Chapter IV: Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman (15)

After the Mazarine Bible, "then follows the Kalendar for the
year 1457, most probably printed at the end of 1456. Then
again the printed dates, August 14, 1457 and 1459, with place
(Mentz) in the colophons of the Psalter issued by Fust and
Schoeffer; the printed year 1460 (with Mentz added) in the
Catholicon [a Latin Grammar and Dictionary]. &c. &c. So that,
with the exception of 1458, there is no interruption in Mentz
printing from the moment that we see it begin there. As
regards the printed psalter, its printers are mentioned
distinctly in the book itself; but the other books just
mentioned are assumed to have been issued by the same two
Mentz printing-offices which are supposed to be already at
work there in 1454, though the 1460 Catholicon and some of the
other works are ascribed by some to other printers. By the
side of these dates, we find already a Bible completed in 1460
by Mentelin at Strassburg, according to a MS. note in the copy
preserved at Freiburg. … Assuming then, for a moment, that
Mentz is the starting-point, we see printing spread to
Strassburg in 1460; to Bamberg in 1461; to Subiaco in 1465; in
1466 (perhaps already in 1463) it is established at Cologne;
in 1467 at Eltville, Rome; in 1468 at Augsburg, Basle,
Marienthal; in 1469 at Venice; 1470 at Nuremberg, Verona,
Foligno, Trevi, Savigliano, Paris; 1471 at Spire, Bologna,
Ferrara, Florence, Milan, Naples, Pavia, Treviso; 1472 at
Esslingen, Cremona, Mantua, Padua, Parma, Monreale, Fivizano,
Verona; 1473 at Laugingen, Ulm (perhaps here earlier),
Merseburg, Alost, Utrecht, Lyons, Brescia, Messina; 1474 at
Louvain, Genoa, Como, Savona, Turin, Vicenza; 1475 at Lubeck,
Breslau, Blaubeuren, Burgdorf, Modena, Reggio, Cagli, Caselle
or Casale, Saragossa; 1476 at Rostock, Bruges (here earlier?),
Brussels; 1477 at Reichenstein, Deventer, Gouda, Delft,
Westminster; 1478 at Oxford, St. Maartensdyk, Colle,
Schussenried, Eichstadt; 1479 at Erfurt, Würzburg, Nymegen,
Zwolle, Poitiers; 1480 at London [?], Oudenaarde, Hasselt,
Reggio; 1481 at Passau, Leipzig, Magdeburg, Treves, Urach;
1482 at Reutlingen, Memmingen, Metz, Antwerp; 1483 at Leiden,
Kuilenburg, Ghent, Haarlem; 1484 at Bois-le–Duc, Siena; 1485
at Heidelberg, Regensburg; 1486 at Munster, Stuttgart; 1487 at
Ingolstadt; 1488 at Stendal; 1489 at Hagenau, &c."

_J. H. Hessels,
Haarlem the Birth-place of Printing, not Mentz,
chapter 4._

PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1469-1515.
The early Venetian printers.
The Aldine Press.

"One of the famous first race of German printers, John of
Spires, arrived at Venice in the year 1469, and immediately
brought his art into full play; producing within the first
three months his fine edition of the 'Letters of Cicero.' a
masterpiece of early printing. … The success of John of Spires
as a printer was at once recognized by the Venetian Republic;
and Pasquale Malipiero, the reigning Doge, granted a patent
conferring upon him the sole right of printing books within
the territory of Venice. … But the enterprising printer did
not live to enjoy the privilege," and it was not continued to
any of his family, "On the withdrawal of the monopoly several
new printers set up their Presses in the city, among whom was
the celebrated Jenson, the ingenious Frenchman who was sent by
Charles VII. to acquire the art at Mayence. … John Emeric, of
Udenheim, was another of the German printers who immediately
succeeded John and Vindelin of Spires; and still more
successful, though somewhat later, in the field, was Erard
Ratdolt. … He [Ratdolt] is said to have been the first to
adopt a regular form of Title at all approaching our modern
conception of a Book-Title; and he also took the lead in the
production of those beautifully-engraved initials for which
the books printed in Italy towards the close of the 15th
century are famous. His most splendid work is undoubtedly the
'Elements of Euclid, with the Commentaries of Campanus.' …
Nicholas Jenson was the most renowned of those who followed
the earliest German printers in Venice, until his works were
partially eclipsed by those of the Aldi. … In 1470 he [Jenson]
had … completed his preparations, and the first four works
which issued from his Venetian press appeared in that year. …
These works were printed with Roman characters of his own
engraving, more perfect in form than those of any previous
printer. His types are in fact the direct parents of the
letters now in general use, which only differ from them in
certain small details dependent solely on fashion. … This
celebrated printer died in September of the year 1481. …
Andrea Torresani and others continued Jenson's Association,
making use of the same types. Torresani was eventually
succeeded in the same establishment by the celebrated Aldo
Manuccio, who, having married his daughter, adopted the
important vocation of printer, and became the first of those
famous 'Aldi,' as they are commonly termed, whose fame has not
only absorbed that of all the earlier Venetian printers, but
that of the early printers of every other Italian seat of the
art. … It was Manuccio who, among many other advances in this
art, first invented the semi-cursive style of character now
known as 'Italic'; and it is said that it was founded upon a
close imitation of the careful handwriting of Petrarch, which,
in fact, it closely resembles. This new type was used for a
small octavo edition of 'Virgil,' issued in 1501, on the
appearance of which he obtained from Pope Leo X. a letter of
privilege, entitling him to the sole use of the new type which
he had invented." The list of the productions of the elder
Aldus and his son Paul "comprises nearly all the great works
of antiquity, and of the best Italian authors of their own
time. From their learning and general accomplishments, the
Aldi might have occupied a brilliant position as scholars and
authors, but preferred the useful labour of giving correctly
to the world the valuable works of others. The Greek editions
of the elder Aldus form the basis of his true glory,
especially the 'Aristotle,' printed in 1405, a work of almost
inconceivable labour and perseverance."

_H. N. Humphreys,
History of the Art of Printing,
chapter 8._

{2590}

"Aldus and his studio and all his precious manuscripts
disappeared during the troubled years of the great Continental
war in which all the world was against Venice [see VENICE: A.
D. 1508-1500]. In 1510, 1511, and 1512, scarcely any book
proceeded from his press. … After the war Aldus returned to
his work with renewed fervour. 'It is difficult,' says
Renouard, 'to form an idea of the passion with which he
devoted himself to the reproduction of the great works of
ancient literature. If he heard of the existence anywhere of a
manuscript unpublished, or which could throw a light upon an
existing text, he never rested till he had it in his
possession. He did not shrink from long journeys, great
expenditure, applications of all kinds.' … It is not in this
way however that the publisher, that much questioned and
severely criticised middleman, makes a fortune. And Aldus died
poor. His privileges did not stand him in much stead,
copyright, especially when not in books but in new forms of
type, being non-existent in his day. In France and Germany,
and still nearer home, his beautiful Italic was robbed from
him, copied on all sides, notwithstanding the protection
granted by the Pope and other princes as well as by the
Venetian Signoria. His fine editions were printed from, and
made the foundation of foreign issues which replaced his own.
How far his princely patrons stood by him to repair his losses
there seems no information. His father-in-law, Andrea of
Asola, a printer who was not so fine a scholar, but perhaps
more able to cope with the world, did come to his aid, and his
son Paolo Manutio, and his grandson Aldo il Giovane, as he is
called, succeeded him in turn."

_Mrs. Oliphant,
The Makers of Venice,
part 4, chapter 3._

Aldus died in 1515. His son Paul left Venice for Rome in 1562.

PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1476-1491.
Introduction in England.
The Caxton Press.

"It was probably at the press of Colard Mansion, in a little
room over the porch of St. Donat's at Bruges, that William
Caxton learned the art which he was the first to introduce
into England. A Kentish boy by birth, but apprenticed to a
London mercer, Caxton had already spent thirty years of his
manhood in Flanders as Governor of the English gild of
Merchant Adventurers there, when we find him engaged as
copyist in the service of Edward's sister, Duchess Margaret of
Burgundy. But the tedious process of copying was soon thrown
aside for the new art which Colard Mansion had introduced into
Bruges. … The printing-press was the precious freight he
brought back to England in 1476 after an absence of
five-and-thirty years. Through the next fifteen, at an age
when other men look for ease and retirement, we see him
plunging with characteristic energy into his new occupation.
His 'red pale' or heraldic shield marked with a red bar down
the middle invited buyers to the press he established in the
Almonry at Westminster, a little enclosure containing a chapel
and almshouses near the west front of the church, where the
alms of the abbey were distributed to the poor. … Caxton was a
practical man of business, … no rival of the Venetian Aldi or
of the classical printers of Rome, but resolved to get a
living from his trade, supplying priests with service books
and preachers with sermons, furnishing the clerk with his
'Golden Legend' and knight and baron with 'joyous and pleasant
histories of chivalry.' But while careful to win his daily
bread, he found time to do much for what of higher literature
lay fairly to hand. He printed all the English poetry of any
moment which was then in existence. His reverence for that
'worshipful man, Geoffrey Chaucer,' who 'ought to be eternally
remembered,' is shown not merely by his edition of the
'Canterbury Tales,' but by his reprint of them when a purer
text of the poem offered itself. The poems of Lydgate and
Gower were added to those of Chaucer. The Chronicle of Brut
and Higden's 'Polychronicon' were the only available works of
an historical character then existing in the English tongue,
and Caxton not only printed them but himself continued the
latter up to his own time. A translation of Boethius, a
version of the Eneid from the French, and a tract or two of
Cicero, were the stray first-fruits of the classical press in
England. Busy as was Caxton's printing-press, he was even
busier as a translator than as a printer. More than four
thousand of his printed pages are from works of his own
rendering. The need of these translations shows the popular
drift of literature at the time; but keen as the demand seems
to have been, there is nothing mechanical in the temper with
which Caxton prepared to meet it. A natural, simple-hearted
taste and enthusiasm, especially for the style and forms of
language, breaks out in his curious prefaces. … But the work
of translation involved a choice of English which made
Caxton's work important in the history of our language. He
stood between two schools of translation, that of French
affectation and English pedantry. It was a moment when the
character of our literary tongue was being settled, and it is
curious to see in his own words the struggle over it which was
going on in Caxton's time. 'Some honest and great clerks have
been with me and desired me to write the most curious terms
that I could find;' on the other hand, 'some gentlemen of late
blamed me, saying that in my translations I had over many
curious terms which could not be understood of common people,
and desired me to use old and homely terms in my
translations.' 'Fain would I please every man,' comments the
good-humoured printer, but his sturdy sense saved him alike
from the temptations of the court and the schools. His own
taste pointed to English, but 'to the common terms that be
daily used' rather than to the English of his antiquarian
advisers. 'I took an old book and read therein, and certainly
the English was so rude and broad I could not well understand
it,' while the Old-English charters which the Abbot of
Westminster lent as models from the archives of his house
seemed 'more like to Dutch than to English.' To adopt current
phraseology however was by no means easy at a time when even
the speech of common talk was in a state of rapid flux. …
Coupling this with his long absence in Flanders we can hardly
wonder at the confession he makes over his first translation,
that 'when all these things came to fore me, after that I had
made and written a five or six quires, I fell in despair of
this work, and purposed never to have continued therein, and
the quires laid apart, and in two years after laboured no more
in this work.' He was still however busy translating when he
died [in 1491].
{2591}
All difficulties in fact were lightened by the general
interest which his labours aroused. When the length of the
'Golden Legend' makes him 'half desperate to have accomplished
it' and ready to 'lay it apart,' the Earl of Arundel solicits
him in no wise to leave it and promises a yearly fee of a buck
in summer and a doc in winter, once it were done. 'Many noble
and divers gentle men of this realm came and demanded many and
often times wherefore I have not made and imprinted the noble
history of the San Graal.' … Caxton profited in fact by the
wide literary interest which was a mark of the time."

_J. R. Green,
History of the English People,
book 5, chapter 1 (volume 2)._

"Contemporary with Caxton were the printers Lettou and
Machlinia, … who carried on business in the city of London,
where they established a press in 1480. Machlinia had
previously worked under Caxton. … Wynkyn de Worde … in all
probability … was one of Caxton's assistants or workmen, when
the latter was living at Bruges, but without doubt he was
employed in his office at Westminster until 1491, when he
commenced business on his own account, having in his
possession a considerable quantity of Caxton's type. Wynkyn de
Worde, who was one of the founders of the Stationers' Company,
died in 1534, after having printed no less than 410 books
known to bibliographers, the earliest of which bearing a date
is the 'Liber Festivalis,' 4to, 1493."

_J. H. Slater,
Book Collecting,
chapter 9._

ALSO IN:
_C. Knight,
William Caxton._

_C. H. Timperley,
Encyclopœdia of Literary and Typographical Anecdote,
pages 138-194._

_T. C. Hansard,
History and Process of Printing
("The Five Black Arts," chapter 1)._

_Gentleman's Magazine Library:
Bibliographical Notes, and Literary Curiosities._

PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1496-1598.
The Estienne or Stephanus Press in Paris.

"With the names of Aldus and Elzevir we are all acquainted;
the name of Estienne, or Stephanus, has a less familiar sound
to English ears, though the family of Parisian printers was as
famous in its day as the great houses of Venice and Leyden.
The most brilliant member of it was the second Henry, whose
story forms a melancholy episode in French literary history of
the 16th century. … The Estiennes are said to have come of a
noble Provençal family, but nothing is exactly known of their
descent. The art of printing was not much more than fifty
years old when Henry Estienne, having learnt his trade in
Germany, came to Paris, and set up his press [about 1496] in
the Rue Saint Jean de Beauvais, opposite the school of Canon
Law. There for some twenty years he laboured diligently,
bringing out in that time no less than 120 volumes, chiefly
folios. The greater number of these are theological and
scholastic works; among the few modern authors on the list is
the name of Erasmus. Henry Estienne died in 1520 leaving three
sons. Robert, the second of them, was born probably in 1503.
The boys all being minors, the business passed into the hands
of their mother, who in the following year married Simon de
Colines, her late husband's foreman, and perhaps partner. …
Robert worked with De Colines for five or six years before he
went into business on his own account in the same street." It
was he who first gave celebrity to the name and the press.
"The spell of the Renaissance had early fallen upon the young
printer, and it held him captive almost till the end of his
life." He married "the daughter of the learned Flemish printer
Jodocus Badius, notable for her culture and her beauty. Latin
was the ordinary language of the household. The children
learned it in infancy from hearing it constantly spoken. … At
one time ten foreign scholars lived in Estienne's house to
assist him in selecting and revising his manuscripts and in
correcting his proofs. … Both Francis [King Francis I.] and
his sister Marguerite of Navarre had a great regard for
Robert, and often visited the workshop; to that royal
patronage the printer was more than once indebted for his
liberty and his life." His danger came from the bigoted
Sorbonne, with whom he brought himself into collision by
printing the Bible with as careful a correction of the text as
he had performed in the case of the Latin classics. After the
death of Francis I., the peril of the printer's situation
became more serious, and in 1550 he fled to Geneva, renouncing
the Roman Catholic faith. He died there in 1559.

_H. C. Macdowall,
An old French Printer
(Macmillan's Magazine, November 1892)._

The second Henry Estienne, son of Robert, either did not
accompany his father to Geneva, or soon returned to Paris, and
founded anew the Press of his family, bringing to it even more
learning than his father, with equal laboriousness and zeal.
He died at Lyons in 1598.

_E. Greswell,
A View of the Early Parisian Greek Press._

PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1535-1709.
Introduction in America.
The first Spanish printing in Mexico.
The early Massachusetts Press.
Restrictions upon its freedom.

"The art of printing was first introduced into Spanish
America, as early as the middle of the 16th century. The
historians whose works I have consulted are all silent as to
the time when it was first practiced on the American
continent; … but it is certain that printing was executed,
both in Mexico and Peru, long before it made its appearance in
the British North American colonies. [The precise date of the
introduction of printing into Mexico was for a long time in
doubt. … When Mr. Thomas wrote his 'History of Printing in
America,' early works on America were rare, and it is probable
that there was not one in the country printed in either
America or Europe in the 16th century, except the copy of
Molina's dictionary; now many of the period may be found in
our great private libraries. The dictionary of Molina, in
Mexican and Spanish, printed in Mexico, in 1571, in folio,
was, by many, asserted and believed to be the earliest book
printed in America. … No one here had seen an earlier book
until the 'Doctrina Christiana,' printed in the house of Juan
Cromberger, in the city of Mexico, in the year 1544, was
discovered. Copies of this rare work were found in two well
known private libraries in New York and Providence. For a long
time the honor was awarded to this as the earliest book
printed in America. But there is now strong evidence that
printing was really introduced in Mexico nine years before
that time, and positive evidence, by existing books, that a
press was established in 1540. Readers familiar with early
books relating to Mexico have seen mention of a book printed
there as early as 1535, … the 'Spiritual Ladder' of St John
Climacus. … It seems that no copy of the 'Spiritual Ladder'
has ever been seen in recent times, and the quoted
testimonials are the only ones yet found which refer to it.

_Note by Hon. John R. Bartlett,
appendix A., giving a 'List of Books printed in Mexico
between the years 1540 and 1560 inclusive.'_

{2592}

… In January, 1639, printing was first performed in that part
of North America which extends from the Gulf of Mexico to the
Frozen ocean. For this press our country is chiefly indebted
to the Rev. Mr. Glover, a nonconformist minister, who
possessed a considerable estate. … Another press, with types,
and another printer, were, in 1660, sent over from England by
the corporation for propagating the gospel among the Indians
in New England. This press, &c., was designed solely for the
purpose of printing the Bible, and other books, in the Indian
language. On their arrival they were carried to Cambridge, and
employed in the printing house already established in that
place. … The fathers of Massachusetts kept a watchful eye on
the press; and in neither a religious nor civil point of view
were they disposed to give it much liberty. … In 1662, the
government of Massachusetts appointed licensers of the press;
and afterward, in 1664, passed a law that 'no printing should
be allowed in any town within the jurisdiction, except in
Cambridge'; nor should any thing be printed there but what the
government permitted through the agency of those persons who
were empowered for the purpose. … In a short time, this law
was so far repealed as to permit the use of a press at Boston.
… It does not appear that the press, in Massachusetts, was
free from legal restraints till about the year 1755 [see
PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1704-1729]. … Except in
Massachusetts, no presses were set up in the colonies till
near the close of the 17th century. Printing then [1686] was
performed in Pennsylvania [by William Bradford], 'near
Philadelphia' [at Shackamaxon, now Kensington], and afterward
in that city, by the same press which, in a few years
subsequent, was removed to New York.

See PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1685-1693;
also PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1692-1696.

The use of types commenced in Virginia about 1681; in 1682 the
press was prohibited. In 1709 a press was established at New
London, in Connecticut."

_I. Thomas,
History of Printing in America,
2nd edition. (Translated and Collection
of the American Antiquity Society, volume 5),
volume 1, pages 1-17._

ALSO IN:
_J. L. Bishop,
History of American Manufactures,
volume 1, chapter 7._

PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1612-1650.
Origin of printed newspapers.
The newspaper defined.
Its earliest appearances in Germany and Italy.

"Lally-Tollendal, in his 'Life of Queen Elizabeth,' in the
'Biographie Universelle' (vol. xiii, published in 1815, p. 56)
… remarks that 'as far as the publication of an official
journal is concerned, France can claim the priority by more
than half a century; for in the Royal Library at Paris there
is a bulletin of the campaign of Louis XII. in Italy in 1509.'
He then gives the title of this 'bulletin,' from which it
clearly appears that it is not a political journal, but an
isolated piece of news—a kind of publication of which there
are hundreds in existence of a date anterior to 1588 [formerly
supposed to be the date of the first English newspaper—see
PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1622-1702], and of which there
is no doubt that thousands were issued. There is, for
instance, in the British Museum a French pamphlet of six
printed leaves, containing an account of the surrender of
Granada to Ferdinand and Isabella on the 'first of January
last past' (le premier jour de janvier dernierement passe), in
the year 1492; and there are also the three editions of the
celebrated letter of Columbus, giving the first account of the
discovery of America, all printed at Rome in 1493. Nay, one of
the very earliest productions of the German press was an
official manifesto of Diether, Archbishop of Cologne, against
Count Adolph of Nassau, very satisfactorily proved to have
been printed at Mentz in 1462. There is among the German
bibliographers a technical name for this class of printed
documents, which are called 'Relations.' In fact, in order to
arrive at a satisfactory conclusion with regard to the origin
of newspapers, it is requisite, in the first place, to settle
with some approach to precision what a newspaper is. Four
classes of publications succeeded to each other from the 15th
to the 19th century, to which the term has by different
writers been applied:

1st. Accounts of individual public transactions of recent
occurrence.

2nd. Accounts in one publication of several public
transactions of recent occurrence, only connected together by
having taken place about the same period, so as at one time to
form the 'news of the day.'

3rd. Accounts similar to those of the second class, but issued
in a numbered series.

4th. Accounts similar to those of the second class, but issued
not only in a numbered series, but at stated intervals.

The notices of the surrender of Granada and the discovery of
America belong to the first class, and so also do the last
dying speeches, which are in our own time cried about the
streets. These surely are not newspapers. The Times and Daily
News [London] belong to the fourth class, and these, of
course, are newspapers. … Are not, in fact, all the essentials
of a newspaper comprised in the definition of the second
class, which it may be as well to repeat: 'Accounts in one
publication of several public transactions of recent
occurrence, only connected together by having taken place
about the same period, so as at one time to form the news of
the day'? Let us take an instance. There is preserved in the
British Museum a collection of several volumes of interesting
publications issued in Italy between 1640 and 1650, and
containing the news of the times. They are of a small folio
size, and consist in general of four pages, but sometimes of
six, sometimes only of two. There is a series for the month of
December, 1644, consisting entirely of the news from Rome. The
first line of the first page runs thus:—'Di Roma,' with the
date, first of the 3rd, then of the 10th, then the 17th, then
the 24th, and lastly the 31st of December, showing that a
number was published every week, most probably on the arrival
of the post from Rome. The place of publication was Florence,
and the same publishers who issued this collection of the news
from Rome, sent forth in the same month of December, 1644, two
other similar gazettes, at similar intervals, one of the news
from Genoa, the other of the news from Germany and abroad.
That this interesting series of publications, which is well
worthy of a minute examination and a detailed description, is
in reality a series of newspapers, will, I believe, be
questioned by very few; but each individual number presents no
mark by which, if separately met with, it could be known to
form part of a set. …
{2593}
The most minute researches on the history of newspapers in
Germany are, as already mentioned, those of Prutz, who has
collected notices of a large number of the 'relations,' though
much remains to be gleaned. There are, for instance, in Van
Heusde's Catalogue of the Library at Utrecht (Utrecht, 1835,
folio), the titles of nearly a hundred of them, all as early
as the sixteenth century; and the British Museum possesses a
considerable quantity, all of recent acquisition. Prutz has no
notice of the two that have been mentioned, and, like all
preceding writers, he draws no distinction between the
publications of the first class and the second. The view that
he takes is, that no publication which does not answer to the
definition of what I have termed the fourth class is entitled
to the name of a newspaper. There was in the possession of
Professor Grellman a publication called an 'Aviso,' numbered
as '14,' and published in 1612, which has been considered by
many German writers as their earliest newspaper, but Prutz
denies that honour to it, on the ground of there being no
proof that it was published at stated intervals. In the year
1615 Egenolph Emmel, of Frankfort-on-the-Main, issued a weekly
intelligencer, numbered in a series, and this, according to
Prutz, is the proper claimant. Its history has been traced
with some minuteness in a separate dissertation by
Schwarzkopf, who has also the credit of having published in
1795 the first general essay on newspapers of any value, and
to have followed up the subject in a series of articles in the
Allgemeine Litterarische Anzeiger. … The claims of Italy have
yet to be considered. Prutz dismisses them very summarily,
because, as he says, the Venetian gazettes of the sixteenth
century, said to be preserved at Florence, are in manuscript,
and it is essential to the definition of a newspaper that it
should be printed. These Venetian gazettes have never, so far
as I am aware, been described at all; they may be mere
'news-letters,' or they may be something closely approaching
to the modern newspaper. But I am strongly inclined to believe
that something of the second class of Italian origin will turn
up in the great libraries of Europe when further research is
devoted to the subject. … The existence of these 'gazettes' in
so many languages furnishes strong ground for supposing that
the popularity of newspapers originated in Italy."

_T. Watts,
The fabricated "Earliest English Newspaper"
(Gentleman's Magazine, 1850, reprinted in the Gentleman's
Magazine Library; Bibliographical Notes, pages 146-150)._

PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1617-1680.
The Elzevirs.

"Just as the house of Aldus waned and expired, that of the
great Dutch printers, the Elzevirs, began obscurely enough at
Leyden in 1583. The Elzevir's were not, like Aldus, ripe
scholars and men of devotion to learning. Aldus laboured for
the love of noble studies; the Elzevirs were acute, and too
often 'smart' men of business. The founder of the family was
Louis (born at Louvain, 1540, died 1617). But it was in the
second and third generations that Bonaventura and Abraham
Elzevir began to publish at Leyden their editions in small
duodecimo. Like Aldus, these Elzevirs aimed at producing books
at once handy, cheap, correct, and beautiful in execution.
Their adventure was a complete success. The Elzevirs did not,
like Aldus, surround themselves with the most learned scholars
of their time. Their famous literary adviser, Heinsius, was
full of literary jealousies, and kept students of his own
calibre at a distance. The classical editions of the Elzevirs,
beautiful, but too small in type for modern eyes, are anything
but exquisitely correct. … The ordinary marks of the Elzevirs
were the sphere, the old hermit, the Athena, the eagle, and
the burning faggot. But all little old books marked with
spheres are not Elzevirs, as many booksellers suppose. Other
printers also stole the designs for the tops of chapters, the
Aegipan, the Siren, the head of Medusa, the crossed sceptres,
and the rest. In some cases the Elzevirs published their
books, especially when they were piracies, anonymously. When
they published for the Jansenists, they allowed their clients
to put fantastic pseudonyms on the title pages. But, except in
four cases, they had only two pseudonyms used on the titles of
books published by and for themselves. These disguises are
'Jean Sambix' for Jean and Daniel Elzevir, at Leyden, and 'for
the Elzevirs of Amsterdam, 'Jacques le Jeune.' The last of the
great representatives of the house, Daniel, died at Amsterdam,
1680. Abraham, an unworthy scion, struggled on at Leyden till
1712. The family still prospers, but no longer prints, in
Holland."

_A. Lang,
The Library,
chapter 3._

"Though Elzevirs have been more fashionable than at present,
they are still regarded by novelists as the great prize of the
book collector. You read in novels about 'priceless little
Elzevirs,' about books 'as rare as an old Elzevir.' I have
met, in the works of a lady novelist (but not elsewhere) with
an Elzevir 'Theocritus.' The late Mr. Hepworth Dixon
introduced into one of his romances a romantic Elzevir Greek
Testament, 'worth its weight in gold.' Casual remarks of this
kind encourage a popular delusion that all Elzevirs are pearls
of considerable price."

_A. Lang,
Books and Bookmen,
chapter 6._

ALSO IN:
_J. H. Slater,
Book Collecting,
chapter 8._

PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1622-1702.
The first printed Newspaper and
the first daily Newspaper in England.

"Up to 1839 (when Mr. Watts, of the British Museum, exposed
the forgery) the world was led to believe that the first
English newspaper appeared in 1588." Mr. Watts "ascertained
that 'The English Mercurie,' which Mr. George Chalmers first
discovered on the shelves of the British Museum, and which was
said to have been 'imprinted in London by her highness's
printer, 1588,' was a forgery, for which the second Earl of
Hardwicke appears to be answerable." As to the actual date of
the appearance of the first printed newspaper in England, "Mr.
Knight Hunt, in his 'Fourth Estate,' speaks confidently. …
'There is now no reason to doubt,' he says, 'that the puny
ancestor of the myriads of broad sheets of our time was
published in the metropolis in 1622; and that the most
prominent of the ingenious speculators who offered the novelty
to the world, was one Nathaniel Butter.' As the printing press
had then been at work in England for a century and a half,
Caxton having established himself in Westminster Abbey in
1471, and as manuscript news-letters had been current for many
years previous to 1622, one cannot help wondering that the
inventive wits of that age should have been so slow in finding
out this excellent mode of turning Faust's invention to
profitable account.
{2594}
Butter's journal was called—'The Weekly Newes,' a name which
still survives, although the original possessor of that title
has long since gone the way of all newspapers. The first
number in the British Museum collection bears date the 23rd of
May, 1622, and contains 'news from Italy, Germanie,' &c. The
last number made its appearance on the 9th of January, 1640; a
memorable year, in which the Short Parliament, dismissed by
King Charles 'in a huff,' after a session of three weeks, was
succeeded by the Long Parliament, which unlucky Charles could
not manage quite so easily. … It was nearly a century after
'The Weekly Newes' made its first appearance, before a daily
newspaper was attempted. When weekly papers had become firmly
established, some of the more enterprising printers began to
publish their sheets twice, and ultimately three times a week.
Thus at the beginning of last century we find several papers
informing the public that they are 'published every Tuesday,
Thursday, and Saturday morning.' One of the most respectable
looking was entitled 'The New State of Europe,' or a 'True
Account of Public Transactions and Learning.' It consisted of
two pages of thin, coarse paper … and contained altogether
about as much matter as there is in a single column of the
'Times' of 1855. The custom at that period was to publish the
newspaper on a folio or quarto sheet, two pages of which were
left blank to be used for correspondence. This is expressly
stated in a standing advertisement in the 'New State of
Europe,' in which the names of certain booksellers are given
'where any person may have this paper with a blank half sheet
to write their own private affairs.' … The first number of the
'Daily Courant' [the first daily newspaper in England] was
published on the 11th of March, 1702, just three days after
the accession of Queen Anne. … As regards the form and size of
the new journal, the 'author' condescends to give the
following information, with a growling remark at the
impertinence of the 'Postboys,' 'Postmen,' 'Mercuries,' and
'Intelligencers' of that day:—'This "Courant" (as the title
shows) will be published Daily, being designed to give all the
Material News as soon as every Post arrives, and is confined
to half the compass to save the Publick at least half the
Impertinences of ordinary Newspapers.' In addition to the
Prospectus we have quoted, the first number of the 'Daily
Courant' contains only nine paragraphs, five of which were
translated from the 'Harlem Courant,' three from the 'Paris
Gazette,' and one from the 'Amsterdam Courant.' They all
relate to the war of the Spanish Succession then waging, or to
the attempts making by diplomats to settle the affairs of the
Continent at some kind of Vienna or Utrecht Conference. After
adhering for several weeks to the strict rule of giving only
one page of news, and those entirely foreign, the 'Courant'
begins to show certain symptoms of improvement. The number for
April 22, contains two pages of news and advertisements. … The
alteration in the getting-up of the 'Courant' was owing to a
change of proprietorship. The paper had now come into the
hands of 'Sam Buckley, at the Dolphin, Little Britain.' … Mr.
Samuel Buckley, who continued to publish and conduct the
'Daily Courant' for many years, was a notable man among London
publishers, as we find from various references to him in the
fugitive literature of that age."

_The London Daily Press
(Westminster Review, October, 1855)._

PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1631.
The first printed Newspaper in France.
Dr. Renandot and his "Gazette."

"The first Frenchman to found a printed newspaper was Dr.
Théophraste Renaudot, who obtained the King's privilege for
the 'Gazette de France' in 1631. … He was a shrewd man, born
at London in 1567, brought up in Paris, but graduate of the
Faculty of Montpellier. In 1612, being then twenty-six, he
returned to the capital, and somehow got appointed at once
doctor to the King. But there was no salary attached to this
post, which was in his case purely honorary, and so Renaudot
opened a school, though the fact that he, a mere provincial
doctor, had obtained a medical appointment at court, was very
sore to the Paris Faculty of Medicine, who began to annoy him
from that moment. Renaudot, however, was a man far ahead of
his contemporaries in sagacity, patience, learning and
humanity. Petty spite did not disturb him, or at least it did
not deter him from executing any of the numerous plans he had
in mind for the welfare of his contemporaries. … This
extraordinary man not only inaugurated in France an Estate,
Professional and Servants' Agency, as well as an office for
private sales and exchanges, but further laid the basis of the
Poste Restante, Parcels Delivery, Post-Office Directory,
Tourist's Guide and Money Order Office; besides affording an
outlet to troubled spirits like those who correspond through
the agony column of 'The Times.' It is not surprising that his
office in the Rue de la Calandre should soon have been all too
small for its multifarious duties and that his original staff
of six clerks should, in less than three months, have swelled
to fifty. Richelieu, in sheer admiration at the man, sent for
him and thanked him for the services he was rendering the
King's subjects. He also offered him money to extend his
offices, and this Renaudot accepted, but only as a loan. It
was his custom to levy a commission of six deniers per livre
(franc) on the sales he effected, and by means of these and
other receipts he soon repaid the Cardinal every penny that
had been advanced to him. But he did more than this. Finding
that his registers were not always convenient modes of
reference, by reason of the excessive crowds which pressed
round them, he brought out a printed advertiser, which is
almost the exact prototype of a journal at present well known
in London. It was called 'Feuille du Bureau d'Adresses,' and
appeared every Saturday, at the price of 1 sou. Opinions
differ as to whether this paper preceded the 'Gazette de
France,' or was issued simultaneously with it. Probably it was
first published in manuscript form, but came out in print at
least six months before the 'Gazette,' for a number bearing
the date of June 14th, 1631, shows a periodical in full
organisation and containing indirect references to
advertisements which must have appeared several weeks before.
At all events this 'Feuille' was purely an advertisement
sheet—a forerunner of the 'Petites Affiches' which were
reinvented in 1746—it was in no sense a newspaper. … It is
clear that from the moment he started his 'Feuille du Bureau
d'Adresses,' Renaudot must have conceived the possibility of
founding a news-sheet. … The manuscript News Letters had
attained, by the year 1630, to such a pitch of perfection, and
found such a ready sale, that the notion of further
popularising them by printing must have suggested itself to
more than one man before it was actually put into practice.
{2595}
But the great bar was this, that nothing could be printed
without the King's privilege, and this privilege was not
lightly granted. … Renaudot, who had no wish to publish
tattle, had no reason to fear censorship. He addressed himself
to Richelieu, and craved leave to start a printed newspaper
under royal patronage. The politic Cardinal was quite shrewd
enough to see how useful might be to him an organ which would
set information before the public in the manner he desired,
and in that manner alone; so he granted all Renaudot wished,
in the form of 'letters patent,' securing him an entire
monopoly of printing newspapers, and moreover he conferred on
his protégé the pompous title of Historiographer of France.
The first number of the 'Gazette de France' appeared on
Friday, May 30, 1631. Its size was four quarto pages, and its
price one sol parisis, i. e. ½d., worth about l½d. modern
money. … The first number contained no preface or address,
nothing in the way of a leading article, but plunged at once
in medias res, and gave news from nineteen foreign towns or
countries, but oddly enough, not a line of French
intelligence. … The bulk of the matter inserted was furnished
direct by Richelieu from the Foreign Office, and several of
the paragraphs were written in his own hand. … The publication
of the 'Gazette' was continued uninterruptedly from week to
week but the press of matter was so great that Renaudot took
to issuing a Supplement with the last number of every month.
In this he condensed the reports of the preceding numbers,
corrected errors, added fresh news, and answered his
detractors. … At the end of the year 1631 he suppressed his
monthly Supplement, increased the 'Gazette' to eight pages,
and announced that for the future he would issue supplements
as they were needed. It seems they were needed pretty often,
for towards the beginning of the year 1633 Renaudot published
Supplements, under the title of 'Ordinaries and
Extraordinaries,' as often as twice, and even three times in
one week. In fact whenever a budget of news arrived which
would nowadays justify a special edition, the indefatigable
editor set his criers afoot with a fresh printed sheet,
shouting, 'Buy the "Extraordinary," containing the account of
the superb burial of the King of Denmark!' or, 'Buy and read
of the capture of the beautiful island of Curaçoa in the
Indies by the Dutch from the Spaniards!' Renaudot understood
the noble art of puffing. He dressed his criers in red, and
gave them a trumpet apiece to go and bray the praises of the
'Gazette' on the off days, when the paper did not appear. … On
the death of Renaudot, he was succeeded by his sons Eusèbe and
Isaac, who in their turn bequeathed the Gazette' to Eusèbe
junior, son of the elder brother, who took orders and
consequently left no progeny. After this the 'Gazette' became
Government property. … In 1762 the 'Gazette' was annexed to
the Foreign Office Department. … The 'Gazette de France'
continued to appear under royal patronage until May 1st, 1792,
when its official ties were snapped and it came out as a
private and republican journal with the date 'Fourth Year of
Freedom.' The 'Gazette' has flourished with more or less
brilliancy ever since, and has been for the last fifty years a
legitimist organ, read chiefly in the provinces."

_The French Press
(Cornhill Magazine, June, 1873)._

PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1637.
Archbishop Laud's Star-Chamber restriction of printing.

On the 11th of July, 1637, "Archbishop Laud procured a decree
to be passed in the star chamber, by which it was ordered,
that the master printers should be reduced to twenty in
number; and that if any other should secretly, or openly,
pursue the trade of printing, he should be set in the pillory,
or whipped through the streets, and suffer such other
punishment as the court should inflict upon him; that none of
the master printers should print any book or books of
divinity, law, physic, philosophy, or poetry, till the said
books, together with the titles, epistles, prefaces, tables,
or commendatory verses, should be lawfully licensed, on pain
of losing the exercise of his art, and being proceeded against
in the star chamber, &c.; that no person should reprint any
book without a new license; that every merchant, bookseller,
&c., who should import any book or books, should present a
catalogue of them to the archbishop or bishop, &c., before
they were delivered, or exposed to sale, who should view them,
with power to seize those that were schismatical; and, that no
merchant, &c., should print or cause to be printed abroad, any
book, or books, which either entirely or for the most part,
were written in the English tongue, nor knowingly import any
such books, upon pain of being proceeded against in the star
chamber, or high commission court. … That there should be four
founders of letters for printing, and no more. That the
archbishop of Canterbury, or the bishop of London, with six
other high commissioners, shall supply the places of those
four as they shall become void. That no master founder shall
keep above two apprentices at one time. That all journeymen
founders be employed by the masters of the trade; and that all
the idle journeymen be compelled to work upon pain of
imprisonment, and such other punishment as the court shall
think fit. That no master founder of letters shall employ any
other person in any work belonging to casting and founding of
letters than freemen and apprentices to the trade, save only
in putting off the knots of metal hanging at the end of the
letters when they are first cast; in which work, every master
founder may employ one boy only, not bound to the trade."

_C. H. Timperley,
Encyclopœdia of Literary and Typographical Anecdote,
page 490._

PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1647.
Renewed ordinance, in England, against the printers.

"An ordinance of parliament passed the house of lords on this
day [September 30, 1647], that no person shall make, write,
print, sell, publish or utter, or cause to be made, &c., any
book, pamphlet, treatise, ballad, libel, sheet, or sheets of
news whatsoever (except the same be licensed by both or either
house of parliament,) under the penalty of 40s. and an
imprisonment not exceeding forty days, if he can not pay it:
if a printer, he is to pay a fine of only 20s., or suffer
twenty days' imprisonment, and likewise to have his press and
implements of printing broken in pieces. The book-seller, or
stationer, to pay 10s., or suffer ten days' imprisonment,—and,
lastly, the hawker, pedlar, or ballad-singer, to forfeit all
his printed papers exposed to sale, and to be whipped as a
common rogue in the parish where he shall be apprehended.
{2596}
Early in the following year, the committee of estates in
Scotland passed an act prohibiting the printing under the pain
of death, any book, declaration, or writing, until these were
first submitted to their revisal. … One of the consequences of
these persecutions was the raising up of a new class of
publishers, those who became noted for what was called
'unlawful and unlicensed books.' Sparkes, the publisher of
Prynne's Histriomastix, was of this class. The presbyterian
party in parliament, who thus found the press closed on them,
vehemently cried out for its freedom; and it was imagined,
that when they ascended into power, the odious office of a
licenser of the press would have been abolished; but these
pretended friends of freedom, on the contrary, discovered
themselves as tenderly alive to the office as the old
government, and maintained it with the extremest vigour. Both
in England and Scotland, during the civil wars, the party in
power endeavoured to crush by every means the freedom of the
press."

_C. H. Timperley,
Encyclopœdia of Literary and Typographical Anecdote,
page 506._

PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1654-1694.
Freedom of the press under Cromwell.
Censorship under the restored Stuarts.
Roger L'Estrange and the first news reporters.

"During the Protectorate of Cromwell the newspaper press knew
… what it was to enjoy the luxury of freedom. The natural
result was that a very great increase took place in the number
of new political journals. Most of them, however, had only a
very brief existence. Many of their number could not boast of
a longer life than six or seven months—nay, many of them not
so much as even that term of life. But, as might have been
expected, from what was known of the antecedents of Charles
II., the freedom of the press, which previously existed, came
to an immediate end on his ascending the throne. Hardly had he
done so, than an edict was issued, prohibiting the publication
of any journal except the London Gazette, which was originally
printed at Oxford, and called the Oxford Gazette,—the Court
being then resident there on account of the plague raging in
London at the time, 1665, when it was commenced, and for some
time afterwards. This was an act of pure despotism. But
Government at this time reserved to itself the right —a right
which there was none to dispute—to publish a broad sheet in
connexion with the London Gazette, whenever they might deem it
expedient, which should contain either foreign or domestic
matters of interest,—of the knowledge of which some of the
King's subjects might wish to be put in early possession. …
The newspapers of the seventeenth century were permitted,
until the time of Charles II., to be published without being
licensed by the Government of the day; but in the reign of
that despotic sovereign, a law was passed [1662] prohibiting
the publication of any newspaper without being duly licensed.
… Sir John Birkenhead, … one of the three men whom Disraeli
the elder called the fathers of the English press, was
appointed to the office of Licenser of the Press. But he was
soon succeeded by Sir Roger l'Estrange."

_J. Grant,
The Newspaper Press,
volume 1, chapter. 2._