"Staple of News" gives a vivid picture of
Mr. Butter's office before he took to printing.

Enter Register and Nathaniel.

Reg. What, are those desks fit now? Set forth
    the table,
The carpet and the chair; where are the News
That were examined last? Have you filled them up?

   Nath. Not yet, I had no time.

   Reg. Are those News registered
That emissary Buz sent in last night,
Of Spinola and his eggs?

   Nath. Yes, sir, and filed.

   Reg. What are you now upon?

   Nath. That our new emissary
Westminster gave us, of the golden heir.

   Reg. Dispatch; that's news indeed, and of
importance.—

           Enter a Country-woman.
What would you have, good woman?

   Woman. I would have, sir,
A groat's-worth of any News, I care not what,
To carry down this Saturday to our vicar.

   Reg. O! you are a butter-woman; ask Nathaniel,
The clerk there.

   Nath. Sir, I tell her she must stay
Till emissary Exchange, or Paul's send in,
And then I'll fit her.

   Reg. Do, good woman, have patience;
It is not now, as when the Captain lived;
You'll blast the reputation of the office,
Now in the bud, if you dispatch these groats
So soon: let them attend in name of policy.

To have served his gaping customers too
quickly, would have seemed as though the
News was made instead of being collected;
so thought the Register.

Respecting the first English printed
newspaper, the public have lain under a mistake for
nearly a century. Some ten years ago,
however, Mr. Thomas Watts of the British
Museum exploded the long prevalent fallacy
that the "English Mercurie," dated in 1588,
was originally the progenitor of modern
journals. A copy of such a paper exists in
the Birch Collection; but it is a manifest
forgery, the concoction of which was traced
to the second Lord Hardwicke. It pretends
to give news from the expedition against the
Spanish Armada; but, besides a host of blunders
in dates, it is printed on paper made
posterior to the date it bears. The truth is
that no periodically printed newspaper
appeared till thirty years after.

When the reign of James the First was
drawing to a close; when Ben Jonson was
poet laureate, and the personal friends of
Shakspeare were lamenting his then recent
death; when Cromwell was trading as a
brewer at Huntingdon; when Milton was
a youth of sixteen, just trying his pen at
Latin verse, and Hampden a quiet country
gentleman in Buckinghamshire; London was
solicited to patronise its first Newspaper.
There is now no reason to doubt that the
puny ancestor of the myriads of broad sheets
of our time was published in the metropolis
in 1622, and that the most prominent of the
ingenious speculators who offered the novelty
to the world was Nathaniel Butter. His
companions in the work appear to have been
Nicholas Bourne, Thomas Archer, Nathaniel
Newberry, William Sheffard, Bartholomew
Downes, and Edward Allde. All these
different names appear in the imprints of
the early numbers of the first Newspaper—
THE WEEKLY NEWES.* This prime, original
progenitor of the acres of news which are now
rolled out from the press failed, after many
lapses and struggles, chiefly occasioned by
the Star Chamber. Its end was untimely.
The last number appeared on the 9th of
January, 1640. Could it have survived a
little longer it might have run a long career,
for the incubus which smothered it was itself
stifled—the Star Chamber was abolished in
1641.

*The Fourth Estate, by F. K. Hunt.

Butter's print was succeeded by a host of
"Mercuries," but none of them were long-
lived. They were started for particular
objects, to advocate certain views, and
sometimes to circulate the likeliest lies that could
be invented to serve the cause espoused. Each
of these was laid down when its mission was
accomplished. During the civil war, nearly
thirty thousand journals, pamphlets, and
papers were issued in this manner. In the
heat of hostilities, each army carried its printing-
press as part of its munitions of war.
Leaden types were employed with as much
rancour and zeal as leaden bullets. These
were often headed as News, such as "Newes
out of Worcestershire," "Newes of a bloody
battle," fought at such a place, &c. In 1662
a regular periodical, called the "Kingdom's
Intelligencer," was started, and in the following
year the "Intelligencer, published for the
satisfaction and information of the people,"
was set up by Sir Roger L'Estrange.

All these were superseded by a journal,
which has stood its ground so well that the
last number came out only yesterday. This
was the "Oxford Gazette," set up in that
city in 1665, and now known as the "London
Gazette." For many years after the Restoration
this was the only newspaper; for the law
restricted any man from publishing political
news without the consent of the Crown.
Charles and James the Second withheld that
consent whenever it suited them, and put
those who took "French leave" into the
pillory.

As a specimen of a newspaper, when these
restrictions were abated, after the flight of
James the Second, we may instance the
"Universal Intelligencer." It was small in
size, and meagre in contents. It appeared
only twice a-week, and consisted of two pages;
that is to say, one leaf of paper a little larger
than the page on which the reader's eye now
rests, and with hardly so much matter. The
number for December 11, 1688, boasts two
advertisements. A small paragraph amongst