Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/409



No papers of so early a date as the reign of Elizabeth are preserved in the British Museum, but we have been kindly favored by Dr. Rimbault with the following list, which has fallen under his observation, all of which, with the exception of the last, are of that reign:

"Newe newes, containing a short rehersal of Stukely's and Morice's Rebellion," 4to, 1579.

"Newes from the North, or a Conference between Simon Certain and Pierce Plowman," 4to, 1579.

"Newes from Scotland, declaring the damnable life of Doctor Fian, a notable sorcerer, who was burned at Edenborough in January last," 4to, Gothic, 1591.

"Newes from Spaine and Holland," 1593.

"Newes from Brest, or a Diurnal of Sir John Norris," 4to, 1594 (printed by Richard Yardley).

"Newes from Flanders," 1599.

"Newes out of Cheshire of the new found well," 1600.

"News from Gravesend," 4to, 1604.

We may add to Dr. Rimbault's list: the following:

"Wonderful and strange newes out of Sufifolke and Essex, where it rayned wheat the space of six or seven miles," 12mo., 1583.

The titles of most of these pamphlets direct us to a very fair estimate of their contents; it must be confessed they were somewhat of the stamp of the "Full, True, and Particular Accounts" of Seven Dials. The public asked for news—and got it in its first crude form, yet still in disjointed fragments:—

"Lamentable newes out of Monmouthshire in Wales, containinge the wonderful and fearfull accounts of the great overflowing of the waters in the said countye," etc., 1607.

"Woful newes from the west partes of England, of the burning of Tiverton," 4to, 1612, with a frontispiece.