We are indebted to the Italians for the idea of newspapers. The title of
their _gazettas_ was, perhaps, derived from _gazzera_, a magpie or
chatterer; or, more probably, from a farthing coin, peculiar to the city
of Venice, called _gazetta_, which was the common price of the
newspapers. Another etymologist is for deriving it from the Latin
_gaza_, which would colloquially lengthen into _gazetta_, and signify a
little treasury of news. The Spanish derive it from the Latin _gaza_,
and likewise their _gazatero_, and our _gazetteer_, for a writer of the
_gazette_ and, what is peculiar to themselves, _gazetista_, for a lover
of the gazette.
Newspapers, then, took their birth in that principal land of modern
politicians, Italy, and under the government of that aristocratical
republic, Venice. The first paper was a Venetian one, and only monthly;
but it was merely the newspaper of the government. Other governments
afterwards adopted the Venetian plan of a newspaper, with the Venetian
name:--from a solitary government gazette, an inundation of newspapers
has burst upon us.
Mr. George Chalmers, in his Life of Ruddiman, gives a curious particular
of these Venetian gazettes:--"A jealous government did not allow a
_printed_ newspaper; and the Venetian _gazetta_ continued long after the
invention of printing, to the close of the sixteenth century, and even
to our own days, to be distributed in _manuscript_." In the
Magliabechian library at Florence are thirty volumes of Venetian
gazettas, all in manuscript.
Those who first wrote newspapers were called by the Italians _menanti_;
because, says Vossius, they intended commonly by these loose papers to
spread about defamatory reflections, and were therefore prohibited in
Italy by Gregory XIII. by a particular bull, under the name of
_menantes_, from the Latin _minantes_, threatening. Menage, however,
derives it from the Italian _menare_, which signifies to lead at large,
or spread afar.
We are indebted to the wisdom of Elizabeth and the prudence of Burleigh
for the first newspaper. The epoch of the Spanish Armada is also the
epoch of a genuine newspaper. In the British Museum are several
newspapers which were printed while the Spanish fleet was in the English
Channel during the year 1588. It was a wise policy to prevent, during a
moment of general anxiety, the danger of false reports, by publishing
real information. The earliest newspaper is entitled "The English
Mercurie," which by _authority_ was "imprinted at London by her
highness's printer, 1588." These were, however, but extraordinary
gazettes, not regularly published. In this obscure origin they were
skilfully directed by the policy of that great statesman Burleigh, who,
to inflame the national feeling, gives an extract of a letter from
Madrid which speaks of putting the queen to death, and the instruments
of torture on board the Spanish fleet.
George Chalmers first exultingly took down these patriarchal newspapers,
covered with the dust of two centuries.
The first newspaper in the collection of the British Museum is marked
No. 50, and is in Roman, not in black letter. It contains the usual
articles of news, like the London Gazette of the present day. In that
curious paper, there are news dated from Whitehall, on the 23rd July,
1588. Under the date of July 26, there is the following
notice:--"Yesterday the Scots ambassador, being introduced to Sir
Francis Walsingham, had a private audience of her majesty, to whom he
delivered a letter from the king his master; containing the most cordial
assurances of his resolution to adhere to her majesty's interests, and
to those of the Protestant religion. And it may not here be improper to
take notice of a wise and spiritual saying of this young prince (he was
twenty-two) to the queen's minister at his court, viz.--That all the
favour he did expect from the Spaniards was the courtesy of Polypheme to
Ulysses, _to be the last devoured_." The gazetteer of the present day
would hardly give a more decorous account of the introduction of a
foreign minister. The aptness of King James's classical saying carried
it from the newspaper into history. I must add, that in respect to his
_wit_ no man has been more injured than this monarch. More pointed
sentences are recorded of James I. than perhaps of any prince; and yet,
such is the delusion of that medium by which the popular eye sees things
in this world, that he is usually considered as a mere royal pedant. I
have entered more largely on this subject, in an "Inquiry of the
Literary and Political Character of James I."[51]
Periodical papers seem first to have been more generally used by the
English, during the civil wars of the usurper Cromwell, to disseminate
amongst the people the sentiments of loyalty or rebellion, according as
their authors were disposed. _Peter Heylin_, in the preface to his
_Cosmography_, mentions, that "the affairs of each town, of war, were
better presented to the reader in the _Weekly News-books_." Hence we
find some papers, entitled "News from Hull," "Truths from York,"
"Warranted Tidings from Ireland," &c. We find also, "The Scots' Dove"
opposed to "The Parliament Kite," or "The Secret Owl."--Keener
animosities produced keener titles: "Heraclitus ridens" found an
antagonist in "Democritus ridens," and "The Weekly Discoverer" was
shortly met by "The Discoverer stript naked." "Mercuriua Britannicus"
was grappled by "Mercurius Mastix, faithfully lashing all Scouts,
Mercuries, Posts, Spies, and others." Under all these names papers had
appeared, but a "Mercury" was the prevailing title of these
"News-books," and the principles of the writer were generally shown by
the additional epithet. We find an alarming number of these Mercuries,
which, were the story not too long to tell, might excite laughter; they
present us with a very curious picture of those singular times.
Devoted to political purposes, they soon became a public nuisance by
serving as receptacles of party malice, and echoing to the farthest ends
of the kingdom the insolent voice of all factions. They set the minds of
men more at variance, inflamed their tempers to a greater fierceness,
and gave a keener edge to the sharpness of civil discord.
Such works will always find adventurers adapted to their scurrilous
purposes, who neither want at times either talents, or boldness, or wit,
or argument. A vast crowd issued from the press, and are now to be found
in private collections. They form a race of authors unknown to most
readers of these times: the names of some of their chiefs, however, have
reached us, and in the minor chronicle of domestic literature I rank
three notable heroes; Marchmont Needham, Sir John Birkenhead, and Sir
Roger L'Estrange.
_Marchmont Needham_, the great patriarch of newspaper writers, was a man
of versatile talents and more versatile politics; a bold adventurer, and
most successful, because the most profligate of his tribe. From college
he came to London; was an usher in Merchant Tailors' school; then an
under clerk in Gray's Inn; at length studied physic, and practised
chemistry; and finally, he was a captain, and in the words of our great
literary antiquary, "siding with the rout and scum of the people, he
made them weekly sport by railing at all that was noble, in his
Intelligence, called Mercurius Britannicus, wherein his endeavours were
to sacrifice the fame of some lord, or any person of quality, and of the
king himself, to the beast with many heads." He soon became popular, and
was known under the name of Captain Needham, of Gray's Inn; and whatever
he now wrote was deemed oracular. But whether from a slight imprisonment
for aspersing Charles I. or some pique with his own party, he requested
an audience on his knees with the king, reconciled himself to his
majesty, and showed himself a violent royalist in his "Mercurius
Pragmaticus," and galled the Presbyterians with his wit and quips. Some
time after, when the popular party prevailed, he was still further
enlightened, and was got over by President Bradshaw, as easily as by
Charles I. Our Mercurial writer became once more a virulent
Presbyterian, and lashed the royalists outrageously in his "Mercurius
Politicus;" at length on the return of Charles II. being now conscious,
says our cynical friend Anthony, that he might be in danger of the
halter, once more he is said to have fled into Holland, waiting for an
act of oblivion. For money given to a hungry courtier, Needham obtained
his pardon under the great seal. He latterly practised as a physician
among his party, but lived detested by the royalists; and now only
committed harmless treasons with the College of Physicians, on whom he
poured all that gall and vinegar which the government had suppressed
from flowing through its natural channel.
The royalists were not without their Needham in the prompt activity of
_Sir John Birkenhead_. In buffoonery, keenness, and boldness, having
been frequently imprisoned, he was not inferior, nor was he at times
less an adventurer. His "Mercurius Aulicus" was devoted to the court,
then at Oxford. But he was the fertile parent of numerous political
pamphlets, which appear to abound in banter, wit, and satire. Prompt to
seize on every temporary circumstance, he had equal facility in
execution. His "Paul's Church-yard" is a bantering pamphlet, containing
fictitious titles of books and acts of parliament, reflecting on the mad
reformers of those times. One of his poems is entitled "_The Jolt_,"
being written on the Protector having fallen off his own coach-box:
Cromwell had received a present from the German Count Oldenburgh, of six
German horses, and attempted to drive them himself in Hyde Park, when
this great political Phaeton met the accident, of which Sir John
Birkenhead was not slow to comprehend the benefit, and hints how
unfortunately for the country it turned out! Sir John was during the
dominion of Cromwell an author by profession. After various
imprisonments for his majesty's cause, says the venerable historian of
English literature already quoted, "he lived by his wits, in helping
young gentlemen out at dead lifts in making poems, songs, and epistles
on and to their mistresses; as also in translating, and other petite
employments." He lived however after the Restoration to become one of
the masters of requests, with a salary of 3000_l._ a year. But he showed
the baseness of his spirit, says Anthony, by slighting those who had
been his benefactors in his necessities.
Sir _Roger L'Estrange_ among his rivals was esteemed as the most
perfect model of political writing. He was a strong party-writer on the
government side, for Charles the Second, and the compositions of the
author seem to us coarse, yet they contain much idiomatic expression.
His Æsop's Fables are a curious specimen of familiar style. Queen Mary
showed a due contempt of him, after the Revolution, by this anagram:--
_Roger L'Estrange_,
_Lye strange Roger_!
Such were the three patriarchs of newspapers. De Saint Foix gives the
origin of newspapers to France. Renaudot, a physician at Paris, to amuse
his patients was a great collector of news; and he found by these means
that he was more sought after than his learned brethren. But as the
seasons were not always sickly, and he had many hours not occupied by
his patients, he reflected, after several years of assiduity given up to
this singular employment, that he might turn it to a better account, by
giving every week to his patients, who in this case were the public at
large, some fugitive sheets which should contain the news of various
countries. He obtained a privilege for this purpose in 1632.
At the Restoration the proceedings of parliament were interdicted to be
published, unless by authority; and the first daily paper after the
Revolution took the popular title of "The Orange Intelligencer."
In the reign of Queen _Anne_, there was but one daily paper; the others
were weekly. Some attempted to introduce literary subjects, and others
topics of a more general speculation. _Sir Richard Steele_ formed the
plan of his _Tatler_. He designed it to embrace the three provinces, of
manners and morals, of literature, and of politics. The public were to
be conducted insensibly into so different a track from that to which
they had been hitherto accustomed. Hence politics were admitted into his
paper. But it remained for the chaster genius of _Addison_ to banish
this painful topic from his elegant pages. The writer in polite letters
felt himself degraded by sinking into the diurnal narrator of political
events, which so frequently originate in rumours and party fictions.
From this time, newspapers and periodical literature became distinct
works--at present, there seems to be an attempt to revive this union; it
is a retrograde step for the independent dignity of literature.