The first English language newssheets appeared in the early
years of the 17th century.
Nathaniel Butter’s Corant or Weekly Newes, from Italy, Germany, Hungaria,
Polonia has left sufficient traces that it is the best known. From the sheet of September 11, 1621, we
learn:
FRom Constantinople it is written, that there is both a great
plague and dearth in that City, that in the black Sea, the Turkes Gallies had
taken 6. Ships with Cossockers, and made them all slaues, among them one was a
Turke, that hath reuealed many secrets touching the Polish Army.
Following the Revolution of 1688, the sheets became highly
popular. They were read out from the breakfast
tables and the kidneys of the coffee houses that were the center of social
life.
Many of the papers were established to support the Whig or
Tory parties which were fiercely partisan.
The first sheet to issue on a regular schedule was The Daily Courant
in 1702. The Courant was not expressly
political. It served London with foreign
news on the front of its single sheet and paid advertisements on the back.
Joseph Addison and Richard Steele’s Tatler and Spectator
papers were a brilliant addition to the
daily sheet. They developed into
prototypical society pages.
Addison, in particular, was a full-blown literary man in
many ways ahead of his times. He was the
major contributor to The Spectator, and, at the pace of one sheet daily,
turned it into one of the finest and most progressive works in the language.
The following Excerpt from
Joseph Addison’s Spectator #94, Monday, June 18, 1711, is a charming story that
will seem, to those who are familiar with the writing of the 18th
century, unexpected for pure imagination.
It could easily have been written by our dear master, Jorge Luis
Borges. Mention of Islam with only a
single passing (obligatory) deprecation shows a cosmopolitan attitude beyond what the
reputation of the times might support.
There is a famous passage in the Alcoran, which looks as if
Mahomet had been possessed of the notion we are now speaking of. It is there
said, that the angel Gabriel took Mahomet out of his bed one morning to give
him a sight of all things in the seven heavens, in paradise, and in hell, which
the prophet took a distinct view of; and after having held ninety thousand
conferences with God, was brought back again to his bed. All this, says the
Alcoran, was transacted in so small a space of time, that Mahomet at his return
found his bed still warm, and took up an earthen pitcher which was thrown down
at the very instant that the angel Gabriel carried him away, before the water
was all spilt.
There is a very pretty story in the Turkish Tales, which
relates to this passage of that famous impostor, and bears some affinity to the
subject we are now upon. A Sultan of Egypt, who was an infidel, used to laugh
at this circumstance in Mahomet's life, as what was altogether impossible and
absurd: but conversing one day with a great doctor in the law, who had the gift
of working miracles, the doctor told him he would quickly convince him of the
truth of this passage in the history of Mahomet, if he would consent to do what
he would desire of him. Upon this the sultan was directed to place himself by a
huge tub of water, which he did accordingly; and as he stood by the tub amidst
a circle of his great men, the holy man bid him plunge his head into the water,
and draw it up again. The king accordingly thrust his head into the water, and
at the same time found himself at the foot of a mountain on the sea-shore. The
king immediately began to rage against his doctor for this pièce of treachery
and witchcraft; but at length, knowing it was in vain to be angry, he set
himself to think on proper methods for getting a livelihood in this strange
country. Accordingly he applied himself to some people whom he saw at work in a
neighbouring wood: these people conducted him to a town that stood at a little
distance from the wood, where after some adventures, he married a woman of great
beauty and fortune. He lived with this woman so long, that he had by her seven
sons and seven daughters. He was afterwards reduced to great want, and forced
to think of plying in the streets as a porter for his livelihood. One day as he
was walking alone by the sea-side, being seized with many melancholy
reflections upon his former and his present state of life, which had raised a
fit of devotion in him, he threw off his clothes with a design to wash himself,
according to the custom of the Mahometans, before he said his prayers.
After his first plunge into the sea, he no sooner raised his
head above the water but he found himself standing by the side of the tub, with
the great men of his court about him, and the holy man at his side. He
immediately upbraided his teacher for having sent him on such a course of
adventures, and betrayed him into so long a state of misery and servitude; but
was wonderfully surprised when he heard that the state he talked of was only a
dream and a delusion; that he had not stirred from the place where he then
stood; and that he had only dipped his head into the water, and immediately
taken it out again.
The Mahometan doctor took this occasion of instructing the
sultan, that nothing was impossible with God; and that He, with whom a thousand
years are but as one day, can, if he pleases, make a single day, nay, a single
moment, appear to any of his creatures as a thousand years.
I shall leave my reader to
compare these eastern fables with the notions of those two great philosophers
whom I have quoted in this paper; and shall only, by way of application, desire
him to consider how we may extend life beyond its natural dimensions, by
applying ourselves diligently to the pursuits of knowledge.
Also from the Library of Babel:
- The Best Translation of Dante’s Divina Commedia. July, 14, 2019. “For the next month, then, I put aside a few hours each night. Not only with Singleton and Merwin. In the glorious Age of the Internet, the first step could only be a search for what books relating to the subject were available on Google Book Search and the Internet Archive.”
- A Memoriam for W. S. Merwin. April 17, 2019. “It took about three days, as I recall, for me to surrender to the fact that W. S. Merwin was the finest English language poet of his time. I wished I’d been prepared to read him years ago.”
- Be sure to check out the Browser's Guide to the Library of Babel.
Also from Virtual Grub Street:
- The Fascinating Itinerary of the Gelosi Troupe, 1576. June 10, 2019. “The Spanish soldiers had not been paid and unpaid soldiers tend to rob and loot. The citizens were prepared to give them a fight. Violent flare ups were occurring everywhere.”
- A Thousand Years of English Terms. June 2, 2019. ‘One person did not say to another, “Meet you at three o’clock”. There was no clock to be o’. But the church bell rang the hour of Nones and you arranged to meet “upon the Nones bell”.’
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