The history of the “leading article,” as a great factor in the shaping of public opinion, begins with Swift, Defoe, Bolingbroke, and Pulteney, in the many newspapers, from The Review and The Examiner to The Craftsman, by which was waged the keen political strife of the years 1704-40. There is no counterpart to it in France until the Revolution of 1789, nor in Germany until 1796 or 1798. It was a Frenchman who wrote—“Suffer yourself to be blamed, imprisoned, condemned; suffer yourself even to be hanged; but publish your opinions. It is not a right; it is a duty.” It was in England that the course so pithily described was actually taken, in the face of fine, imprisonment, and pillory, at a time when in France the public had to depend upon foreign journals illicitly circulated, when its own chief -writers resorted to clandestine presses, to paltry disguises, and to very poor subterfuges to escape the responsibilities of avowed authorship, and when in Germany there was no political publicity worthy to be named.

When the Mercure de France, after a long period of mediocrity, came into the hands of men of large intellectual faculty, 'they had the most cogent reasons for exerting their powers upon topics of literature rather than upon themes of politics. True political journalism dates only from the Revolution, and it then had a very brief existence. It occupied a cluster of writers, some of whom have left an enduring mark upon French literature. A term of high aspiration was followed quickly by a much longer term of frantic licence and of literary infamy. Then came the long rule of a despotic censorship; and cycles of licence followed by cycles of repression have revolved, with varying periodicity, from that day to this. Germany has to some extent its parallelisms; but German journalism, if it never soared so high, never sank so low. Journalism in Germany has made steady advances onward; and in one grand feature—that of far-gathered information from foreign countries, not merely of incidents, but of the growth of opinion and the state of social life— the leading newspapers of Germany keep much ahead of their best French contemporaries. In France, too often, the journals that gain the largest circulation are precisely those of most conspicuous frivolity. Sometimes they are much worse than frivolous. In 1871 newspapers issued from Parisian presses which were as base and as brutal as those of 1794. In 1870 the democratic Government at Bordeaux issued against journals of high aims and of unspotted integrity, but opposed to its pretensions, edicts as arbitrary as the worst acts in that kind of Napoleon I., and unparalleled in the whole course of the government of Napoleon III.

In all the other countries of Europe political journalism, in any characteristic sense, is a thing of the present century, —somewhat earlier in the century in northern Europe, somewhat later in southern. The Ordinarie Post-Tidende of Stockholm dates indeed from 1643, but until very recent times it was a mere news-letter. Denmark had no sort of journal worth remark until the foundation, in 1749, of the Berlingske Tidende, and that too attained to no political rank. The Gazette of St Petersburg—the patriarch of Russian newspapers—dates from 16th December 1702, is a Government organ, and nearly synchronizes with the first successful attempt at a newspaper in the British colonies in America. But the Boston Gazette was, in its degree, a better journal in the last century than the Wiedomosti now.

Journalism in Italy begins with the Diario di Roma in 1716, but in politics the press remained a nullity—for all practical purposes—until nearly the middle of the present century, when the newspapers of Sardinia, at the impulse of Cavour, began to foreshadow the approach of the influential Italian press of the present day. In Spain no rudiments of a newspaper press can be found until the last century. As late as in 1826 an inquisitive American traveller records his inability to lay his hands, during his Peninsular, tour, upon more than two Spanish, newspapers.

It may be useful to bring these chronological notes of the origin of journalism into view, at a. glance, conjointly with the dates of some of the chief existing journals of Europe, by tabulating them thus :— [table]

The development of the modern newspaper is due to a union of causes that may well be termed marvellous. A machine that from a web of paper 3 or 4 miles long can, in one hour, print, fold, cut, and deliver 24,000 or 25,000 perfected broadsheets is after all not so great a marvel as is the organizing skill which centralizes in a London office telegraphic communications from every important town in Europe, Asia, America, and Australia, and which then (whilst re-transmitting thither the news of London) distributes those communications—directly or indirectly—to thousands of recipients simultaneously, by day and by night, throughout all Britain. And but for unusual mental gifts, conjoined with high culture and with great “staying-power,” in the editorial rooms, all these marvels of ingenuity—which now combine to develop public opinion on great public interests, and to guide it—would be nothing better than a vast mechanism for making money out of man’s natural aptitude to spend his time either in telling or in hearing some new thing.

Julius Reuter’s enterprise grew immediately out of the thoughts of an observant Prussian Government-messenger on the extraordinary excitement of this natural aptitude which he witnessed as caused by the revolutionary movements of 1848. In 1849 he established a news-transmitting agency in Paris, with all the appliances that were then available. Between Brussels and Aix-la-Chapelle he formed a pigeon-service, connecting it with Paris and with Berlin by telegraph. As the wires extended, he quickly followed them with agency-offices in many parts of the Continent. When he came to London, his progress was for a moment held in check. The editor of The Times listened very courteously to his proposals, but (on that first occasion) ended their interview by saying, “We generally find that we can do our own business better than anybody else can.” He went to the office of The Morning Advertiser, which had then the next largest circulation to that of The Times, and had better success. He entered into an agreement with that and afterwards with other London journals, including The Times, and also with many commercial corporations and firms.

The newspapers, of course, continued to employ their own wires and to extend them, but they found great advantage in the use of Reuter’s telegrams as supplementary. His enterprise grew apace. Within a few years it is said to have yielded the founder some £25,000 a year. In 1865 it was transferred to a limited company. In 1868 the London Press Association was formed. It contracted with Reuter’s company to supply their telegrams exclusively throughout the United Kingdom, London only excepted. The cost yearly to those newspaper proprietors who are members of the association is £294, to nonmembers £323. In connexion with the intelligence department of the post-office, the Press Association supplies parliamentary, juridical, and market news. The office of the Association is kept open during twenty-one hours of the twenty-four. The enterprise was organized by Mr John Lovell, now editor of The Liverpool Mercury. London has now at least nine other press and telegraphic associations; Paris probably has almost as many.

The Newspapers of the United Kingdom.

The first English journalists were the writers of “newsletters,” originally the dependants of great men, each employed in keeping his own master or patron well-informed, during his absence from court, of all that transpired there. The duty grew at length into a calling. The writer had his periodical subscription list, and instead of writing a single letter wrote as many letters as he had customers. Then one more enterprising than the rest established an “intelligence office,” with a staff of clerks, such as Ben Jonson’s Cymbal depicts from the life in The Staple of News, acted in 1625 :—

“This is the outer room where my clerks sit, And keep their sides, the register in the midst; The examiner, he sits private there within;

And here I have my several rolls and files Of news by the alphabet, and all put up Under their heads.”

Of the earlier news-letters good examples may be seen in Sir John Fenn’s collection of Poston Letters, and in Arthur Collins’s Letters and Memorials of State (better known, perhaps, as the Sydney Papers'). Of those of later date specimens will be found in Knowler’s Letters and Despatches of Strafford, and in other well-known books. Still later examples, and such as have a very high historical interest, may be seen in abundance amongst the papers collected by the historian Thomas Carte, now preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Of these, several series were addressed to the first duke of Ormond, partly by correspondents in England and Ireland, partly by correspondents in Paris; others were addressed to successive earls of Huntingdon; others, again, to various members of the family of Wharton. And like valuable collections are to be seen in the library of the British Museum, and in the English Public Record Office. In Edinburgh, the Advocates’ Library possesses a series of the 16th century, written by Richard Scudamore to Sir Philip Hoby during his embassy to Vienna.

The MS. news-letters—some of them proceeding from writers of marked ability who had access to official information, and were able to write with greater freedom and independence of tone than the compilers of the printed news—held their ground, although within narrowing limits, until nearly the middle of the last century. Some of the collections of these “gazettes à-la-main” have for the historian a greater value than any existing printed series of a contemporary gazetteer.

By the pains and critical acumen of the late Mr Thomas Watts, of the British Museum, the obstinate fiction that “for the first printed newspaper mankind are indebted to the wisdom of Elizabeth and the prudence of Burghley” is at length gradually disappearing from current literature, although the old story of the English Mercurie of the Armada year has been many times repeated (even in the latest works on English journalism) since the first publication of his able pamphlet. In a later publication, the same learned bibliographer traced, not less conclusively, this curious fabrication to its author, the second earl of Hardwicke.

Although no genuine newspaper of the 16 th century can be produced, English pamphlets, as well as French, Italian, and German, occur with such titles as Newes from Spaine, and the like. In the early years of the 17th century they became very numerous. In 1614 we find Burton (the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy) pointing a sarcasm against the non-reading habits of “the major part” by adding, “if they read a book at any time . . . ’tis an English chronicle, Sir Huon of Bordeaux, Amadis de Gaul, <fcc., a play-book, or some pamphlet of news.” The most eminent purveyors of reading of this sort were Nathaniel Butter, Nicholas Bourne, and Thomas Archer; and by them was issued, in May 1622, the first authentic English periodical newspaper now known to exist. When these news-pamphlets began to be periodicals their periods were at first irregular. Thus on the 1st of June 1619 Ralph Rounthwaite entered at Stationers’ Hall A Relation of all matters done in Bohemia,, Austria, Poland, Sletia, France, <kc., that is worthy of relating, since the 2 of March 1618 [1619 n.s.] until the Mh of May. Again, at the beginning of November 1621, Bartholomew Dcwnes and another entered in like manner The certaine an d true newes from all parts of Germany and Poland, to 'his present 20 of October 1621. No copy of either of these papers is now, we believe, known to exist. Nor is any copy known of The Courant, or [Weekly Newes fror.ι foreign parts, of October 9, 1621, mentioned by Mr Nichols. But in May 1622 we arrive at a weekly newspape . , which may still be seen in the British Museum. It is entitled “The 23d of May— The Weekly News from Italy, Germany, &c., London, printed by J. D. for Nicholas Bourne and Thomas Archer.” Nathaniel Butter’s name does not occur on this number, but on many subsequent numbers it appears in connexion sometimes with Bourne’s and sometimes with Archer’s name; so that there was probably an eventual partnership in the new undertaking. Butter had published Newes from Spaine in 1611, and he continued to be a publisher of news until 1641, if not later.

In The Certain Newes of this Present Week, ending 23d August 1622, the publisher inserted this advertisement :— “If any gentleman or other accustomed to buy the weekly relations of newes be desirous to continue the same, let them know that the writer, or transcriber rather, of this newes hath published two former newes; the one dated the second, the other the thirteenth of August, all which do carry a like title, and have dependence one upon another; which manner of writing and printing he doth propose to continue weekly, by God’s assistance, from the best and most certain intelligence.” November 1641 is especially noticeable for the publication, in the form of a newspaper, of the earliest authentic report of the proceedings of parliament. Diurnal Occurrences, or the Heads of several Proceedings in both Houses of Parliament, was usually, notwithstanding its title, a weekly periodical, and it sometimes contained ordinary news in addition to its staple matter. This was followed, within five years, by a long train of newspapers, most of which were published weekly. Those which stand out most saliently from the rest are the Mercurius Britannicus, Μ. Pragmaticus, and Μ. Politicus of Marchmont Nedham, and the Mercurius Aulicus of John Birkenhead. Nedham was perhaps both the ablest and the readiest man that had yet tried his hand at a newspaper. He commenced the Μ. Britannicus on August 22, 1643, zealously advocated in it the cause of the Parliament, and continued its publication until 1647. At that period he changed sides, and began to write Mercurius Pragmaticus,

“which, being very witty, satirical against the Presbyterians, and full of loyalty, made him known to, and admired by, the bravadoes and wits of those times. . . . At length . . . Lenthall and Bradshaw . . . persuaded him to change his style once more [in favour of] the Independents, then carrying all before them. So that, being bought over, he wrote Mercurius Politicus, so extreme contrary to the former that the generality for a long time . . . could not believe that that ‘ intelligence ’ could possibly be written by the same hand that wrote the Μ. Pragmaticus. . . . The last [i.e., the Pragmatici] were endeavoured by the parliamenteers to be stifled, but the former, the Politici, which came out by authority, and flew every week into all parts of the nation for more than ten years, had very great influence. . . . He was then [after a fourth ‘change of style’] the Goliath of the Philistines, the great champion of the late usurper, whose pen, in comparison of others, was like a weaver’s beam.”

Birkenhead’s Μ. Aulicus was also begun in 1643, and continued, although irregularly, until nearly the close of the civil war. According to Wood, Charles I. “appointed him to write the Mercurii Aulici, which being very pleasing to the loyal party, His Majesty recommended him to the [university] electors that they would choose him moral philosophy reader,” which was done accordingly. He was assisted in the composition of Aulicus by George Lord Digby (secretary of state, and afterwards earl of Bristol) and by Dr Peter Heylin. Sir John Birkenhead had considerable powers of satire, after a coarse fashion, and was one of the few rough-weather royalists who were permitted to bask in the sunshine of the Restoration.

Under Cromwell, the chief papers were Μ. Politicus and The Public Intelligencer (of which the first number appeared on the 8th October 1655). These publications were issued on different days of the week, and at length they became conjointly the foundation of the present London Gazette. Even at their origin they were in some degree official papers. In 1659 the council of state caused the following announcement to be published :—“Whereas Marchmont Nedham, the author of the weekly news-books called Mercurius Politicus and The Publique Intelligencer, is, by order of the council of state, discharged from writing or publishing any publique intelligence; the reader is desired to take notice that, by order of the said council, Giles Dury and Henry Muddiman are authorized henceforth to write and publish the said intelligence, the one upon the Thursday and the other upon the Monday, which they do intend to set out under the titles of The Parliamentary Intelligencer and of Mercurius Publicus. ” After the Restoration, an office of surveyor of the press was instituted, to which Roger L’Estrange was appointed. The story of his administration of it—for which there are ample materials in the State Papers —would be well worth the telling in a befitting place. On him was also conferred, by royal grant —and, as it proved, for only a short period,—“all the sole privilege of writing, printing, and publishing all narratives, advertisements, mercuries, intelligencers, diurnals, and other books of public intelligence; . . . with power to search for and seize unlicensed and treasonable schismatical and scandalous books and papers.” L’Estrange continued the papers above mentioned, but changed their titles to The Intelligencer and The News.

Joseph Williamson (afterwards secretary of state) was for a time L’Estrange’s assistant in the compilation of The Intelligencer, from which he soon withdrew. He organized for himself a far-spread foreign correspondence, and carried on the business of a news-letter writer on a larger scale than had till then been known. Presently L’Estrange found his own sources of information much abridged. To his application for renewed assistance Williamson replies that he cannot give it, but “will procure for L’Estrange a salary of £100 a year if he will give up his right in the news-book.” The Intelligencer appeals to Lord Arlington, and assures him that the charge of “entertaining spies for information was £500 in'the first year.” But he has “doubled the size and price of the book, and has brought the profit from .£200 to £400 or <£500 a year.” The appeal was in vain. It was resolved to suppress The Intelligencer, and to establish a court newspaper under a new title and new editorship.

At that time the great plague had driven the court to Oxford. The first number of The Oxford Gazette was published on the 14th of November 1665. With the publication of the twenty-fourth number it became The London Gazette. Williamson had the general control of it. For a considerable time Charles Perrot, a member of Oriel College, was the acting editor. For several years the Gazette was regularly translated into French by one Moranville. During the Stuart reigns generally, its contents were very meagre, although in the reign of Anne some improvement is already visible. More than a century after the establishment of the Gazette, we find Secretary Lord Weymouth addressing a circular to the several secretaries of legation and the British consuls abroad, in which he says, ii The writer of the Gazette has represented that the reputation of that paper is greatly lessened, and the sale diminished, from the small portion of foreign news with which it is supplied.” He desires that each of them will send regularly all such articles of foreign intelligence as may appear proper for that paper, “taking particular care,—as...