientious historian. He reverenced and esteemed by the literati of nations, and will be ever remembered as honour to the age and country wherein he li 1623. From a passage in the Devil's Law Ci a drama by John Webster, first published in year, it is very evident that gold ornaments been long familiarly known as applied to vel £8 18s. 6d. The White Knights' copy sold for £18 17s. 6d. binding, at that period. He says Romeo and Juliet, newly corrected, augmented and amended, second edition. Steveens's copy. 1599, 26 16s. 6d. 4to. Rape of Lucrece, 1624, 4to. Bindley's sale, £9 9s. Sonnels. Printed by G. Eld, for T. T., and are to be sold by William Aspley, 1609. 4to. Sold at the sale of Dr. Farmer's library for £8; at Mr. Steevens's for £3 198.; at the duke of Roxburghe's for £21; at White Knight's for June, 1826, for £40 198. £37; at Mr. Boswell's for £38 188.; and at Sotheby's, Poems. Written by William Shakespeare, Gent. Printed by Thomas Cotes, and are to be sold by John Benson, 1640. Small 8vo., with a portrait of Shakspeare, by Marshall. Sold at Bindley's sale for 5 5s.; at Sir Mark Syke's for £7. 1624, Dec. 14. Died, Charles Howard, earl of | the very worst of the princes who were before Nottingham, lord high admiral of England. him.* From the principle of an absolute indeThis nobleman planned the following work, with pendent right to the crown, inherent in himself, view to sooth queen Elizabeth's despair for the as he vainly boasted of from the first, he introent execution of the earl of Essex, by flatter-duced the notion of an independent authority; gher preposterous vanity, and gave for a prize a right superior to law, not to be contradicted jeet to the best poets and musicians, whom by any human power; and consequently that an e liberally rewarded, the beauty and accom- independent king is accountable to God alone. shments of his royal mistress:-The Triumphs Could he have imposed this system of policy Oriana, to five and six voices, composed by upon the generality of his subjects, he might ers several authors. London: printed by have basked himself in the full sunshine of Thomas Este, 1601; consisting of twenty-five arbitrary power. But instead of making his impositions pass on the people, he only awakened their jealousy. The spirit of liberty baffled all his designs; and the same active principle which complied with queen Elizabeth, vigorously resisted king James, though he scrupled not to tell his parliament, "that, as it is blasphemy to dispute what God may do, so it is sedition in subjects to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power." Yet, notwithstanding his notions and principles of government were so absurd, by which he hoped to establish his authority, he found numbers to adopt them; for numbers are at all times liable to be deceived, ready to be tempted, and prone to be corrupted. By his system of government, by his giving the reins of power into the hands of favourites, he conjured up that storm in which his successor perished. 1525, March 27. Died, JAMES I. of England, VI. of Scotland, after a reign over England twenty-two years, in the fifty-ninth year of sage; and was buried with great pomp and lemnity in Westminster abbey. He left only sin, Charles, and Elizabeth, the titular queen Bohemia. The reign of James was vastly different from of his predecessor. Instead of an uninterpted harmony of government, it was marked a perpetual jarring dissonance; instead of 1985 and glory abroad, disappointment and tempt; instead of satisfaction, prosperity and at home, discontent, distress, and, at civil war in all its horrors, and the ruin of Lamily. It was unfortunate for himself that was born to fill a throne, since he had ther the spirit nor resolution to act as became vereign, and his weaknesses were more conrans from his elevated station, particularly period when the general diffusion of knowrendered men eager to discern and to gerate the defects of their superiors. ames had the advantage of queen Elizabeth's example; and happy had it been for , his family, and the nation, if her example really had a due influence over his conduct. aght with learning, not with knowledge; rant of the true principles of government; a stranger to our constitution by his notions habits of thinking, than to our country by birth; obstinate, though not steady; misled elf-opinion, and confirmed in error by superse pedantry. His pedantry was too much for the age in which he lived, and fixed him a just ridicule; because the merit of a A governor is wisely to superintend the whole, not to shine in any inferior class, because erent, and in some cases, perhaps, opposite ats, both natural and required, are necessary move and regulate the movements of the ne of government; in short, because as a adjutant may make a very bad general, so Eat reader and writer too may be a very igno- when the people compared the reign of James with that of king. In vain did the people look for the Tent and discernment which had rendered government of the last reign glorious. ince who had worn the crown of Scotunder so many restraints, and in so penury, might have contented himself, to that of England on the same principles as The first lottery known in England was drawn in dontented the best and greatest of his prede-colonies in North America; the last lottery was drawn in this reign, and was made for the support of the English Amongst the arbitrary acts of James's, was his opposing the election of sir Francis Goodwin, member for the county of Berks, after he had been declared duly elected by a committee of the house of commons. That king James was unfriendly to the liberty of the press, has already been noticed, and the following are further proofs of his desire to curtail the fruits of genius; he proclaimed Buchanan's History, and a political tract of his at the "Mercat Cross;" and every one was to bring his copy แ to be perusit and purgit of the offensive and extraordinare materis," under a heavy penalty. Knox, whom Milton calls "the reformer of a kingdom," was also curtailed; and "the sense of that great man shall, to all posterity, be lost for the fearfulness or the presumptuous vastness of a perfunctory licenser. ; but his designs were as bad as those of On the 4th December, 1621, the king addresses * Queen Elizabeth had so little concern about hereditary right, that she neither held, nor desired to hold, her crown by any other tenure than the statute of the 35th of her father's reign. In the 13th of her own reign, she declared it, by law, high treason, during her life, and a præmunire, after her decease, to deny the power of parliament, in limiting and binding the descent and inheritance of the crown, or the claims to it. It was usual the proceding glorious one, to distinguish him by the name of queen James, and his predecessor as king Elizabeth A public record informs us, that James I. granted to. sive patent for coining farthings. Francis Howard, the duchess of Richmond and another person, an exclu duchess of Richmond died 1639. In the reign of James I. an act was passed to prevent bill was to prevent the growth of popes y. the further growth of poetry in England; the object of the 1827. the Speaker, complaining, in reply to a petition of the influence possessed by certain " fiery, popular, and turbulent spirits" in the lower house, forbidding their inquiry into the mysteries of state, or to concern themselves about the marriage of his son, or to touch the character of any prince his friend or ally, or to intermeddle with causes which were submitted to the decision of the courts of law, or even to send to him their petition, if they wished him to hear or answer the same; desiring them also to recollect that the crown possessed and would exercise the right of punishing the misbehaviour of the members both in and out of parliament. James bestowed honours in so lavish a manner, and with so little distinction, that they ceased, in some sense, to be honours, as it frequently made those that possessed them the jest of the nation. Two hundred and thirty-seven persons received knighthood in the first six weeks of his reign, and at the end of six months a pasquinade was fixed at the door of St. Paul's church, to teach the vulgar the names of the new nobility, which amounted to more than seven hundred. In May, 1611, he created the dignity of Baronets, (or lesser barons,) they engaging singly to maintain thirty foot soldiers in Ulster, for three years, at the rate of eightpence English per day. Lord Walpole, in his Anecdotes of celebrated Painters, says, "it was fortunate for the arts that king James had no liking towards them, and let them take their course; for he would probably have meddled to introduce as bad taste in art as he did in literature." Hayley says, James, both for empire and for arts unfit, As a poet, James has already been mentioned. He commenced, but did not live to complete, a metrical version of the Psalms. What he had written of it, was published in 1631, with the permission of king Charles. It it said to be "remarkable for its flat simplicity and unmeaning expletives." The version of Psalm lxxiv. 11, may serve as a brief specimen. "Why dost thou thus withdraw thy hand Drawe back the same againe." Of the colleges erected and endowed in the reign of James, there were only two, which were in the university of Oxford: Wadham College, founded in 1613, by Nicho las and Dorothy Wadham, for a warden, fifteen fellows, and an equal number of scholars, with two chaplains, and two clerks. It is peculiar to this college that the fellows are obliged to resign on the completion of eighteen years from their becoming regent masters, if they have not been fortunate enough to have previously obtained preferment. The building cost £10,816 7s. 8d. to which was added somewhat more than £500 for plate and the furniture of the kitchen. The whole of this was paid by Dorothy Wadham, who survived her husband, and devoted herself to fulfilling his benevolent intentions. Pembroke College, originally Broadgate hall, was converted into a college by the joint muniticence of Thomas Tesdale and Richard Wightwick; for although in the charter, dated in 1624, king James I. is called the founder, and the earl of Pembroke, then chancellor of the university, the godfather, yet it does not appear that either of these personages assisted the foundation otherwise than by their patronage. 1625, April. King Charles I. commanded that the company of stationers in London should have monthly certificates of the works printed by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, signed by the vice-chancellor of each university. 1625. MRS. LowNES, widow of MATTHEW LOWNES, gave £10 to the stationers' company, as a remembrance of her husband. Matthew was son of Hugh Lownes, of Rode, in Astbury, Cheshire, and was born about 1568. 1625. In Ben Jonson's play, entitled the Staple of News, written in this year, we have a very curious and amusing description of a office of news manufacturers, which for the g tification of the reader it is quoted entire. The scene is laid at the west end of St. Paul's: Peni-boy, Cymbal, Fitton, Tho. Barber, Canter. In troth they are dainty rooms; what place is this Cymbal. This is the outer-room, where my clerks s And keep their sides, the Register i' the midst; The Examiner, he sits private there, within; And here I have my several rowls and fyles Of News by the alphabet, and all put up Under their heads. P. jun. But those too subdivided? News. Fitt. Whereto beside the Coranti, and Gazetli. James also published Witty Apothegms, of which the following is a curious specimen relating to tobacco, which had become in very common use, and which he called the image of hell: Term-news, and Christmas-news. "the smoke he likened to the vanities of the world; like them it caused a passing pleasure, made men's heads light and drunken therewith, and bewitched men's hearts, so that they could not quit the habit; besides that it was loathsome and stinking like hell, so that were he to invite the devil to dinner he would provide him a pig, a poll of ling and mustard, and a pipe of tobacco to help his digestion." Cymb. And News o' the Faction. Fitt. As the Reformed-news. Protestant news. Fitt. And Men of Correspondence i' the Country- And bears a brave relation but what says |