Several collections of News-letters have found their way into type, and the British Museum contains a store of the original MS.S.,* as well as copies of such as have been printed. Sir Walter Scott is said to have

pondences by Eliot Warburton. This writer, when speaking of the original MS. used in the preparation of his work says "I do not presume to canvass my reader's sympathies for either Puritan or Cavalier, I leave them to plead their own cause in their own letters:-I invite him to listen to their own long silent voices, speaking once more eagerly, earnestly as when armed men with desperate speed bore these, their blotted, and often blood-stained pages, from leagured city or roving camp from faltering diplomatist, or resolute warrior, at whose beck men died. Every letter will possess some interest for the thoughtful reader, and shed some light for him on the heart of the bygone times. He will find them still animated by the passions that were then throbbing in every breast. At first the earnest, rather than angry, spirit of our memorable English war is apparent in them; but they gradually become more intense in their expression, as if they were the work of a single man; the same note of triumph or tone of despair is perceptible in all. Human nature, and the nature of each writer, is transparent in them all the reader is the confidant of Kings, Princes, Statesmen, Generals, patriots, traitors; he is the confessor of the noblest minds and the most villainous natures, he sees the very conscience of the war."

*Harleian MS., 7015, consists of a volume of public papers and letters, containing among others MS. Gazettes in French, dated from the Hague, in the years 1620-1623, relating to public transactions in all parts of Europe during these times. Some of them are directed to Sir Thomas Pickering, and some are in English; two are directed to him at Warwick.

Sloane Collection, 3328, has various letters of News-1685, 1687. No 3925., of the additional MS.S. in the collection of the British Museum is a thick folio volume thus described, "copies and translations of letters from various parts of the world, 1690. 1691. 1692. The book belonged to Andrew Ellis Esq., of the Post Office London, and is supposed to have served for articles in a newspaper."

Some News-letters still exist says Macaulay in our public libraries, and he speaks also of some in Sir J. Macintosh's collection.

PARTIZAN NEWS-LETTERS.

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been very fond of poring over these memorials of early history, as written by those who mixed in the scenes they describe, and used the materials he found to make more perfect his descriptions of manners, customs, and

costume.

The custom of written News was continued long after the press had begun to give intelligence in a printed shape, and with something like punctuality. Men dare in these times write what they hesitated to give in print; and hence the continued influence of the manuscript News-letters.

In the Life of Dr. John North, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, we are told:

Whilst he was at Jesus College, Coffee was not of such common use as afterwards, and Coffee-houses but young. At that time, and long after, there was but one, kept by one Kirk. The trade of News also was scarce set up; for they had only the public Gazette, till Kirk got a written News-letter circulated by one Muddiman. But now the case is much altered; for it is become a custom, after chapel, to repair to one or other of the Coffeehouses, (for there are divers,) where hours are spent in talking, and less profitable reading of Newspapers, of which swarms are continually supplied from London. And the scholars are so greedy after News, (which is none of their business,) that they neglect all for it; and it is become very rare for any of them to go directly to his chamber after prayers, without doing his suit at the Coffee-house; which is a vast loss of time.

In Roger North's Life of Lord Keeper Guilford, that writer tells us, it was when

On circuit that, as his Lordship passed along, divers gentlemen showed him circular News-letters that came to them; and he perceived that the scope of these was to misrepresent and misconstrue all the public transactions of state, and might have been properly styled fanatic News-letters, contrived and dis

patched to divers places to stir up sedition. And upon his Lordship's inquiry, he was told that they came from Mr. Coleman, the Duke of York's secretary. His Lordship on his return made a representation to the king of this News-letter from such a person, and the ill-consequences of it. Whereupon Mr. Coleman was turned out of the Duke's service, but never blamed, for he was afterwards made the Duchess of York's secretary.

North in his Examen, gives us his recollections:I may remember somewhat of this Mr. Coleman. He was a Gentleman of a very good Family, that of Brent-Ely in Suffolk. Some years before these Times, he had been employed as a Secretary to the Duke of York, but upon Information given by the Judges of the Northern Circuit against him, in the yearhe was put out of that Post. It seems some Gentlemen of the North showed the Judges their circular News-letters that came weekly amongst them, saying they were wrote by this Mr. Coleman, and they had them constantly. It appeared plainly that the whole intent of them was to promote Faction and Discontent in the Country; for all the Actions of the Government were traduced to an ill sense, just as the Fanatics, in Coffeehouses in and about London used to talk, for creating differences between the King and his People; and (saving the word Popery) just as we are served in this History. Which epistolary stuff one would have expected from Colonel Mildmay out of Essex, rather than from the Cabinet of one in the Family and service of the King's own brother. His being (as he was thereupon) turned out, answered the End of that Complaint for the present; but the Duke would not wholly part with him, for that cause, because it was likely what he wrote was pursuant to the Counsel of the whole party.

Burnett describes Coleman as a clergyman's son, who had been educated by the Jesuits; in character bold, and resolved to raise himself; a proficient in several languages; a writer of many long letters; and the chief correspondent the party had in England.* He

* History of His Own Times, Vol. I. p. 393.

EXECUTION OF COLEMAN.

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lived expensively, and spoke like a man who knew he was well supported. He was a confidant of Louis the Fourteenth's, confessor, and his zeal appears to have been excessive for, says Burnett "he went about everywhere, even to the gaols among the criminals, to make proselytes."

Coleman met a tragic end. When the infamous Titus Oates brought forward the Popish Plot, Coleman was one of the first victims. The News-writer was charged with high treason, and was placed at the bar of the King's Bench to take his trial. He was denied counsel; the Chief Justice, Scroggs, found fault with his religion, and abused his mode of defence as he stood at the bar; Jeffreys was engaged for the prosecution; Titus Oates was circumstantial in his perjury, and Coleman was condemned to death. Oates in his evidence spoke of a Letter of News which was called Mr. Coleman's letter.'

Five days after his trial Coleman was drawn on a hurdle from Newgate to Tyburn, amid the noisy insults of the mob who hooted him as a Papist. The intimate of the Duke of York, who had urged his master's religious views with all his learning, and assisted his political plans with great industry; whose pen had never tired in the preparation of the News-letters that were to create a public opinion to serve his party, now stood in the shadow of the gallows disgraced and de graded, and in the presence of death: but his cup was not yet full. For his last moment was reserved the the bitterest pang-the consiousness of disappointed hopes, and of his patron's treachery. "He had been made to believe," says the chronicler who reports the

trial, "that he should have a pardon, which he depended on with so much assurance, that a little before he was turned off, finding himself deceived, he was heard to say, 'There is no faith in man.' Then, after some private prayers and ejaculations to himself, the sentence was executed. "*

What a News-writer did in England in 1622 on his own responsibility, was effected ten years afterwards in France under the patronage of Louis the Fourteenth by a medical man Theophrastus Renaudot, who issued the first number of the first French Newspaper, the Gazette de France, in 1632. It is said that other nations had anticipated both England and France in the establishment of Newspapers, and this point must be discussed when we come to the subject of Journalism abroad; but here we may state that any country claiming to have preceded us in the production of Newspapers, must show in proof of priority, a publication appearing at stated intervals and numbered regularly. Unless such proof be given, and unless that definition and test of what a Newspaper is be adopted, we may go back to the Greeks and to the Romans, and to the early Venetians, and finding small sheets of paper describing some event, call them Newspapers. Without the definition, we must go floundering about in the mists of an obscure antiquity to decide that which is sufficiently clear and certain, when we understand

"The Trial of Edward Coleman, gent., for conspiring the death of the King &c. London printed for R. Pawlet, at the Bible in Chancery Lane, near Fleet Street, 1678." quoted in Howell's State Trials, Vol. I. p. 7.