fect obedience to their keeper; a boy will collect a herd of a thousand by his whistle: by this easy language they are made to attack an armed enemy as readily as to come to their milker; and they have thus overthrown soldiers who had conquered the elephants of the East and the cavalry of Europe. When man shall cease to be the tyrant of inferior beings he may truly become their lord.

LELTER LVI.

Newspapers.-Their Mode of falsifying Intelligence.-Puffs.-Advertisements.

-Reviews, and their mischievous Effects. -Magazines.-Novels.

I HAVE adhered strictly to J.'s advice respecting the literature of this country, and allowed myself to read nothing but contemporary publications, and such works as relate to my objects of immediate inquiry, most of which were as little known to him as to myself. He smiles when I bring home a volume of Quaker history, or Swedenborgian theology, and says I am come here to tell him what odd things there are in England. It is therefore only of that contemporary and perishable literature which

affects and shows the character of the nation that I shall speak.

Of this the Newspapers form the most important branch. They differ in almost every respect from our diaries, and as much in appearance as in any thing, being printed in four columns upon a large folio sheet. Some are published daily, some twice, some thrice a week, some only on Sundays. Some come out in the morning, some in the evening; the former are chiefly for London, and one is regularly laid upon the breakfast table, wet from the press. The revenue which they produce is almost incredibly great. At the com✩. mencement of the American war the price was twopence. Lord North laid on a tax of a halfpenny, observing, with his characteristic good humour, that nobody would begrudge to pay a halfpenny for the pleasure of abusing the minister. This succeeded so well that another was soon imposed, making the price threepence, which price Mr. Pitt has doubled by repeated duties;

yet the number printed is at least four-fold what it was before they were taxed at all.

Of those papers for which there is the greatest sale, from four to five thousand are printed. It is not an exaggerated calculation to suppose that every paper has five readers, and that there are 250,000 people in England who read the news every day and converse upon it. In fact, after the How do you do?' and the state of the weather, the news is the next topic in order of conversation, and sometimes it even takes place of cold, heat, rain, or sunshine. You will judge then that the newspapers must be a powerful political engine. The ministry have always the greater number under their direction, in which all their measures are defended, their successes exaggerated, their disasters concealed or palliated, and the most flattering prospects constantly held out to the people. This system was carried to a great length during the late war. If the numbers

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of the French who were killed in the ministerial newspapers were summed up, they would be found equal to all the males in the country, capable of bearing arms. Nor were these manufacturers of good news contented with slaying their thousands; in the true style of bombast, they would sometimes assert that a Republican army had been not merely cut to pieces,but annihilated. On the other hand, the losses of the English in their continental expeditions were as studiously diminished. Truth was indeed always to be got at by those who looked for it; the papers in the opposite interest told all which their opponents concealed, and magnified on their side to gratify their partisans. The English have a marvellous faculty of believing what they wish, and nothing else ; for years and years did they believe that France was on the brink of ruin; now the government was to be overthrown for want of gunpowder, now by famine, now by the