e parte
over-slenderly, in some parte untruly and amisse reported; his
Highness, therefore, not content to have anie such matters of so
greate importance sett forthe to the slaunder of his captaines and
ministers, nor to be otherwise reported than the truthe was,
straightlie chargeth and commandeth all manner of persones into
whose hands anie of the said printed bookes should come,
ymmediately after they should hear of this proclamation, to bring
the said bookes to the Lord Maior of London, or to the recorder or
some of the aldermen of the same, to the intent they might suppress
and burn them, upon pain that every person keeping anie of the said
bookes twenty-four hours after the making of this proclamation,
should suffer ymprisonment of his bodye, and be further punished at
the King's Majestie's will and pleasure.'

None of these obnoxious 'printed bookes' have survived to the present
time, and it has been contended that they were probably nothing more
than ballads and copies of doggerel verses. But this is an hypercritical
objection, or rather groundless guess, for it is evident that the
proclamation points at something far more important. We may safely
conclude that they were newspapers, and that journalism had already
attained sufficient dimensions to alarm the powers that were, and draw
down their hostility. And a few years later, Pope Gregory XIII
fulminated a bull, called _Minantes_, against the news sheets, as
spreading scandal and defamation, etc.

It was long fondly believed that the British Museum counted among its
treasures a full-blown printed English newspaper, dating so far back as
1588. It was entitled the _English Mercurie_, and purported to be
'published by authoritie for the suppression of false reports, ymprinted
at London by Christopher Barker, her Highness's Printer.' Writer after
writer exulted in the fact, and was loud in the praises of the sagacity
and wisdom of Burleigh, under whose direction it was supposed to have
been issued. But unfortunately for antiquaries and literati, the matter
was carefully investigated by Mr. Watts, of the British Museum, and he
pronounced on unquestionable evidence the copies of the _English
Mercurie_ to be nothing but a barefaced forgery, of which he went even
so far as to accuse, on good grounds, the second Lord Hardwicke of being
the perpetrator. But though we must discard this fictitious account o