publications in those diurnals, as they call them. The London Gazette commenced Nov. 7, 1665. It was at first called the Oxford Gazette, from its being printed there during a session of parliament held there on account of the last plague. Antecedent to this period, Sir R. L'Estrange published the first daily newspaper in England.

From the following passage in Tacitus, it appears that somewhat like newspapers were circulated in the Roman state: "Diurna populi Romani, per provincias, per exercitus, curatius leguntur, ut noscatur quid Thrasea non fecerit."

In a note of Mr. Murphy's excellent translation of Tacitus, he laments that none of these diurnals, or newspapers, as he calls them, had been preserved, as they would cast great light upon the private life and manners of the Romans.

With the Long Parliament originated appeals to the people, by accounts of their proceedings. These appeared periodically, from the first of them, called " Diurnal Occurrences of Parliament," Nov. 3, 1641, to the Restoration.

These were somewhat like our Magazines, and they were generally called "Mercuries; as Mercurius Politicus, Mercurius Rusticus; and one of them, in 1644, appears under the odd title of Mercurius Fumigosus, or the Smoking Nocturnal."

The number of these publications appears, from a list in an accurate, new, and valuable piece of biography, from 1641 to 1660, to have been 156.

These publications of parliamentary proceedings were interdicted after the Restoration, as appears from a debate in Grey's Collection, March 24, 1681; in consequence of which, the votes of the House of Commons were first printed by authority of parliament.

From the first regular paper, the above-mentioned Public Intelligencer, commencing Aug. 31, 1661, there were, to 1688, with the Gazette, which continued regularly, as at present, from Nov. 7, 1665, seventy papers, some of a short, and others of a longer duration.

The first daily paper, after the Revolution, was called "The Orange Intelligencer;" and thence to 1692 there were twenty-six newspapers.

From an advertisement in a weekly paper, called "The Athenian Gazette," Feb. 8, 1696, it appears, that the coffeehouses in London had then, exclusive of votes of parliament, nine newspapers every week; but there seems not to have been in 1696 one daily newspaper.

In the reign of Queen Anne, there were, in 1709, eighteen newspapers published; of which, however, only one was a daily paper, The London Courant.

In the reign of George I. in 1724, there were published three daily, six weekly, and ten evening papers three times a week.

In the late reign there were published of newspapers in London, and in all England, in 1753

1760

And in the present reign, in 1790

1791
1792

7,411,757

9,464,790

14,035,639

14,794,153

*15,005,760

Though Venice produced the first Gazette in 1536, it was circulated in manuscript long after the invention of printing, to the close of the 16th century, as appears from a collection of these Gazettes in the Magliabechiau library at Florence, according to Mr. Chalmers, in his curious and entertaining Life of Ruddiman, p. 114.

Mr. Chalmers observes, that it may gratify our national pride to be told that we owe to the wisdom of Elizabeth, and the prudence of Burleigh, the circulation of the first genuine newspaper, "The English Mercurie," printed during the time of the Spanish armada. The first number, preserved still in the British Museum, is marked 50; it is dated the 23d of July, 1588, and contains the following curious article:

"Yesterday the Scotch Ambassador had a private audience of her Majesty, and delivered a letter from the King

In 1814, the number of London papers nearly agreed with the above statement; that of the Country papers had increased; viz. in England 102; in Ireland 37; and in Scotland 24. E.]

his master, containing the most cordial assurances of adhering to her majesty's interests, and to those of the Protestant religion and the young king said to her majesty's minister at his court, that all the favour he expected from the Spaniards was, the courtesy of Polyphemus to Ulysses, that he should be devoured the last."

The publications were however then, and long after, published in the shape of small pamphlets; and so they were called in a tract of one Burton, in 1614: "If any one read now-a-days, it is a play-book or a phamphlet of newes," for so the word was originally spelled.

From 1588 to 1622, and during the pacific reign of James the First, few of these publications appeared; but the thirty years' war, and the victories of the great King Gustavus Adolphus, having excited the curiosity of our countrymen, a weekly paper, called "The Newes of the present Week," was printed by Nathaniel Butler, in 1622, which was continued afterwards in 1626, under another title, by Mercu rius Britannicus; and they were succeeded by the German Intelligencer in 1630, and the Swedish Intelligencer in 1631, which last was compiled by William Watts, of Caius college, who was a learned man, and who thus gratified the public curiosity with the exploits of the Swedish hero, in a quarto pamphlet.

The great rebellion in 1641, was productive of abundance of those periodical tracts above-mentioned, as well as of all those that have been published since the first newspaper that appeared in the present form, the Public Intelligencer, published by Sir Roger L'Estrange, Aug. 31, 1661.

Mr. Chalmers subjoins to these curious researches, the account of the first paper printed in Scotland, in February, 1699, the Edinburgh Gazette, which was accompanied afterwards, in 1705, by the Edinburgh Courant; and, at the period of the Union, Scotland had only three newspapers.

The publication of the Caledonian Mercury, by Ruddiman, April 28, 1720, led this curious and entertaining biographer to this minute and laborious investigation; from which it appears, that England had in 1792, thirty-three town, and seventy country papers; Scotland, fourteen newspapers, published at Edinburgh and in the country.

1794, Jan.

XCIII. Curious Chirurgical Operation.

MR. URBAN,

A FRIEND has transmitted to me from the East Indies, the following very curious, and, in Europe, I believe, unknown chirurgical operation, which has long been practised in India with success; namely, affixing a new nose on a man's face.

Cowasjee, a Mahratta of the cast of husbandmen, was a bullock-driver with the English army, in the war of 1792, and was made a prisoner by Tippoo, who cut off his nose, and one of his hands. In this state he joined the Bombay army near Seringapatam, and is now a pensioner of the Honourable East India Company. For above twelve months he remained without a nose, when he had a new one put on by a man of the brickmaker cast, near Poonah. This operation is not uncommon in India, and has been practised from time immemorial. Two of the medical gentlemen, Mr. Thomas Cruso, and Mr. James Trindlay, of the Bombay presidency, have seen it performed, as follows:-A thin plate of wax is fitted to the stump of the nose, so as to make a nose of a good appearance. It is then flattened, and laid on the forehead. A line is drawn round the wax, and the operator then dissects off as much skin as it covered, leaving undivided a small slip between the eyes. This slip preserves the circulation till an union has taken place between the new and old parts. The cicatrix of the stump of the nose is next pared off, and immediately behind this raw part an incision is made through the skin, which passes around both ala, and goes along the upper lip. The skin is now brought down from the forehead, and, being twisted half round, its edge is inserted into this incision, so that a nose is formed with a double hold above, and with its ale and septum below fixed in the incision. A little Terra Japonica is softened with water, and being spread on slips of cloth, five or six of these are placed over each other, to secure the joining. No other dressing but this cement is used for four days. It is then removed, and cloths dipped in ghee (a kind of butter) are applied. The connecting slips of skin are divided about the 25th day, when a little more dissection is necessary to improve the appearance of the new nose. For five or six days after the operation, the patient is made to lie on his back; and, on the tenth day, bits of soft cloth are put into the nos

trils, to keep them sufficiently open. This operation is very generally successful. The artificial nose is secure, and looks nearly as well as the natural one; nor is the scar on the forehead very observable after a length of time.

1794, Oct.

Yours, &c.

B. L.

XCIV. The word PREMISES improperly applied.
MR. URBAN,

I HAVE noted in different publications, and frequently
in your Magazine, that the word premises is used to signify
6 house and land with their appendages.' Dr. Harwood,
amongst others, speaking of Hackney college, in your Ma-
gazine for May, 1793, says, "a gentleman offered 8000l. for
the premises," meaning the building with the ground, &c.
Bailey, Sheridan, Entick, and others, in their dictionaries,
give it this signification; and in every day's newspapers
are advertisements of premises to be sold, and of sales upon the
premises. This perversion of the word, I am apt to think,
originated with the lawyers, and in this way-every grant
or conveyance of lands necessarily consists of two parts, the
premises and the habendum. In the premises the parties are
described, the instruments necessary to shew the granter's
title are recited, the consideration upon which the deed is
made is set forth; and, lastly, the property granted is spe-
cified, all by way of preface or introduction to the second
part, or habendum, which shews the estate or interest the
granter is to have in the things granted; here then clearly
appears the true legal import of the word, and, in this use of
it, it retains its original and proper meaning; but in the
covenants which follow the habendum, where it becomes ne-
cessary again to make mention of the property granted, if it
happens to consist of various particulars, the lawyers, for
brevity (to which by the by they are not much attached),
have accustomed themselves to write "the aforesaid pre-
mises," or "the premises before mentioned," and, from the
frequency of these phrases, the word premises is universally
taken as a collective noun, signifying manors, messuages,
lands, tenements, woods, and so on, the absurdity of which I
think may be clearly pointed out by putting it for horses,
cows, sheep, swine, household goods, bank stock, exchequer bills,
or any thing, in short, which may be the object of the deed,