(_Being reflections on the pre-press period._)
[In _The Times_ of December 2nd Lord NORTHCLIFFE traces the
history of the English Press from the appearance of the first
newspaper uttered in English--"A Corrant out of Germany,"
imprinted at Amsterdam, December 2nd, 1620--and finds some
difficulty in understanding how civilisation got on as well as it
did through all those preceding centuries.]
To-day (December 2) we keep, with cheers,
The Tercentenary of the Press!
Probing the darkness of the previous years
I try, but try in vain, to guess
How anybody lived before the birth
Of this the Very Greatest Thing on Earth.
You'd say it must have been a savage life.
Men were content to eat and drink
And spend the intervals in carnal strife
With none to teach them how to think;
They had no Vision and their minds were dense,
Largely for lack of True "Intelligence."
When a volcano burst or floods occurred
No correspondent flashed the news;
It came by rumour or a little bird,
Devoid of editorial views;
No leader let them know to what extent
The blame should lie upon the Government.
And yet, when no one knew in those dumb days
Exactly what was going on,
Without reporters they contrived to raise
The Pyramids and Parthenon;
CONFUCIUS preached the Truth, and so did PAUL,
Though neither of them got in print at all.
It sounds incredible that, when in Greece
The poets sang to lyre or pipe,
When HOMER (say) threw off his little piece,
Nobody put the thing in type;
Even in days less barbarously rude
VIRGIL, it seems, was never interviewed.
And how did DANTE manage to indite
His admirable tale of Hell,
Or BUONARROTI sculp his sombre "Night"
Without the kodak's magic spell--
No Press-photographer, a dream of tact,
To snap the artist in the very act?
Poor primitives, who groped amid the gloom
And perished ere the dawn of day,
Ere yet Publicity, with piercing boom,
Had shown the world a better way;
Before the age--so good for him that climbs--
Now culminating in the NORTHCLIFFE times.