noble army of martyrs who valiantly fought for the freedom of the press in the reigns of Charles I. and Charles II, ought to be, and will be, held in everlasting and sacred remembrance.

But the reader will be desirous to know what became in the end of this Roger l'Estrange, who is said to have been the first newspaper writer who openly sold himself for pay to the party dominant in the State. His was the common, if not the uniform fate of all recreants and servile flatterers of the powers that be, whether in political or social life. The measure which he meted out as Licenser of the Press was ultimately meted out to himself in the early days of the Revolution of 1688. He was committed to Newgate for publishing treasonable papers against the government. This was three years after he had been knighted by James II. He lived till 1704, and died in his eighty-eighth year, unregretted by the public, notwithstanding his eminent classical attainments and the superior general abilities of which he had proved himself to be possessed during a long journalistic and official career.

CHAPTER III.

THE NEWSPAPER PRESS IN THE SEVENTEENTH

CENTURY.-PART SECOND.

Curious Advertisements-Various Specimens-Charles the First -Royal "Touching" for the Curing of the King's Evil-Dr. Johnson "Touched" by Queen Anne-Female PugilismNumber of Class Journals-More Curious Newspaper Titles.

THE Quarterly Review, in one of its volumes published some sixteen or seventeen years ago, devoted a considerable portion of its space to the subject of the advertisements which appeared in the newspaper press of the seventeenth century; and the specimens it gives of their character are certainly, in many instances, very curious, as illustrative of the manners and customs of the times, as well as showing the character of the journalism of the period. The Quarterly bears out what I have stated in my first chapter, that though the clumsy forger of the English Mercuries of 1588-the time of the Spanish Armada's intended invasion of these shores-inserted a goodly number of miscellaneous advertisements in each of his seven spurious Mercuries, no instance is on record of any advertisement being inserted in any of the newspapers of the day prior to the year 1652. The first weekly newspaper previous to this date for all the journals were brought

out at uncertain intervals-published in London, made its appearance, as I have before mentioned, under the title of the Weekly News, in the year 1622; and though it aimed at being, and certainly was, much more of a newspaper, according to our modern notions on the subject, than any of its predecessors or contemporaries, it did not contain an intimation or notification of any kind which bore the shadow of a resemblance to an advertisement. The Quarterly reviewer, after stating that it was not until subsequent to the death of Charles I., and when the Commonwealth had found time to breathe, that the people discovered the use of the press as a means of making known their wants and of giving publicity to their wares, proceeds to mention that after an active search among the earliest newspapers, the following is the first advertisement he found :

Monodia Gratiolari, an Heroic Poem; being a Congratulatory Panegyric for my Lord General's late Return; Summing up his Successes in an Exquisite Manner. To be sold by John Holden, in the New Exchange, London. Printed by Tho. Newcourt, 1652.

The title of the paper in which this advertisement appeared was the Mercurius Politicus. I have imitated the example set by the writer in the Quarterly, and examined in the vaults of the British Museum many journals of a previous date to that on which the copy of the newspaper containing the above advertisement was published, and with the same result, that is to say, I have met with no instance in which, prior

to this, any advertisements appeared in the newspapers which were published before the beginning of the second half of the seventeenth century.

The writer in the Quarterly may be right in stating that this, the earliest of at least literary newspaper advertisements, so far as is known, "is evidently a piece of flattery to Cromwell upon his victories in Ireland;" but it is a very ungenerous insinuation, and without the semblance of a foundation in fact, to add, that "it might have been inserted at the instigation of the great Commonwealth leader himself." Cromwell was a man incapable of anything so unworthy.

It is right I should here state, that, contrary to the opinion of the Quarterly Review, this is the earliest advertisement known as having appeared in an English newspaper. It is stated in a work entitled "History of British Journalism," published twelve years ago by Mr. Alexander Andrews, that Mr. Nichols found in the first number of the Impartial Intelligencer, dated March 1st to 7th, 1648, an advertisement from a gentleman at Candish, in Suffolk, offering a reward for two horses that had been stolen from him. It is impossible for me authoritatively to contradict this statement; but as the point at issue is curious, we are justified in not receiving it in the absence of some better evidence than is presented to us. The writer in the Quarterly had evidently been at every conceivable pains to be correct in his statements, and I am still disposed to trust in his accuracy.

Among the earliest newspaper advertisements of books, there is the following one in the September number of the same journal for 1659, which is what would be now-a-days called an " announcement" of a new publication, from no less a person than the author of "Paradise Lost:"

Considerations touching the likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings out of the Church; wherein is also Discoursed of Tithes, Church Fees, Church Revenues, and whether any Maintenance of Ministers can be settled by Law. The Author, J. M. in Pope's Head Alley.

Sold by Lemuell Chapman, at the Crown

How very strange it must seem to us, that anything from one of the greatest poets the world ever produced, and at the same time the most powerful writer that ever employed his pen in the department of prose,―should be introduced to the reading public in this unostentatious manner-" The Author, J. M." Only imagine this to be all that is said about a new production from the pen of John Milton! No one can read this advertisement without feeling a desire to know whether or not the reading public of the period would have at once discerned the great Milton under the initials "J. M." J. M." Assuredly, Assuredly, anything more unpretending could not have been penned, than this advertisement of a production from one whose reputation was even at this time co-extensive with the English language, although the grand poem, the "Paradise Lost," had not yet appeared to fill the world with his fame.