wo little cots put side by side; Two childish voices speak; Two little faces, wan with pain, Patient, though so weak. Ah, me! how shall I bear the pain? My little life to save. The doctor said the pain would be I think I could be brave just now- And now the other little voice: 'Ask the dear Lord, Who died, To help you-He can do it, dear, Better than all beside!' 'But me from all the many here, And straight uprose the baby prayer Who has her hands crossed--so.' Next morn the nurse came softly by, Than for long weeks,' she said. But something's in the still, calm face, A look of restful peace-for pain And tearfully the nurse turned back, With small hands folded on her breast, That Christ had helped His little one: The innocent soul was free! GERTRUDE. NEWSPAPERS. PART I. 'The newspaper is the only means by which the same thought can be dropped into a thousand minds at the same moment.'-DE TOCQUEVILLE. E read of newspapers, or something like them, in ancient Rome. Cicero, when about to leave for awhile that brilliant city, charged his friend Cœlius to send him all news, and Cœlius punctually performed the task. But the great orator was discontented at the trivial nature of the news selected. He writes,- Could you then seriously imagine, my friend, that I commissioned you to send me the idle news of the town ; matches of gladiators, adjournments of causes, robberies, and such-like articles, which, even when I am at Rome, nobody ventures to tell me? Far other are the accounts which I expect from your hand, as I know not any man whose judgment in politics I have more reason to value. From you I expect a political sketch of the Commonwealth, and not Chrestus' newspaper.' Here Cicero alludes to a custom long established in Rome of the daily publication of the official gazette-the Acta Diurna, or Acta Publica, which in the later times of the republic, and during the empire, appeared under the sanction of the government, having thus been in existence for some centuries. In Cicero's time 6 (about 50 B.C.) these scrolls of daily intelligence were by the command of Julius Cæsar hung up in the galleries erected in the gardens of his villa at Tucentum, that the people might read them. The contents of these Acta consisted of an enumeration of the births and deaths in Rome, an account of the money paid into the treasury, and everything relating to the supply of corn; extracts from the Acta Forensica, including the edicts of magistrates, the testaments of distinguished men, reports of trials, with the names of the acquitted and condemned, a list of the magistrates who were elected, &c. They also told of laws passed by the Senate, of foreign wars, of the imperial family, public buildings, funerals, sacrifices, games, miracles, fires, and love-stories; they were compiled under official superintendence, and were made public by being hung about, not only in Cæsar's villagardens, but in the most frequented buildings and highways of the city. This forerunner of our modern newspapers continued to be issued until the capital of the Western Empire was removed to Constantinople, after which we hear of them no more. In exemplification of such news as Cicero scorned, we give the following extracts from the Acta Diurna:-'It thundered, and an oak was struck with lightning in that part of Mount Palatine called Summa Velia, early in the afternoon. A fray happened in a tavern at the lower end of the Banker Street, in which the keeper of the tavern was dangerously wounded.' Again, 'On the 3rd of the kalends of April it rained stones on Mount Veientine.' These items of news were recorded B.C. 167, and it would seem that such miscellanea were still hailed by the public in the days of Nero-a hundred years later; for we find Petronius the satirist thus writing parodies on the pieces of intelligence provided for the people:-On the 26th of July, 30 boys and 40 girls were born on the estate of Cumæ, belonging to Trimaldus; 500 bushels of wheat were taken from the yard, and housed in the granary; 500 oxen were trained.' Leaving ancient Rome, and searching into the past, long after the Acta Diurna had died away, we find the tradition of daily intelligence for the public eye lingering still in Italy; it is in Venice we meet with the first traces of the modern European newspapers. In the 16th century the Venetian government issued a sheet of news once a-month, that the people might be informed concerning the wars carried on by the Republic, and that they might hear something of what was going on generally: these papers were called Notizie Scritte (Written Notices). At first the Venetians were allowed to read them, or hear them read, only within some large public edifice, on the payment of a small coin called Gazeta; hence the name 'Gazette,' still retained by us. The origin of the word has, however, been variously explained. Late in the 16th century the sheets of news were allowed by the Venetian Government to be printed; these were read in other countries, obtaining a wide circulation over Europe. A contemporary of the Venetian Gazeta, but of less importance, was a small news-sheet' published at rare and irregular intervals, in two or three of the German towns, shortly after the invention of printing; this generally took the form of a letter. Some of these German publications are preserved; the discovery of America is recorded in one of the extant numbers. In a library at Florence thirty volumes of the Venetian journal are still to be seen; these we know to be the earlier volumes, from the circumstance of their being manuscript. In the British Museum we have one printed number, the date 1570. Before passing on to the consideration of British journalism, we must not omit to mention that the Chinese in this matter, as in others, claim the greatest antiquity, affirming not only that they invented printing in the first century, but that they had in China an official gazette circulated among their people several centuries before the building of Rome. The question of their priority in regard to the invention of printing we must leave; but their claim to an official gazette before Rome was heard of, which could not be admitted without external proof, as the early history of the Chinese, like that of other nations, abounds in fables and fiction, is supported by the fact that the Roman historians quote from the Daily Advertiser of China. From the time William Caxton established his printing-press in the Almonry at Westminster the light of knowledge began to disperse the clouds of ignorance, and the people became inquisitive about public events; hence arose, by slow degrees, the necessity for newspapers. Until Mr. Watts of the British Museum discovered to the contrary, a paper called the English Mercury, thought to have been published in 1588, was regarded as the first English newspaper; this was proved by Mr. Watts to be a forgery. England had yet to wait for the important change brought about by the regular publication of newspapers. It is now well known that it was not until the reign of James I. that news was circulated about the country, even in the primitive form of 'news-letters,' as they were called. At this time the jesters began to find that their jests awakened no mirth: that their masters asked for news rather than jests. Many an English noble, on exchanging for awhile the gay life at court for the quiet of his ancestral home far in the country, would dispense with his jester, and bestow his favours instead on one who would send him letters of news from London. Intelligence about public events was in those days only to be hoped for by the rich, who were able amply to remunerate professional writers of 'news-letters;' these professional gossips industriously collected every scrap of information, sending off at regular intervals to their employers a well-filled sheet of paper, given into the charge of trusty messengers. The following old entry, which is quoted in Whitaker's History of Craven, occurs in the household accounts of the Clifford family; in the handwriting of the steward, we presume:-To Captain Robinson, by my lord's commands, for writing letters of news to his lordship for half-a-year,— five pounds.' The natural result of the great demand for news was an occasional invention, or, to say the least, exaggeration. This, like all evils, unfrequent and slight at first, in time became serious and of frequent occurrence, insomuch that before long the intelligence sent by those paid for it possessed but little value in the judgment of the wise; still there remained a sufficient number of nobles and wealthy Englishmen who regarded a news correspondent as an indispensable luxury, to support the profession, which flourished, more or less, as late as down to the beginning of the 18th century, as we may infer from the Evening Post, of Sept. 6, 1709, where one of the writers thus alludes to the custom: 'There must be 37. or 47. per annum paid by those gentlemen who are out of town, for written news, which is so far generally from having any probability of matter-of-fact in it, that it is generally stuffed up with a "We hear," &c., or "An eminent Jewmerchant has received a letter," &c., being nothing more than a downright fiction!" Scraps of news, true or false, thus sent flying about the country, greatly increased the desire for news. The singing of ballads in the streets of London, which fashion had existed from the days of Mary Tudor, found greater favour than ever among the curious, who would stand riveted with attention to catch the words of a song telling of some wonderful event or popular scandal. It was not until 1619 that it occurred to the printers how the circulation of news belonged properly to them. We hear of pamphlets published in that year, entitled News out of Holland. What an uncomfortable stir this made among the news-letter writers! But as we have seen, they need not have trembled yet, if they had considered how long the English are in adopting a new custom; indeed, as late as 1740, there occurs in the ledger of an inhabitant of Norwich, named Henry Woodfall, an entry showing him to have been a purveyor of news :'Mr. Creighton of Ipswich.-1740-1, Feb. 2. To writing one year's news, 57. 5s.' The News from Holland was, before very long, followed by other news pamphlets, which differed from the newspapers of to-day in the rarity and irregularity of their appearance; they came out only when there was something wonderful to relate, and were in great requisition when they did appear, many of the English reading nothing else. Burton, the Rector of Seagrave in Leicestershire, and author of the Anatomy of Melancholy, says in that quaint and very interesting book, 'If any read now-a-days, it is a play-booke or a pamphlet of news.' (To be continued.) FREE AND OPEN WORSHIP. HAT shall win for the Church of England the gratitude, the loyalty, the devotion of the people whose souls are in her charge? Not, assuredly, her wealth-that may be appropriated; not her social honours-they may be torn away; not her connexion with the State-that may be very suddenly and very rudely snapped. No, not these; but her love, her energy, her fearlessness, her charity, her faith, her works. Of these works none is a more noble or a more important work than this-that the worship of the Church should henceforth be, as it ought to be, in every parish church, by law, by right, and by the distinct utterance of Holy Scripture, not in name only, but in reality, a Free and Open Worship; the work that they who minister therein should, with quiet minds and thankful hearts, be able, not in name only, but in reality, to preach the Gospel to the poor. CANON FARRAR. 6 AMDEN HOUSE owes its name to the celebrated William Camden, often called the Father of English Antiquaries,' who bought this property in the year 1609, and made it for the fourteen remaining years of his life his summer dwellingplace. A pleasant prospect, truly, on which the tired eyes of the weary scholar might rest themselves this Chislehurst Common, bordered by leafy Kentish lanes; and, yet, while we appreciate this worthy gentleman's achievements in black-letter decipherings, and grudge him no whit of country breezes in his summer home, it is not with his name, or with that of any bygone English worthy, that we now link remembrances of Chislehurst. No, our thoughts fly at once to a widowed lady of another race, mourning an only son; and Chislehurst to us consists but of one house, Camden House, the home of the bereaved Empress of the French. It is needless here to repeat the story of her loss; we, too, with all Christendom, were struck in the hurry of life by a sudden pang when those tidings came from beyond the sea of the young lad meeting death so bravely. Gazing round on this fair county of Kent, we wonder if any thought of his English home flashed across the princely heart in those last moments of mortal peril. Who knows? What an eventful life, short though it was, had that been which the assegai of a savage so abruptly ended! The lad doomed to die in an African maize-field was born amidst the booming of artillery and the shouts of a delighted populace. Reared with the fondest solicitude, as the destined heir of an Imperial throne, the baby was early taught to consider himself a soldier, and at a few months old appointed a grenadier of the first regiment of the Guard, with a mimic uniform. Real warfare came later, when the boy proclaimed himself of unflinching spirit by his father's side at Saarbrück. But the cherished darling of a court had yet to show how adversity could be borne, and England can tell her tale of this, pointing to the quiet home at Chislehurst, where, shorn of courtly surroundings, the simple kindly lad passed from boyhood to maturity, making many friends, and preserving, unspotted, a noble name. Though the head-quarters of Imperialism, yet the exiled family of France here led the retired life of a country-house, winning the good will of all classes of society by the cheerfulness with which it bore misfortune. There was much real sympathy felt when the gates of Camden House opened to allow the father to be carried to his alien grave; but strong men wept, and all England mourned, when the young son was borne forth in like fashion to his grave in England. Other dreams, surely, the fond mother must have had concerning the future of this one child of a noble race! And the lad himself? God knows what he felt. Though born in the purple, his life had not been all triumph. Perhaps the inactivity of a career necessarily thrust into the background galled him. There was always a certain sadness about the Imperial Prince, capable and ready though he showed |