the purpose of Insurance from Fire, which from its badge assumed the denomination of Sun Fire Office, and is still subsisting in a flourishing state. One of the managing Directors, if my information does not mislead me, was a man named Povey, who, by the way, was a great improver of that useful project, the penny post, and who died within my memory. Having a scheming head, a plausible tongue, and a ready pen, he prevailed on his fellow-members to undertake the above publication, foreign as it was to the nature of their institution.

Mr. Stewart says:-Mr. Povey, in order to bring the office into prominence, published quarterly a periodical called The Historical Register, which contained varied and interesting continental and home news, with tables of mortality, a chronological diary of births, marriages, deaths, removals, promotions, etc., that happened during the year, and a list of all the claims settled by the Company during each quarter. No such list was ever given.

In a letter from Bookworm in Newspaper Press, 1 Dec., 1866, in which he gave particulars of No. 13 of Historical Register, he says, Povey— the Father of the Historical Register-knew the value of publicity.

These statements are not borne out by the facts recorded in the preceding History.

We have seen that the intention to change the Mercury into a Quarterly Book was announced on 2 May, 1716. No. 2 of the Historical Register was published speedily after 26 June, but we have no clue to the exact date of publication of No. I. It contained the Register of Affairs for the first three months of the year. The title of the work was :

The

Historical Register,

containing an

Impartial Relation

of all

Transactions,

Foreign and Domestick,

published at the Expense of the Sun Fire Office.

It was printed by H. Meere in Black Fryers, and afterwards in the Old Baily near Ludgate until his death, in 1723; then by his Widow C. (Cassandra) till 1725, and then by different printers during the remainder of its existence.

It is said that 4,500 copies of No. I were printed.

Nos. 1 and 2 of vol. i. contained, as promised, Introductions, explanatory of the reasons why the character of the paper had been changed.

A few extracts will suffice.

The Company of the Sun Fire Office having resolved to give their Subscribers for the future a Quarterly Book instead of their weekly Newspaper think themselves obliged to declare their reasons for making this alteration. Their chief inducement

was the request of many of their Subscribers, who represented to them that the great and still increasing number of newspapers that are published every day had spoiled the design of Weekly Intelligences and rendered them of little or no use or value; and that therefore they would do well to bethink themselves of some other method to oblige their Subscribers with such an account of all publick transactions as well Foreign as Domestick as might be of solid and lasting use to the Families of those that have insured in their Office. Upon which the Company taking this proposal into consideration and being convinced of the reasonableness of it resolved to comply with the desire of their Subscribers and after several deliberations on the matter came at length to a resolution of pursuing the proposed method of a Quarterly Book

This Quarterly Book shall not, like the common newspapers, be crammed with the hopes or fears or surmises of parties, etc.

We pretend no longer to give our Subscribers a paper of news (false news for newspapers and lies are synonymous terms).

It remains to give some reason why the Company has resolved to take so long a time as from 3 months to 3 months for the publication of each Book.. They took this resolution, being convinced by experience from Books of this nature that come out monthly, whose subsequent accounts frequently contradict the preceding, that a less time would not be sufficient to give an authentic account of affairs.

Besides, to make this Book still the more valuable, 'tis printed on a much better paper than any other of the like sort that has hitherto been published, so that our subscribers can have no colour to complain of the change.

With each number was published a Chronological Diary or Register. Wheatley, London Past and Present, says that the Office gave the Register to save their Subscribers the expense of taking in a newspaper. Does not this remark rather apply to the British Mercury?

Under date 1720, Walford, Cyclo., iii. 476, after giving copy of an advertisement dated 9 July, 1720, in which it was stated that a Book entitled the Historical Register was given to Subscribers, added—

In previous announcements the Company had referred to a paper called the British Mercury, which they appear to have changed for the new publication.

He further states that the Office had this year discontinued issuing Povey's paper, the British Mercury.

Walford does not seem to have been aware that the change was made in 1716, nor that Povey had no connection with the Mercury.

The Historical Register is well known to Antiquarians, and has long been considered an important authority for the history of the times, and is inseparably connected with the history of the Sun Fire Office. In the year 1724, two volumes were published under the title of

The Historical Register,

containing an impartial relation of all transactions

that

happened during the first seventeen months of the reign of King George (1714-1716).

London: Printed and sold by C. Meere, in the Old Baily.

It was stated that the work had been compiled by the same person as compiled the thirty-three Registers (ie. to vol. ix., part I. inclusive) already published.

Timperley adds:

With these introductory volumes the Historical Register forms a Chronicle of the Affairs of this and other Countries of Europe from the accession of the House of Hanover. The compilers, to use their own words, confine themselves to mere "matters of fact without making any descant thereon either of commendation or reprehension."

Hunt in his History of 4th Estate, only alludes to a publication called Historical Register, as publishing Debates from the accession of George I. till 1737, when it was taken up by Cave of the Gentleman's Magazine.

After the Chronological Diary was separately paged and had a separate title page, the notices thereon as to printer's name and at whose expense it was published, are not to be relied on.

The connection of the Office with the Historical Register ceased so far as responsibility was concerned (pecuniarily or otherwise) at Lady Day 172 but it appears that from the year 1726 to 1736, copies were allowed to be sold at the Office.

We may note, in passing that

Vol. ix. for 1724, was sold by, amongst others,

J. MacEuen, at Buchanan's Head, over against St. Clement's
Church, in the Strand, and at his shop in Edinburgh.

James MacEuen in 1718 was "Stationer Burgess," of Edinburgh to whom the Town Council assigned the privilege of publishing the Edinburgh Evening Courant, "the said James being obliged before publication to give ane copy of his print to the Magistrates."

Vol. xi. for 1726, sold by

and D. Browne, without Temple Bar. Daniel Browne was one of the Booksellers who contributed to the fund to publish the Lexicon Technicum, or Historical English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, by John Harris, who died in September, 1719. He was one of the earliest Booksellers to publish a Catalogue of Curious Books, etc. was the Black Swan, without Temple Bar.

His place of business

Timperley says, that about 1737 the work began to appear in The change was probably a dying effort, as the

monthly numbers.

volume for 1738 was, we believe, the last that appeared.

Vol. for 1737.

The motto on title page was

Quicquid agunt homines. Juv. Sat. 1.

Chronological Diary no longer paged separately.
The character of the work was changed.

Printed in double columns it contained
Weekly Essays.

Ode for New Year, by Colley Cibber. Criticised by
Grub Street Journal.

Ode for New Year, published at Dublin.
Essays from other Journals,

and the work was almost entirely devoted to English affairs.

In the early part of the year the paper was published monthly, and was not paged consecutively.

Vol. for 1738, the last published.

Printed in double columns, chiefly English affairs and fictitious correspondence.

It is remarkable that in two cases in the Historical Register Diary it is mentioned that the Gentlemen whose deaths were recorded, were Directors of the London Assurance Corporation, yet it is never stated in connection with any who belonged to the Sun that they were Acting Members thereof.

Nor in the records of Fires in the various volumes is any allusion ever made to the fact that the property burnt was insured, although it is sometimes reported that the Firemen (or Watermen) of the Sun Fire Office attended.

In concluding this chapter we may notice that Timperley, under date 1724, in a List of Printing Houses in London, classed according to their supposed political principles, placed

M. Jenour, Giltspur Street, Printer of Flying Post, as well affected to King George.

whilst

C. (ie. Cassandra) Meere, of Old Baily, printer of Daily Post, and
British Journal was classed as a High Flyer.

By this designation we are to understand persons and papers who apparently sided with the Stuarts, and who were opposed to the Revolution of 1688 and William III.

Doubtless Hugh Meere, had he then been living, would have appeared in this class instead of his widow.

CHAPTER IV.

PROPOSALS, CONDITIONS, AND PRACTICE

of

FIRE INSURANCE.

O evidence exists that any document of the character of prospectus, proposals or conditions of Insurance was ever issued by Dr. Barbon.

We have fully recorded all the information we possess respecting such documents published by the Fire or Phanix Office and the Friendly Society. The Breviate of the latter appears to be the first attempt to formulate Rules, Regulations and Conditions.

The original proposals of the Hand in Hand together with the provisions of their Deed of Settlement, embrace some of the ordinary Conditions of Insurance.

The Deed of Settlement of the Fire Insurance Branch of the Charitable Corporation, designated by Walford, the Lombard House Office, contains the Regulations and Conditions on which the business was to be conducted. These are more elaborate than those in the Breviate of the Friendly Society.

The proposals above referred to, as also those of Offices established between 1714 and 1730, have been noticed under the headings of the respective Companies.

That the Exchange House Fire Office had issued proposals we learn from the Salvage Corps Scheme of Povey (see p. 265), but we have no knowledge of the nature thereof, though we suspect that they were somewhat similar to those adopted by the Company of London Insurers in 1710.

Walford, says (Cyclo., iii. 407)—

"In the early days of Fire Insurance, and indeed up to about the commencement of the present century, the conditions on which the business was conducted were not printed on the policy, but were embodied in the 'proposals' which were from time to time issued by the Office, and which were analogous in most respects to our modern