Times, Herald, Chronicle, etc., when first established.
We are enabled, by the courtesy of several correspondents, to furnish some reply to the Query of D. (No. 1 p. 7)
The Times first appeared under that title on the 1st January, 1788, but bore the Number 941, it being a continuation, under a new name, of the Universal Register, of which 940 numbers had been published.--The Morning Chronicle must have commenced in 1769, as a correspondent, F.B., writes to tell us that he possesses No. 242. dated Monday, 12th March, 1770. See further Nichol's Literary Anecdotes, i. 303; and for Morning Advertiser, established in 1794, the same volume, p.290. Another correspondent writes:--During 1849 the Morning Chronicle has completed its 81st year; next in seniority stands the Morning Post, at 77; and the Morning Herald, at 65. The Times in the numbering of its days, is in its 64th year, but has not really reached its grand climacteric, for its three years of infancy passed under the name of The Universal Register, it having only received its present appellation in the opening of 1788. The Morning Advertiser is wearing away its 54th year.
The Public Ledger, commenced in 1759, or 1760, is however, the oldest Daily Paper.
Dorne the Bookseller--Henno Rusticus, etc.
Sir,--In answer to W. in page 12. of No. 1, I beg to suggest that Dormer, written Dõmr in the MS.--a common abbreviation--may be the name of the Oxford bookseller, and Henno Rusticus may be Homo rusticus, "the country gentleman." The hand-writing of this MS. is so small and illegible in some places, that it requires an Oedipus to decipher it; and the public will have much reason to thank those lynx-eyed antiquaries who have taken great pains to render it intelligible. "The Sige of the End," is of course properly explained to be "the Signe of the End."
J.I.