Mickleham, August 6. 1850.
"_News_," _Origin of the Word_ (Vol. i., pp. 270. 369. 487.; vol. ii.,
pp. 23. 81. 106.).--Your correspondents who have written upon this
subject may now have seen the following note in Zimperley's
_Encyclopædia_, p. 472.:--
"The original orthography was _newes_, and in the singular.
Johnson has, however, decided that the word _newes_ is a
substantive without a singular, unless it be considered as
singular. The word _new_, according to Wachter, is of very
ancient use, and is common to many nations. The Britons, and the
Anglo-Saxons, had the word, though not the thing. It was first
printed by Caxton in the modern sense, in the _Siege of Rhodes_,
which was translated by John Kay, the Poet Laureate, and printed
by Caxton about the year 1490. In the _Assembly of Foulis_,
which was printed by William Copland in 1530, there is the
following exclamation:--
"'Newes! newes! newes! have ye ony newes?'
"In the translation of the _Utopia_, by Raphe Robinson, citizien
and goldsmythe, which was imprinted by Abraham Nele in 1551, we
are told, 'As for monsters, because they be no _newes_, of them
we were nothynge inquysitive.' Such is the rise, and such the
progress of the word _news_, which, even in 1551, was still
printed _newes_!"