This work is incomplete, even in the face of this array of names. It is, indeed, only an outline of a History of Journalism, to aid, so far as it may, a future Hume, or a Thiers, or a Macaulay, or a Prescott. When the indefatigable Dr. Coggswell collected the books which now form the magnificent Astor Library in New York, his effort and purpose was to have every department of literature, art, history, science, religion, as perfect and as complete as human wisdom, unlimited means, and unflagging industry could make them. When he came to Ethnology, a knowledge 'of which was not so widespread then in this country as it is now, he succeeded in purchasing fifty-nine works, by fifty-nine different authors, on this interesting science. On carefully consulting the foot-notes of these volumes, he discovered, much to his joy, that he had obtained all but two of all the works on this subject that had been written to that time. Now, with the list of authorities which we here give, it strikes us that we have been nearly as fortunate on the Press as Dr. Coggswell was on the human race, although we may not make the same good use of them as he has done with his. He placed his on his shelves. We have put ours in a book. If editors, finding errors and omissions in this work, will send their corrections and additions to the compiler, at the office of the publisher, he will either make use of the new data in another edition, or reserve them for the Thiers or the Macaulay of the Press, when he appears and is prepared for work. In a republic where the newspaper is so imperial an element, a complete history of its rise and progress should not be omitted in the catalogue of the literature of the nation. In this view, journalists will bear in mind that anecdotes and incidents of newspaper offices, newspaper men, and newspaper enterprise are, in a work of this sort, like the etchings and illustrations of Darley, and Doré, and Leach, and Nast, and M'Lenan to other historical and social sketches. They should be rescued from oblivion and private note-books. They are the lights and shades, the wit and philosophy of the editorial sanctums, the printing-offices, and press-rooms of the land. THE EPOCHS OF JOURNALISM. Often what is of the most importance to us in our daily life receives the least notice. Thousands living in a metropolis never visit its wonders. Hundreds never go beyond their native town. No one looks at the telegraph wires strung along our streets and railroads with any thought of the mighty power of the thin thread of galvanized iron which now runs from pole to pole on our thoroughfares, and soon, indeed, to stretch from pole to pole on our planet. Telegrams are transmitted every second from the most distant points of the world without our special wonder. Newspapers are daily read by millions at their breakfast tables, in the railway cars, at the counting-room, and thrown aside as soon as read, without apparent thought of the medium through which the affairs of the world, the events of the day, the gossip of the hour are conveyed to their minds, forming their opinions, leading them to fame and fortune, saving them from disaster, and governing their actions. But as the polyp of the sea industriously and unceasingly works in building up the coral reefs and beds into islands and peninsulas, so does the journalist slowly and surely work on the minds of the world, producing heroes and statesmen, navigators and merchants, mechanics and philosophers. Those who use the telegraph Epochs of Journalism. xxvii condemn the unsightly poles that stand like sentinels along our sidewalks. Those most influenced by the Press heap upon it the most abuse in public. Yet the newspaper is the most appreciated of all human productions. Small matters sometimes indicate great facts. No public dinner is given in honor of a military hero, or of an inventor, or of a statesman, or of a novelist, that "the Press" is not a regular toast. This is seen on every programme at every banquet. It is a stereotyped acknowledgment of the power and influence of the newspaper. On such occasions, too, is not the accomplished stenographer the most important listener to the efforts of the orators in their estimation? Is he not the ear of the Great Public? Such an institution as the newspaper is, in this view, an important one. Its origin, and its intellectual and material development and progress, can not be otherwise than interesting. It has its epochs with those of peoples and nations. Acting as the historical photographer of national acts, it forms a necessary part of national government, of national machinery, indeed, of national existence. These journalistic periods, or epochs, are thus indicated in the history of North America: First.-The first American newspapers-1690-1704. Second.-The Colonial Press-1704-1755. Third.-The Revolutionary Press-1755-1783. Fourth.-The Political Party Press, the Religious Press, the Agricultural Press, the Sporting Press, the Commercial Press-1783-1833. Fifth.-The Transition Press, the Cheap Press-1833-1835. man. Six periods of marvelous intellectual development and enterprise in the United States. All kinds of newspapers, with all sorts of characteristics, are embraced in these epochs. We find every interest with its organ-each its circle, like the oak; its strata, like the earth; its policy, like the political party; its cycle, like the sun. We look through the lens of the camera obscura for a perfect image of Do we get it? We look through the newspaper, as the camera obscura of the world, for a perfect idea of all time, past and present. Are we as successful? But who does not look upon an old newspaper as upon an old picture? We appreciate a Michael Angelo or a Rubens, and hang it up in our Art Gallery or Academy of Design. We read with peculiar interest a Boston News-Letter of 1704, or a New York Gazette of 1725, and file away the treasure in the Astor Library or the Athenæum. THE FIRST NEWSPAPERS. THE PROOF-SHEET.-THE NEWS CIRCULAR.-THE NEWSPAPER.-THE PROSPECTUS. THE OFFICIAL ORGAN.-THE JOURNAL.-THE Advertisement.— THE PENNY PRESS.-THE NEWS-BOY. There is an excellent painting by Hillemacher hanging up in the house of some one, representing the atelier of John Gutenburg, in Mayence, where he is showing the first proof-sheet to John Faust. It is a very suggestive picture. It represents Gutenburg, in the year 1441, in his small work-cap, handing the impression to the man of dollars of that ancient town, so famous for its Rhenish wine, to induce him to join in the business of printing by investing some of his capital therein. It is a scene of a simple business transaction. Faust appears inspecting the proof-sheet with curious wonder, very much as Cornelius Vanderbilt would look at the first steam-engine, or Cave Johnson or Amos Kendall at the first telegraph instrument, without, perhaps, a thought beyond the moment or the pocketwithout an idea of the revolution it was destined to create. The apprentice, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up, and one hand resting on a small, rude press, stops work to see the effect the sheet produces on Faust, whose name, from that day, is to be linked with that of Koster, Gutenburg, and Schaeffer in all the printing-offices, schoolhouses, book-stores, libraries, and press-rooms of the world throughout all time. If the picture of Harvey demonstrating the circulation of blood to Charles the First; if that of Luther and the first Reformers presenting the famous protest to the Diet at Spires; if that of signing the compact in the cabin of the Mayflower are great historical scenes, this unpretending painting, in its bits of light and shade, must far surpass them in interest, as representing the introduction of an art which was to preserve all arts, and which was to elevate the human race, and spread intelligence, education, the Bible, the almanac, and the newspaper throughout the world. It is not a little singular that this "art preservative of all arts" should have failed in transmitting to succeeding generations a more accurate and reliable account of its own origin than we have in our records. Much that we do know comes to us, after all, through tradition, and is exceedingly misty and opaque, and many of the legal documents affecting Gutenburg's claims, sad to say, were destroyed in 1870 at Strasburg by the Prussians. It is only till lately that we have become even satisfied of the origin of newspaperswhere the first one was printed, and when it was issued. These interesting facts have been almost as much in doubt as the birthplace of Homer, or the name of the first Northman that landed on the Early News-Letters. xxix shores of North America, or of the inventor of lucifer matches, or the authorship of Junius, or of the name of the inventor of bronze. It is not our intention to go back to the times anterior to the introduction of printing in Europe in 1438-40. Journalists undoubtedly first made their appearance in Rome. The Acta Diurna, in manuscript, of course, gave accounts of fires, executions, and remarkable hail-storms. There were bankruptcies then, as now, which were noticed; and the Roman Tribune had its House, and its Winter, and its Wilkins to criticise public plays, and its Jenkins to describe the fêtes of that happy period. But this is enough of the Diurna. We start with printing-ink and metal types in Europe, and not with the writing-fluid of Rome or the wooden types of the Celestials. Out of all these enterprises, however, and out of the desire of mankind to hear the gossip and news of the day, sprung the modern newspaper, with its annually increasing perfection. News was distributed, before the era of newspapers, by news-letters and news circulars, written in Venice, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Amsterdam, Cologne, Frankfort, Leipsic, Paris, London, and Boston, as it had previously been done in Rome by paid letter-writers in those news centres, and sent to their principals in other places; not unlike the correspondence from London, or Canton, or Washington at the present time, by the bankers, merchants, and editors of Boston, or New York, or Chicago, or Cincinnati. There is evidence of their being circulated in Venice in 1536, a century after Koster introduced his rude style of type and ink. There are thirty volumes of these news-letters preserved in the Magliabecchi Library in Florence. Some, we believe, are filed away in the British Museum. The news circulars of Augsburg were started towards the close of the sixteenth century. There appeared the Ordinari Zeittunger and the Extraordinari Zeittunger. There is a collection of these journals from 1568 to 1604 in the Vienna Library. They were issued by the mercantile house of the Messrs. Függer, who had agents scattered every where-merchants and traders well posted on the current events of the day. Nine of John Campbell's news-letters, written in Boston in 1703, the year before he resorted to the printingpress, have lately been added to the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. These news-letters were, of course, the pioneers of the newspapers of the world. Encyclopædists have given the credit to Queen Elizabeth and Lord Burleigh, whose shake of the head was such authority, for the first printed newspaper. It had been claimed that the British Museum had a copy of the earliest paper in its collection. It was called the English Mercurie, and printed July 23, 1588; but it has been shown that this copy, like specimens of rare old coins, was |