It has become the fashion to sneer at the Long Parliament: but for all this it cannot be denied that that assemblage rendered services of incalculable importance to the state. Extreme old age forms at all times an object of pity, and, with the thoughtless and inconsiderate, it is but too often an object of ridicule and contempt. Many a great man has, ere now, survived to reach this sad stage in his career; but it does not therefore follow that the glorious deeds of his prime are to be ignored or forgotten. As it has been with the distinguished warrior or statesman or author, so it is with the Long Parliament. England owes it a great debt of gratitude on many accounts, but the one with which we have more especially to do on the present occasion is, that with it originated the custom of making public proceedings in Parliament. By this act was the supremacy of the people over the Parliament acknowledged, for the very publication of its transactions was an appeal to the people for approval and support. This printed record of parliamentary affairs came out in 1641, and was entitled The Diurnal Occurrences, or Daily Proceedings of both Houses in this great and happy Parliament, from the 3d of November, 1640, to the 3d of November, 1641. The speeches delivered from the first date down to the following June were also published in two volumes, and in 1642 weekly instalments appeared under various titles, such as The Heads of all the Proceedings of both Houses of Parliament—Account of Proceedings of both Houses of Parliament—A perfect Diurnal of the Passages in Parliament, etc., etc. There was no reporter's gallery in those days, and the Parliament only printed what they pleased; still this was a step in the right direction. After Parliaments occasionally evinced bitter hostility toward the press, but that which boasted Sawyer Lenthal for its speaker was its friend (at all events, at first, though afterward, as we shall notice by and by, it displayed some animosity against its early protegé), and from this meagre beginning took its rise that which is beyond doubt one of the most important domestic functions of the press at the present day.
The abolition of the great bugbear and tyrant of printers—that infamous mockery of a legal tribunal, the Star Chamber—was another gigantic obstacle cleared away from the path of journalism. The Newes Bookes, which, in spite of all difficulties, had already become abundant, now issued forth in swarms. They treated de rebus omnibus et quibusdam aliis. Most of them were political or polemical pamphlets, and boasted extraordinary titles. There is a splendid collection of these in the British Museum, collected by the Rev. W. Thomason, and presented to the nation by King George III. We will mention a few of them. A controversial religious tract rejoices in the title of A fresh bit of Mutton for those fleshy-minded Cannibals that cannot endure Pottage. A political skit upon Prince Rupert is styled An exact Description of Prince Rupert's malignant She-Monkey, a great Delinquent, and has a comical woodcut upon the title page of the animal, in a cap and petticoat and with a sword by its side. This pamphlet is printed partly in ordinary modern type and partly in black letter. Another pamphlet in the form of dialogue is directed against the abuses of the laws, especially at one of the infamous 'comptoirs' of the time. It is called Wonderfull Strange Newes from Wood Street Countor—yet not so Strange as True, being proved by lamentable Experience, the relation of which
'Will make you laugh, 'twill make you cry;
'Twill make you mad, 'twill make you try.'
Another is Newes, true Newes, laudable Newes, Citie Newes, Countrie Newes, the World is Mad or it is a Mad World, my Masters, especially in the Antipodes, these Things are come to passe. This is a satirical description of manners and customs on 'the other side of the world,' the writer asserting that in those regions everything is the exact opposite of what takes place among us, so that there beggars ride in carriages and are highly esteemed, men of title are of no account, lawyers take no fees, and bailiffs decline to arrest debtors, etc., etc. There is also a very quaint woodcut of the world and the heavens, the four winds, etc., with an astrologer and other persons looking at them. Very many of these pamphlets are actual relations of occurrences in different parts of the kingdom and in foreign countries. Thus we find, Victorious Newes from Waterford; The joyfullest Newes from Hull that ever came to London of the Proceedings of the Earl of Warwick's Shipps; The best and happiest Newes from Ireland, from the Army before Kildare; Newes from Blackheath concerning the Meeting of the Kentish Men; Exceedingly joyfull Newes from Holland; The best Newes that ever was Printed, consists of, 1. Prince Rupert's Resolution to bee gone to his Mother, who hath sent for him; 2. His Majestie's royall Intentions declared to joyne with the Parliament in a treaty of Peace; 3. The Particulars of the High Court of Parliament drawn up to be sent to his Majesty for Peace; 4. Directions from the Lords and Commons directed to the Commanders for the ordering of the Army. One quaint title presents a very odd association: Newes from Hell and Rome and the Innes of Court. The contending parties appear to have suited their titles to the substance of the Newes they chronicled accordingly as it affected their interests. Thus, while many pamphlets bore the titles of Glorious, Joyful, Victorious, etc., others were dubbed Horrible Newes, Terrible News, and so forth. By far the greater number of these were issued by the partisans of the Parliament; but the Royalists were by no means idle, and the king carried about a travelling printing press, as is evidenced by several proclamations, manifestoes, etc., issued at Oxford, Worcester, York, and other places, sometimes in ordinary type, sometimes in black letter, by 'Robert Barker, his Majestie's Printer.' All the emanations of the press were not, however, mere isolated pamphlets, but there was a large crop of periodicals, such as The Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer—The Royal Diurnall, etc. About this time the name Mercurius began to be very freely adopted for these periodicals. It had been already, for a long time, assumed as a nom de plume by writers and printers, but the title was now assigned to the publications themselves. One of the earliest of these was Mercurius Aulicus, a scurrilous print in the interest of the court party—as its name imports—which first appeared in 1642. Others were entitled respectively Mercurius Britannicus—Mercurius Anti-Britannicus—Mercurius Fumigosus, a Smoaking Nocturnal—Mercurius Pragmaticus—Mercurius Anti-Pragmaticus—Mercurius Mercuriorum Stultissimus—Mercurius Insanus Insanissimus—Mercurius Diabolicus—Mercurius Mastix, faithfully lashing all Scouts, Mercuries, Posts, Spyes, and others—Mercurius Radamanthus, the Chief Judge of Hell, his Circuits through all the Courts of Law in England, etc., etc. Other newspapers bore such quaint titles as the following: The Dutch Spye—The Scots Dove—The Parliament Kite—The Secret Owle—The Parliament Screech Owle, and other ornithological monstrosities. Party spirit ran high, and the contending scribes carried on a most foul and savage warfare, and demolished their adversaries, both political and literary, without the slightest compunction or mercy. Some of these brochures were solely directed against the utterances of one particular rival scribe, as is shown by one or two of the titles above quoted. Doctor Johnson says:
'When any title grew popular, it was stolen by the antagonist, who by this stratagem conveyed his notions to those who would not have received him had he not worn the appearance of a friend.'
According to Mr. Nichols' the printer's list, there were no less than three hundred and fifty of these Mercuries and Newes Bookes published between 1642 and 1665, a list that would no doubt be largely swollen could the titles of all that have perished and left no trace behind be ascertained. These Mercuries appeared at different intervals, but none oftener than three times a week, and their price was generally one penny, but sometimes twopence.
Many of the writers were nothing but venal hirelings, and changed sides readily enough when their own private interests seemed to render it desirable. One of the most famous—or infamous, according to Anthony à Wood, who describes him as 'a most seditious, mutable, and railing writer, siding with the rout and scum of the people, making them weekly sport by railing at all that was noble,' etc.—was Marchmont Nedham. In 1643 he brought out the Mercurius Britannicus, one of the ablest periodicals on the Parliamentary side, whatever honest old Anthony may say to the contrary. But, being imprisoned for libel, he thought it best to change his politics, and for two years appeared as an ultra-virulent Royalist partisan in the Mercurius Pragmaticus. After the execution of Charles the First, however, he returned to his old party, and advocated their cause in the Mercurius Politicus, which purported to be published 'in defence of the commonwealth and for information of the people.' After some years he fell into temporary disgrace, but was soon received again into favor by the House of Commons, which passed a vote in August, 1659, 'that Marchmont Nedham, gentleman, be and hereby is restored to be writer of the Publick Intelligence as formerly.' At the Restoration he was discharged from his office, but contrived to make his peace with the party in power, and, true to his instincts, changed his political creed once more for that of the winning side, but without succeeding in being reinstated in his old post. The other most noteworthy writers of Mercuries were John Birkenhead, author of the Mercurius Aulicus, Peter Heylin, Bruno Ryves—all parsons—and John Taylor, the Water Poet, author of the Mercurius Aquaticus.
Nothing was too great or too small for the writers of these Mercuries, nothing too exalted or too mean. Nothing was sacred in their eyes; the most private affairs were dragged into the political arena, and family and domestic matters, that had nothing whatever to do with public life, were paraded before the world. Bitter personalities and invective seem to be inseparable concomitants of the early stage of journalism in all countries. This was the case in France and Germany; it is the case in Russia at the present day. That it was the case in America, let the following extract from Franklin's private correspondence testify:
'The inconsistency that strikes me the most is that between the name of your city, Philadelphia, and the spirit of rancor, malice, and hatred that breathes in the newspapers. For I learn from those papers that State is divided into parties, that each party ascribes all the public operations of the other to vicious motives, that they do not even suspect one another of the smallest degree of honesty, that the anti-Federalists are such merely from the fear of losing power, places, or emoluments, which they have in possession or expectation; that the Federalists are a set of conspirators, who aim at establishing a tyranny over the persons and property of their countrymen and who live in splendor on the plunder of the people. I learn, too, that your justices of the peace, though chosen by their neighbors, make a villanous trade of their offices, and promote discord to augment fees, and fleece their electors; and that this would not be mended were the choice in the Executive Council, who, with interested or party aims, are continually making as improper appointments, witness a 'petty fiddler, sycophant, and scoundrel' appointed judge of the admiralty, an 'old woman and fomentor of sedition' to be another of the judges, and 'a Jeffreys' chief justice, etc., etc., with 'harpies,' the comptroller and naval officers, to prey upon the merchants, and deprive them of their property by force of arms, etc. I am informed, also, by these papers, that your General Assembly, though the annual choice of the people, shows no regard to their rights, but from sinister views or ignorance makes laws in direct violation of the Constitution, to divest the inhabitants of their property, and give it to strangers and intruders, and that the Council, either fearing the resentment of their constituents or plotting to enslave them, had projected to disarm them, and given orders for that purpose; and, finally, that your President, the unanimous joint choice of the Council and Assembly, is 'an old rogue, who gave his assent to the Federal Constitution merely to avoid refunding money he had purloined from the United States.' There is, indeed, a good deal of man's inconsistency in all this, and yet a stranger, seeing it in our own prints, though he does not believe it all, may probably believe enough of it to conclude that Pennsylvania is peopled by a set of the most unprincipled, wicked, rascally, and quarrelsome scoundrels upon the face of the globe. I have sometimes, indeed, suspected that those papers are the manufacture of foreigners among you, who write with the view of disgracing your country, and making you appear contemptible and detestable all the world over; but then I wonder at the indiscretion of your printers in publishing such writings. There is, however, one of your inconsistencies that consoles me a little, which is that though, living, you give one another the character of devils, dead, you are all angels. It is delightful, when any of you die, to read what good husbands, good fathers, good friends, good citizens, and good Christians you were, concluding with a scrap of poetry that places you with certainty in heaven. So that I think Pennsylvania a good country to die in, though a very bad one to live in.'
These remarks, which Franklin makes with such powerful irony, might apply with equal force to a similar period in the newspaper history of any country, and most of all to that of England.