Note 507 — Chapter XXIX · LITERATURE, THE PRESS, ETC.

'This Courant (as the Title shews) will be Publish'd Daily; being design'd to give all the Material News as soon as every Post arrives; and is confin'd to half the Compass, to save the Publick at least half the Impertinences of Ordinary News Papers.' Probably the correct reason was that, being a new venture, it could not obtain advertisements. These, however, speedily came when it passed into the hands of Samuel Buckley (printer of the Spectator), and, in May, it was in a most flourishing state, the other side being entirely taken up with them, and it continued to have its fair share during the whole of the reign. There is nothing very striking about its news, but, as it is such a wonderful infant, I have reproduced this first number in its entirety[507] here—it will serve as a model to show the kind of news contained in these newspapers. There now exist but two newspapers which were in being in Queen Anne's reign, namely, the London Gazette (but that has been kept alive through its official nursing), and—but one due to private enterprise—Berrow's Worcester Journal, which was established in 1700.