A barrel of beer to be rolled down the hill-a prize to whoever stops it.

A Michaelmas goose to be dived for.

A good hat to be cudgelled for.

Half a guinea for the best ass in three heats.

A handsome hat for the boy most expert in catching a roll dipped in treacle and suspended by a string.

A leg of mutton and a gallon of porter to the winner of a race of 100 yards in sacks.

A good hat to be wrestled for.

Half a guinea to the rider of an ass who wins the best of three heats by coming in last.

A pig, prize to whoever catches him by the tail.

And this was the way in which, seventy years ago, the anniversary birthdays of foreign Princesses and Duchesses on a visit to the Court of George III., were celebrated. One cannot help wondering, what would be thought if, in 1871, Queen Victoria should give her sanction to a similar programme for any of the great birthday fêtes at which the ladies of her Court would be expected to be present, attired in their most brilliant toilettes. Customs, it thus appears, change with the lapse of time, at Courts as well as in cottages, among princes and princesses as well as among peasants and paupers.

From this period till the close of the century there is little of interest to record. Whatever there is, will be found under the titles of the various daily journals, which started in the interval, and which will be noticed in subsequent chapters. The intervening years were characterized by a number of prosecutions for alleged libel, but they were not so

nnmerous as in any previous interval of the same length during the century. This may be partly accounted for from the fact that both governments and men in high social positions began to view the Newspaper Press with somewhat greater favour than formerly; but the chief cause of the reduction in the number of actions for libel, was the passing of a Bill, introduced into the House of Commons by Charles James Fox, for investing juries with the right to decide, in actions against the Newspaper Press for alleged libels, both as to the character of the alleged libels, and the fact of publication. This measure received the sanction of the Legislature in 1792.

In looking back on the leading newspaper writers of the eighteenth century it is worthy of mention that nearly all of them, in addition to their avowed contributions, wrote under some fictitious name: Sir Richard Steele wrote many papers in the Tatler under the signature of "Isaac Bickersteth." Addison concealed for a considerable time his real name in the Spectator, under that of "Clio,"-not giving all the word at once, but taking the letters one at a time, in rotation. Henry Fielding employed various names or phrases under which he wrote. In the Jacobite Journal his favourite one was "John Trottplaid," while all the contributions to the Champion newspaper which appeared under the sobriquet of "Captain Hercules Vinegar," were from his pen. In the Covent Garden Journal, of which he was, during a part of its brief existence, editor, his favourite nom de guerre was "Sir

Alexander Drawcansir.'

The story of the Junius Letters is too well known to require that a reference should be made to it. Whoever may have been the author of these Letters, this one thing is certain— namely, that his real name was not Junius. John Horne Tooke was a liberal contributor to the Public Advertiser,—the paper in which the Letters of Junius appeared-under the signature of "A Freeholder of Surrey," while the same writer contributed somewhat largely to the same journal under the phrase "Strike but Hear." The unfortunate Thomas Chatterton wrote various articles, about this time, for the Middlesex Journal, under the cognomen of "Decimus." At a somewhat later date, Mr. J. Mackintosh, afterwards Sir James Mackintosh, sent a number of communications to the Morning Chronicle pretending they had come from "The Ghost of Vandegrab." But no information was furnished to the readers of the Morning Chronicle of that day as to who the "Vandegrab" was, whose "Ghost" was thus from time to time, making its appearance in the columns of that journal.

CHAPTER X.

COMMENCEMENT OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

Moral Character of the Newspaper Press in the beginning of the Present Century-Its Intellectual Character-Its Political Character-Its Leading Features-Specimens from various Journals-Difference between the Newspapers of that Day and Ours. As we have now reached the close of the eighteenth, and the commencement of the nineteenth century, this will be a fit occasion for pausing for a brief space, in order that we may glance at the character, morally, intellectually, politically, and materially, of the morning journalism of that period.

In regard to the matter of morality, none of the morning papers at the end of the last, and the beginning of the present century, could be compared with the existing newspaper journalism of the metropolis. Though there was nothing absolutely gross in any of the articles which appeared either in the morning or evening papers of seventy years ago, yet there was much of what might be called an “insinuated" impropriety, to which no existing morning or evening journal would venture to give insertion. Much appeared in the journalism of those times which no lady of delicate mind would read aloud, and which no gentleman, however gay he might be,

would dare to read in the hearing of a lady. To respectable persons of the present generation it must be a subject of surprise that those of the papers of that period that were most noted for indelicate allusions and ideas, should have been received into families at all. Probably the morning paper that dealt the most largely in this style of writing was the Oracle, which was the property of Mr. Peter Stuart, brother of Daniel Stuart, at that time proprietor both of the Morning Post and the Courier. Yet notwithstanding its low tone of propriety, indeed I might say morality, it had a considerable circulation, and enrolled among its regular writers the name of Mr. Mackintosh, afterwards Sir James Mackintosh.

So far as the intellectualism of the daily metropolitan journalism of the beginning of the present century is concerned, there was not, in the leading article department, anything deserving the name. The papers of that period were little better in that respect than they were a century and a half before. The journalism of seventy years ago was not, however, devoid of intellectual writing, though none was to be found in the leading article department,-the department in which chiefly we now look for it, and are never disappointed. Whatever there was in the morning papers of 1799-1801 of an intellectual character, or displaying writing capabilities of any kind, was to be found in the form of letters or of communications avowedly from correspondents.

With regard to the political character of the metro