It were endless, and indeed out of place here, to attempt to specify the numberless minor superstitions to which this credulous tendency of the public mind gave birth or continuation; or the marvels of travellers,—as the Anthropophagi, the Ethiops with four eyes, the Hippopodes with their nether parts like horses, the Arimaspi with one eye in the forehead, and the Monopoli who have no head at all, but a face in their breast—which were all devoutly credited. One potent charm, however, we are constrained to particularise, since its infallibility was mainly dependent on the needlewoman’s skill. It was a waistcoat which rendered its owner invulnerable: we believe that if duly prepared it would be found proof not only against “silver bullets,” but also against even the “charmed bullet” of German notoriety. Thus runs the charm:—

“On Christmas daie at night, a thread must be sponne of flax, by a little virgine girle, in the name of the divell; and it must be by hir woven, and also wrought with the needle. In the brest or forepart thereof must be made with needleworke two heads; on the head at the right side must be a hat and a long beard, and the left head must have on a crowne, and it must be so horrible that it maie resemble Belzebub; and on each side of the wastcote must be wrought a crosse.”

The newspaper, that now mighty political engine, that “thewe and sinew” of the fourth estate of the realm, took its rise in Elizabeth’s day. How would her legislators have been overwhelmed with amazement could they have beheld, in dim perspective, this child of the press, scarcely less now the offspring of the imagination than those chimeras of their own time to which we have been alluding; and would not the wrinkled brow of the modern politician be unconsciously smoothened, would not the careworn and profound diplomatist “gather up his face into a smile before he was aware,” if the First Newspaper were suddenly placed before him? It is not indeed in existence, but was published under the title of “The English Mercurie,” in April, 1588, on the first appearance near the shores of England of the Spanish Armada, a crisis which caused this innovation on the usual public news-letter circulated in manuscript. No. 50, dated July 23, 1588, is the first now in existence; and as the publication only began in April, it shows they must have been issued frequently. We have seen this No. 50, which is preserved in the British Museum.[122]

In it are no advertisements—no fashions—no law reports—no court circular—no fashionable arrivals—no fashionable intelligence—no murders—no robberies—no reviews—no crim. cons.—no elopements—no price of stocks—no mercantile intelligence—no police reports—no “leaders,”—no literary memoranda—no poets’ corner—no spring meetings—no radical demonstrations—no conservative dinners—but

“The

“English Mercurie,

“Published by Authoritie,

“For the Prevention of False Reportes,

“Whitehall, July 23, 1588.”

Contains three pages and a half, small quarto, of matter of fact information.