Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/111

 9-s.vLAoa4.i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES. of various editions of the poems, the poem of 'Absalom and Achitophel' is of the tenth edition, and on the reverse of the title, written in an early eighteenth-century hand, there is the following :— A Key to the Names in Absal"1 and AchitopheL Duke of Munmouth Earl of Shaftsbury G. Villere D" of Buckin- ham Gray E. of Stamford Lord Howard of Escrick S' Wm Jones Sheriff Bethel Titus Gates Papishes Phanaticks Tho" Thinne Esqr Earl of Ormond Ussory Sancroft A: B. Canter- burye Sagan, BishP of Jarusal'" Compton, B: of London Him of the western Dolban, Dean of w'min- Dome ster Adriel LdSheffieldE.of Mulgrave Jetham Geo Saville E. of Hallifax Hushai Hide E Clarindon or his Bro. Ld Law' Hide Amiel Semour Absal™ Achitopbel Zimri Caleb Nadab Bull-faced Jonas Shemei Corah Jesubites [Jebusites] Solymaan Rout Issachar Barzillai His Eldest Hope Zadoc If this list is correct I should like to know it, and if it is not I should like to correct it. WM. GUSHING HAMBURGH. Elizabeth, New Jersey, U.S. [All these identifications, with many others, occur in the ' Key' given in the Aldine edition of Dryden.] EARLY EVENING NEWSPAPER. (9th S. v. 477.) THE reference at lrt S. viii. 57 is to the Edin- burgh Evening Courant, published on Mon- days. Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and the first number of which appeared on 15 Dec., 1718 ; but I should place the origin of the evening paper a full eighteen years earlier, and give its British birthplace as London. It had been advertised in the Post Boy of 7-9 May, 1700 : " You may be furnished with this Paper and Postscript in Writing, by Mr. John Shank, at Nondoes Coffee-house near Temple-Bar in i'leet- street"; but, while this was not the first of the kind, a more regular_" postscript" was soon to be established, which may be regarded as the foundation of the whole system of evening newspapers. It was announced in the Flying- Post, or the Post-Master, for 16-18 May, 'l700, that "the Flying-Pout coming out early on Tuemlay, Thiir.vlit.il, and Saturday Mornings, there 'a added to it the same Evenings a Postscript (for the con- veniency of the Country) printed with all the Domestick Occurrences that happen, and the Foreign Mails which arrive after the Flying-Post is publish'd in the Morning. Any Person that is not already supplied, may have them, directing to Mr. Bell, at the Bible and Cross Keys in CornhiU, Bookseller, and at Mrs. Snowden's, the Printer, in Great Carter-Lane, by Doctors Commons ; Where also Advertisements are taken in." Some time later this announcement was a little varied, and in the issue for 12-14 May, 1702, for instance, it read, after the words "in the Morning ":— " 'Tis done on a good Paper, with Blanks so order'd that any one may write of their Private Affairs into the Country. Any Person that is not already sup- plied, may have them, directing to H. Rhodes, at the Star, the Corner of Bride Lane in Fleetxtreet; and A. Bel/, at the Bible ami Crow-Keys, in Conihill, Booksellers. Where also ADVERTISEMENTS are taken in." This idea of combining private correspond- ence with a newspaper had been anticipated by Ichabod Dawks in 1696, who, when start- ing the issue of news-letters printed in type to imitate handwriting, thus announced the first number:— " This letter will be done upon good writing- paper, and blank space left, that any gentleman may write his own private business. It does un- doubtedly exceed the best of the written news, con- tains double the quantity, is read with abundance more ease and pleasure, and will be useful to im- prove the younger sort in writing a curious hand." This was the journalistic fare appreciated by Sir Wilfull Witwoud in Congreve's comedy ' The Way of the World,' who complained that his brother had fallen off in the way of sending communications to his Shropshire friends, telling him that, when he was younger, " we could have gazettes, then, and Dawks's Letter, and the Weekly Bill, till of late days." This was in 1700, and the taste for news continued to grow, so that in the advertisement announcing the first number of the Evening Post (6 Sept., 1709) it was said :— " There must be three or four pound per annum paid by those gentlemen who are out of town, for written news, which is so far, generally, from haying any probability of matter of fact in it, that it is frequently stuffed up with a We hear, <tc.; or an eminent Jew merchant has received a letter, die. ; being nothing more than downright fiction." The Evening Post naturally considered it to be its mission to cure this kind of thing ; though, in view of recent events, its added exclamation, "We read more of our own affairs in the Dutch papers than in any of our own," reads satirically, and as being as true in 1900 as it was in 1709. After its establishment, of course, various evening