NEWSPAPER, a periodical publication printed and distributed for the circulation of news. From the broad-sheet relating the most meager intelligence without comment or inference, the newspaper has gnidually grown up into a powerful political as well as social engine, diffusing information on all subjects of interest, circulating advertise ments, and acting on the public mind; in times of excitement. to an extent that has led it to be called a load]] estate of the realin.
The earliest approach to the newspaper is to be found in the Acta Diurna, or Acta Pubtka, of ancient Rome, an official gazette, which in the later times of the republic, mid during the empire, appeared daily under sanction of the government. The con tents of these Acta consisted of an enumeration of the births and deaths in Rome, en account of the money paid into the treasury, and everything relating to the supply of corn; extracts from the Acta Porensica, including the edicts of magistrates, the testa ments of distinguished men, reports of trials, with the names of the acquitted and con dentinal, a list of the magistrates who were elected; extracts from the Acta Senates, an account of public affairs and foreign wars, of the births, deaths, festivals, and move ments of the imperial family; and generally news relating to public buildings, funerals, games, fires, sacrifices, and miracles, as well as amatory stories. The Acta seem to hava been drawn up under the superintendence of censors, (investors, and other magistrates, by officers called actauril, assisted by clerks and notaries; and their publication con sisted in posting them in some public place in the city, where they could be read by any one who pleased. They continued to be issued until the downfall of the western empire, but there seems never to have been anything corresponding to them at Con stantinople.
The beginnings of the newspaper of modern Europe are traceable to Germany and to Venice. Soon after the invention of printing, in the latter half of the 15th c., small news sheets, called Belationen and the Newe Zeytung, appeared in Augsburg, Vienna, ltatisbon, and Ntirnberg, generally in the form of a letter. The extant numbers contain, among other matters, accounts of the discovery of America, of the conquests of the Turks, of the French and Austrian war in Italy, with such local occurrences as execu tions, inundations, earthquakes, burnings of witches, and child-murders committed by the Jews. More important, perhaps, were the official Notizie Seritte, first issued by the Venetian government in the 16th c., containing accounts of the wars carried on by the republic, and other events of general interest. At first they were not printed, but were to be seen in various public places on- payment of a small coin, vapid a gazeta, whence the name " Gazette." After they were allowed by the government to be printed, they obtained a wide circulation over the whole of Europe.
The earliest English newspaper, or news-letters, belong to the reign of James I., and were printed in the form of small quarto pamphlets. Some copies of a sheet, called the English Mercury, purporting to be published by authority of queen Elizabeth in 1585, the period of the Spanish Armada, have been proved by Mr. Watts of the British
museum to be literary forgeries, executed about 176G. The first English newspapers appeared at occasional and irregular intervals—the earliest of them, so far as ascertained, is entitled News out of Holland, and was published for M. Newbery in 1619. In 1622 these occasional pamphlets were converted into the first printed newspaper, entitled The Certaine News of the Present Week, edited by Nathaniel Butter. About the same time appeared the London Weekly Courant. A larg,e number of publications, hardly deserving the name of newspapers, were circulated during the civil war, with such names as Eng land's Memorable Accidents, The Kingdom's Intelligencn., Mercurius Aulicus, The Scots Intelligenc.er, The Parliament's Scout, The Parliament's Scout's Discovery, or Certain Information, The Scots Dove, The Parliament Kite, The Secret Owl, Mercurius Mastic, Mercurius Democritus„Memurius Acheronticus, or News from hell, etc. The arrangement of the news is poor in the extreme. and what few comments there are, are of the most virulent description. The long parliament subjected the newspaper press to a censor ship, which became more strict under Charles II. The first English newspaper which could properly be considered a vehicle of general information, wag the Public Intelligencer, established by sir Roger L'Estrange in 1663; it was dropped on the appearance of 27ie London Gazette, the first number of which was published Nov. 7, 1665. at Oxford, where the court was residing in consequence of the plague being then in London. A second paper, called The Observato•, was afterwards started by L'Estrange, who, in 1680, exercised his authority as licenser of the press by issuing a proclamation "for suppress• ing the printing and publishing of unlicensed news-books and pamphlets of news." Small as was the sheet, a difficulty often arose how to fill it. One publisher was in the way of supplying the dearth of news by a passage from the Bible; another announced that " blank space is left that any gentleman may write his own private business." Up to the reign of queen Anne few of the newspapers appeared oftener than once a week. From the interest excited by Marlborough's victories arose a demand for more frequent intelligence, and besides 17 newspapers published three times a week, the Daily Courant, established in 1709, was issued every day except, Sunday.. Of the more noted London newspapers, the London Daily Post and General Advertiser was established in 1726, and in 1752 becathe the Public Advertiser; a celebrity attaches to it from having been the medium in which "Junius's Letters" first appeared. The St. James's Chrontele arose from en amalgamation of two papers, the St. James's Post and St. James's Even ing Post, both which began in 1715. The North Briton. edited by Wilkes, first appeared in 1762. The Morning Chronicle, discontinued in 1862, dates from 1770; the Morning Post, from 1772; the now defunct Horning Herald, from 1781; the Times first appeared in 1788, as a continuation of the London Daily Universal Register, established three years earlier.