Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/52

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. x. JCLY is, ioi4.

Holcroft's interest in the riots might easily have rendered him willing to perform another service to the booksellers. If he had attended the Old Bailey trials for one pamphlet, why should not he have attended the King's Bench trial for another ?

ELBRIDGE COLBY. Columbia University, New York City.

(To be continued.)

" BERROW'S WORCESTER JOURNAL.' (See ante, p. 21.)

THE early history of this paper is bound up with the story of its first two publishers, Stephen Bryan and H. Berrow.

Stephen Bryan's apprenticeship inden- tures expired in London in the year 1706, and he appears to have migrated to Wor- cester in the year 1708. When he started his Worcester Post-Man (not Postman) in June, 1709, it was a small half -sheet printed in two columns on both sides, and did not contain six pages (as Green asserted). There is (as in other cases) no evidence that any charge was made for the paper at first, and it is tolerably certain that advertisements were gratis. Probably, like Jos. Bliss's Exeter Post-Boy, it was a coffee-house pro- duction. In principle it was so strongly Jacobite that it advertised the fact by professing to be collected " from Dyer's letter." An illustration in the pamphlet published by Berrow' 8 Worcester Journal in 1890 shows this very clearly.

The Victoria Public Library at Worcester contains a fine collection of the earlier issues of Bryan's paper ; which, owing to its Jacobite principles, I suppose, changed its name no less than three times. But the numbering was consecutive throughout, and, as will be seen from the following list, accu- rate throughout.

The present Librarian of the Victoria Library has very kindly furnished me with the actual numbers :

BRYAN'S PERIODICALS AT WORCESTER.

1. The Worcester Post- Man, Xo. 185, for 2 Jan. 1712/13, to Xo. 041, for 6 Oct., 1721.

2. The Worcester Post ; or, Western Journal

' for 4 Oct -' 1723 > to No - 75. f r 20 Dec.

3. The Weekly Worcester Journal, Xo. 827, for 23 April, 1725, to Xo. 2007, for 1 Jan., 1748.

According to Green, Bryan died on 18 June 1748, and Berrow, who had printed the Journal for three months before his death then succeeded him as printer and pub- lisher. Green states that these facts were

announced in the Journal on 23 June, 1748, Xo. 2031. The Victoria Library does not appear to possess a copy of this particular number.

Two more titles complete the list in tlv? Victoria Library :

4. The Worcester Journal, Xo. 2032, for 30 June. 1748, to Xo. 2305, for 4 Oct., 1753.

5. Berrow's Worcester Journal, Xo. 2306, for 11 Oct., 1753.

Since this latter date the paper's head- ing has not varied. But, as I have shown, the numeration has altered very much at first, I believe, accidentally, though I have not traced all the variations. It is quite pos- sible that Berrow's Worcester Journal may be able to claim the second place, with regard to age, in the British newspaper press, and may rank next to The London Gazette (the only original soxirce of many items of news), though, with the history of the provincial press still waiting to be written, it is not safe to assert even this. But it is unfortunately only too true that its present- day numeration is inaccurate. And the Journal's claims to have been " Established 1690," and to be " The Oldest Newspaper in Great Britain," are hardly worthy of a periodical with so long and honourable a history. J. B. WILLIAMS.

A RECORD OF MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTIONS IN HERTFORDSHIRE. It is believed that Hertfordshire is the first county to have had its monumental inscriptions fully recorded and made accessible to students. It is, of course, probable that some small disused burial-grounds have escaped the notice of workers, but these will in course of time be discovered, and the lists inserted in the volumes to which they belong.

To give an idea of the magnitude of the task, which has occupied over seven years, it may be stated that the transcripts fill thirteen large quarto volumes occupying a shelf -space of 6 ft. (Both lists and indexes are written out twice : first taken down on slips which permit of their being arranged in alphabetical order, and then transcribed on quarto sheets, which are bound in the volumes of the Hundreds to which they pertain.) The inscriptions oc- cupy 5,582 pp., and the indexes of names 2,127 pp., the latter representing some 70,000 names, which do not include relation- ships, as these are not at present indexed. In many cases the more interesting epitaphs have been added, and in some instances also