_"A fellow-feeling," &c._--
"A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind."
This oft-quoted line is from Garrick's Epilogue on quitting the stage.
[Gamma].
_Early Instances of the World "News."_--Without the slightest intention of
re-opening the discussion as to whether the word "newes" be of native
growth or imported, I would beg leave to suggest as a means of completing
_its history_, that should any of the readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES," whose
researches may lead amongst the authorities of the _fifteenth_ century,
meet with instances of the word in familiar use between A.D. 1400 and A.D.
1500, they would notify the same.
The earliest date of its colloquial use as yet recorded in "NOTES AND
QUERIES," is A.D. 1513: on the other hand, the word, so far as I am aware,
is nowhere used by Chaucer, although his near approach to it in the
following lines is very remarkable:
"There is right now come into the toune a gest,
A Greek espie, and telleth _newe things_,
For which I come to tell you newe tidings."--_Troilus and Creseide_, b.
ii. 1113.
After this, the transition to the word itself is so extremely easy, that it
could not be far distant.